MSc Business Administration Student: Iiro Pikkarainen Supervisor: Ruben De Bliek August 18, 2017
How does EPC business process modeling help streamline
Statement of Originality
This document is written by Student Iiro Pikkarainen who declares
to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are
original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text
and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for
the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Table of contents
Table of contents 3 Abstract 5 Motivation 6 Introduction 7 Literature review 8Business-process management and the onboarding process 8 The Event-driven process chain 10
Hypothesis 12 Research Design 14 Research results 17
How the test was conducted 17 Strategy execution 21
Description of the research results 22 The results of the research 28
Limitations 29 Discussion 31 Theoretical implications 33 Practical Implications 35 Conclusion 37 References 39
Abstract
Process management has a major impact in any business. Onboarding as a process is a process every company goes through when hiring a new employee. When the profession gets more technical the onboarding process requires more attention from the company. Today economy is transitioning towards knowledge based economy with a rapid phase. This means that people are being hired into technical positions more than ever and these professions are just rapidly appearing into the job market with an increasing trend.
The best way to manage a business process is to create a logic and a structure behind it. This study researches whether the event-driven process chain (EPC) could be used as a onboarding framework of new technical employees. The structure behind EPC allows process to branch and through branching an person going through could potentially skip the parts of the on boarding process he or she already has under control based on previous knowledge and skillset the employee might posses.
The study will present results which have important practical and theoretical implications for further research concerning employee onboarding. Further, it opens up the topic of using business process modelling in the company’s onboarding process.
Motivation
The current study’s research topic is as follows: How does event-driven process chain (EPC) as a form of business modeling help streamline the onboarding process of new employees. More specifically, research analysis is on technology companies and their new-employee onboarding process. By doing so, the current study analyzes effects of the event-driven process chain (EPC) on the efficiency and cost effectiveness of a technology company going through the onboarding process of a new employee. The motivation behind the current study is that the most important component of any business is, in my own belief, the execution of its various processes. The onboarding process of a new employee is a process every company goes through and, depending on the company and the role of the new employee, the
onboarding process often drastically varies.
An interesting aspect of the current study is that it focuses on technology companies. Technology companies create an interesting case study for the current study as business-modeling theories were developed before roles such as the ones we have today really existed. Roles such as a mobile developer, a framework specialist, and an online marketer are great examples of professions that have been really created within the last 10 years. Most of the popular business-process modeling techniques were developed during a time when
technology that businesses currently use in their everyday operations did not exist. The new profession creation brings a unique point of view to the research: How does one apply a business model to a business process that was actually not present when the model was developed? Has anything changed that makes business-process modeling more or less
relevant? What implications has the change provided to the business-process model’s
framework? Ultimately, the following main research question should be answered: Is there an increased transparency and thus increased efficiency that technology companies are able to gain when they integrate business-process modeling into their onboarding process?
The only motivating factor for the current study is not only the current state of onboarding processes in technology companies. The study also aims to find future opportunities for research that technology could potentially allow in business modeling. More advanced studies, for example, could be conducted on how machine learning and general artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to improve business-process modeling. For example, the opportunities of machine learning towards business-process modeling are currently
underutilized (HRB, 2016). It can also be expected that various AI technologies will create new standards for how business processes are formed. For AI to be sustainable and be able to operate, it needs measurable data (HRB, 2016). For this reason the researchers believe that business modeling through “practice” in this case the EPC, which is used in the current study. Would create a framework that could be used to make better assumptions and decisions for increased efficiency in time and cost of the new-employee onboarding process and assist in the data gathering of the future technical advances in onboarding operations (HRB, 2016).
Introduction
conducted on technology companies and their new-employee onboarding process. By doing so, the current analyzes effects that the event-driven process chain (EPC) has on the
efficiency (through transparency) and cost effectiveness of a technology company that goes through the onboarding process of a new employee? It has been determined that a total of 25% of the whole working population undergoes a career transition every year (Rollag, Parise, and Cross, 2005). This means that only in Fortune 500 companies, there is going to be more than 500,000 of career transitions into new roles this year (Watkins, 2003). This would indicate that any improvements in the process of onboarding could have drastic benefits to any company, based on Watkins’ (2003) research that indicated the volume of this repetitive process within companies. As the current study is solely looking into business processes, it can be applied to both service-based and physical product-based technology businesses and their onboarding processes. In theory, the current study could also potentially be applied to non-technological positions, but in that case, the process charts are likely to produce different results. An EPC chart of onboarding of a specific profession in one company is likely to have similarities with that of the same profession in another company. This comes from the
assumption that if role-responsibility is similar, then the training and on boarding practices for that role often have similar features.
Literature review
Business-process management and the onboarding process
Business-process management (BPM) is a tool used within organizations to organize and measure organizations’ effectiveness (Panagacos, 2012). This is expressed by the popular
saying by Peter Drucker: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Business-process modeling is a technique for understanding, representing, and, when necessary, redesigning the fundamental business processes (Davenport and Short, 1990). The goal of such process modeling is to support the "understanding and radical redesign of critical business processes better serve its [a business’s] customers" (Hammer and Champy, 1993).
Drucker’s idea can also be applied for new-employee onboarding by creating measurability of the onboarding process. New employee onboarding is a process of getting the new hires adjusted to the social and performance aspects of their new jobs quickly and smoothly (Bauer, 2011). By integrating EPC modeling to this onboarding process, the current study aims to prove the capability of measurability of increased transparency and, therefore, the efficiencyachieved using information achieved from EPC-model map to alter the onboarding process. Theory has proven that companies with a planned business-process model for
onboarding are considered “best in class”, compared to those without a formal onboarding process (Martin and Lombardi, 2009). Hence, a strong logical conclusion can be made that a form of modeling could be used to improve the onboarding process.
Onboarding research has also proved other significant benefits of organized onboarding practices. Employees who participated in a structured onboarding process are 69% more likely to stay with their employer or a company after a three-year time frame than those who did not participate in one (Dai and De Meuse, 2009).
productivity in the workplace (Lee, 2009). Lastly, a study indicated that companies that invest the most in the onboarding process of new employees experience the greatest level of employee engagement (Hewitt Associates, 2009).
The Event-driven process chain
Determining why the current study concentrates on the EPC as a primary business model requires an introduction to the main ideas and concepts of the EPC (Kim, 1997). Instead of focusing on developing set process systems, the EPC is a type of process modeling in which companies can be analyzed using cross-functional business processes that encompass the entire organization (Kim and Everest, 1994). The method of event-driven process chains (Keller, 1992; Nüttgens, 1997) has been developed within the framework of ARIS because it is likely to make business modeling simpler (Scheer, 1994). In the EPC, the model process consists of combinations of events that activate and establish business functions. These business functions in themselves are part of larger functions that ultimately generate and establish the whole business model.
The basic idea of the EPC model can be explained by using semantic components of a description (Nüttgens, 1997). These are, for example, the illustration of data flows, the responsibility of organizational units and the use of IT systems. In addition to the formal approaches to describing these components, many tool-supported concepts are being developed for analysis and simulation. One model approach created for the EPC uses EPC models to convert data into Petri networks and algorithmic verification of the resulting networks (Langner, 1997).
Compared to this definition of event-driven process chain, the more conservative way of defining it uses the formal description of the EPC and is demonstrated in Rump’s (1997) theories as well as in Keller and Teufel’s (1997) description of the EPC. What ultimately makes EPC intriguing is its customer/actor focus, rather than a strict focus on the serving organization. In the current study’s perspective, this would mean that the actor would be a new employee who starts the onboarding process (Kim and Everest, 1994).
On top of these EPC basic concepts of EPC modeling, research includes so-called
“swimlanes” and their effect on business-process modeling in the current study. Swimlanes are used as an object to demonstrate the location of the event process. They can be physical locations or virtual locations. The EPC can be generalized into four components: “event”, “process”, “branching”, and “wait” (Kim, 1997).
Figure 1: Components of EPC modeling
When integrating these components to hypothetical onboarding-process-design swimlanes, the first day of the onboarding process could look as follows:
Figure 2: A hypothetical first day of EPC modeling
Hypothesis
Based on everything mentioned in the above hypothesis, research expects results to be gained in such a manner that “idle time and cycle time”, which measure the complete process time, are reduced. By being able to reduce the idle and cycle times, companies can directly evaluate their increased cost savings by calculating: an employee’s salary throughout the onboarding process minus the employee’s salary throughout the onboarding process optimized and executed using the EPC model, which ensures that a company benefits from cost savings whilst optimizing and executing its onboarding process using EPC modeling.
Figure 3: The hypothesis explained using a simple model
To conclude the literature review, does conducting research on business-process modeling provide efficiency for companies? The current study aims to provide valuable information on the importance of business-process modeling from the perspective of onboarding. The study concentrates on EPC modeling. The onboarding strategies of technology industry is
somewhat researched topic. Previous research has been conducted from this topic and it can be used for this research. Using EPC process modeling and applying it will give valuable insights into how this conventional model can be applied to an industry that did not exist when the models were created. Concentrating on the gap of onboarding-process modeling using the EPC plays a major role in the determining whether the EPC model improves the efficiency of companies in the current case study. The current study ultimately should spark up the opportunity for follow-up research.
Research Design
The current study’s research question is as follows: Does the EPC business-process modeling help streamline the onboarding process of new employees? Overall, the current study is conducted using qualitative analysis.
The reason why the current study analyzes the technology industry is the fact that technology companies are often dependent on their process efficiency, which is a major competitive advantage within the industry. The current study analyzes technology companies that employ more than 15 people, who are preferably employed in several different technical roles within the company. Hence, the study’s independent variables are “technology companies with more than 15 employees”.
Through companies that fit this description, the current study is able to generate comparison points. For example, if company X hires an mobile developer, how does its hiring process differ from that of company Y. The current study draws an EPC modeling map for both companies and their hiring processes, starting from an onboarding employee to a fully onboarded employee, and then uses differences in time and cost savings to demonstrate effective points of improvement.
Whilst concentrating solely on the onboarding process and using the Bauer’s (2010) definition of onboarding definition, the current study conducts analyses an EPC from swimlane sections: “Pre-Start” and “First day”.
Research on process modeling for new areas of business (onboarding technical positions) creates a framework for future researchers to apply knowledge to their own research using valid and current data.
The onboarding process tends to be a process on which companies are more willing to share their ideas more openly. This allows research to analyze universal processes without violating a company’s secrecy policy. A large number of articles have been written on this set issue and a process of employee onboarding. The current study aims to use EPC and transparent
processes within the onboarding process to demonstrate possibilities of increasing organizational efficiency through business modeling.
In addition, the current study aims to conduct qualitative research by interviewing company managers about their business-process modeling and processes. Finding this will allow in-depth research on whether business-process modeling provides efficiency for a specific company. Furthermore, does process modeling provide value to a company through better monetary results or through time savings?
Using core functionality of EPC modeling, I analyze these processes by using them in my case-study company, and through this, I lead the current study, using examples, to a conclusion.
The current study aims to give more insight into companies’ business-process design and ultimately advice on how to use it as a tool for optimization. The answer to this can be perceived from different angles. One could state that one manipulates and tracks most of one’s major processes in which a company has model-mapped their process systems.
However, many companies share their processes only through communication and “learning by trade”.
Questions which are affecting the potential solution using event-driven process chain are such as: Are businesses willing to adopt new technologies and strategies to optimize their current operations? The answer to this specific question can be defined by evaluating resistance within a company.
The current study is conducted through contacting managers of a technology companies. Research studies small or mid-sized companies who have existed for at least five years or longer, as through interviewing managers from already established businesses, I can determine if such companies have already established standard processes when it comes to hiring new employees. The answers will be recorded recorded, and the entire process is meant to take less than 20 minutes of interviewing.
The current study’s research questions are as follows:
What is the onboarding process of a technical role within your company?
What changes have you made to this onboarding process?
What are the most difficult and worst pain points for a company that hires a new employee?If you would describe a perfect hypothetical situation of onboarding for a technical role in your company, how would it work?
I aimed to establish contact, through my connections in the technology industry, to different managers and ask them their opinion about their companies’ efficiency. I aimed to also get
some statistical data from process changes that had been made and used them as a main component in the current study’s conclusion.
Potential companies research will study, are companies where the access can be gained from a personal network connections. Companies are open for possibility of an interview. These companies are the following: Company A and Company B. The names are coded for the respect of respondent companies. Both of these companies operate in multinationally, but are originally from Finland. These companies are relevant to each other as they offer B2B and B2C e-commerce products, and they thus created an interesting comparison point of a niche industry sector, i.e. the e-commerce industry. These companies agreed for me to interview and analyze their onboarding process of new employees from certain aspects.
Research results
How the test was conducted
The current study was conducted through a thorough interview process, a request to draw two different EPC graphs (Kim, 1997) and a follow-up questionnaire. The request to draw the EPC graph was given to the managers responsible of the hiring process in researches target companies. These companies can be defined as Company A and Company B for reasons of
respecting research target companies wish to stay private. In the drawing process a template and a short introduction was as well given to them how to draw the EPC graph.
The interview process function was to understand the onboarding process more broadly from a general perspective. This means asking questions to understand managers and their own empirical knowledge of their companies onboarding process. The interview was also used as a method of finding pain points that managers experience within the companies during their onboarding process.
The EPC graphs had to be drawn from the following processes: the pre-start of a new employee’s onboarding and the starting day. Templates for drawing these were given to the managers. After documenting the onboarding process from these points with managers, a template was given to the recruits to improve process transparency. The idea of giving the template to the recruits was to show the new employee the point where they were at while completing the employee onboarding at their new company.
After a recruit’s completion of the first day at the office, a follow-up questionnaire was given to him/her and representatives from a target organization that hires the new employee. The questionnaire was conducted electronically, through a simple online form sent via email. The online form asked two questions. The first question was as follows: “Did EPC modeling increase the transparency and thus the efficiency of the company’s onboarding process?” The answer options were simply “yes” and “no”. The second question was the following: “What
percentage of efficiency would you estimate was gained through transparency?” This question had a simple slider that the employer and the recruit were able to slide to their estimated percentage amounts from 0% to 100%.
Profiles of target companies and persons
The current study evaluated practices of two Finnish multinational technology companies and their practice of onboarding a new software engineer to a company. Both companies had an ongoing hiring the current study was able to follow and track, and both of the companies were hiring a software engineer into their workforce.
The following is a short introduction of the companies:
Company A is a medium-sized software house that works with clients from several different industries. It works mainly with companies in the infrastructure and maintenance industry but also companies in other industries and several different governments, such as the
Company A hires approximately 8 software developers a year at the current hiring rate and aims to increase this rate in the near future.
The current study’s research process consisted of an interview of one of the founders of company A and a questionnaire from its CEO. The study was also able to get some input from a person who was onboarding into the company, through which the study was able to gather relevant information.
Company B is one the largest software companies in Finland. It has approximately 500 people working for it worldwide, with five offices in Dubai, Tokyo, New York, Amsterdam and Helsinki. It currently hires more than 50 software engineers a year, and it also aims to increase this rate in future.
Company B serves industries that provide technical consulting services to several different clients. Its main clients are large multinational organizations. The company was founded 2001.
From company B, the current study interviewed the head of recruitment in the Amsterdam site. The study also included a questionnaire sent to one of the senior engineers in company B, who is also in charge of recruitment in the company’s Amsterdam site. Also, the new
employee starting in the position of ‘software engineer’ was also reached through an email questionnaire after his first day.
Strategy execution
The ultimate strategy behind the current study was to gather data from relevant sources to confirm or deny previous research (Nüttgens, 1997), i.e. to determine whether EPC modeling could be implemented beneficially to IT companies and their onboarding process. The
research strategy ultimately consisted of three parts.
The first part of the current study was conducting interviews. The interviews were used as a way to get a general sense of the target companies and their onboarding process. The interview process also made follow-ups easier as it seemed that the managers were more invested in the idea of helping out after they had submitted some input in the form of a short interview. Understanding and drilling into the pain points of onboarding raised the issue of difficulties of onboarding and gave some attention to it. This helped to get the people involved in the research and be invested to its second and third parts.
The second part was filling in the original EPC template to receive a validation of the companies’ processes. Instructions of filling in the EPC template were explained in more
process fairly straightforward; hence, they were able to complete the drawing without any assistance.
The third and the last component was the follow-up questionnaire aimed at validating the experimental results. The research was thus able to validate the EPC-graph results in a practical manner.
Dividing the qualitative analysis into smaller components allowed the research to be
conducted from different points of view. The aim of the analysis was to give the manager and the recruit an objective view on a normally highly subjective process. Through this, the ultimate idea of increased transparency was ought to be reached.
Description of the research results
First process measuring was conducted through the evaluation of employees’ onboarding process from a process called the “pre-start”, in which a new employee is asked to fill certain documents or a company is asked to provide details of an upcoming employee by a
regulatory party, which requires details about any new employee. An example of this could be, for example, filling in the papers for a government, an accounting company or an office rental company.
The current study investigated the possibility of finding drastic differences in one position (software engineer) in similar companies (technology companies) in the “pre-start” phase of the onboarding process. Expected results were that this process would probably not differ between the current study’s target companies.
Ref. Company A’s Pre-start EPC visualization:
Ref. Company B’s Pre-start EPC visualization:
The second component of the EPC-graph drawing was done on a new employee’s first day. The starting day or, in this case, the first day of the onboarding process is the day on which the employee starts his career journey within an organization. The first day often includes everything from arranging all required necessities for working and getting used to the work environment within a new company. This means that, for example, preparing a workstation with a new employee and setting up the new hire with working tools such as a computer or a mobile phone. This is typically a back-office process on the first day, but it can sometimes
also require input from the new hire; therefore, having the new employee present at the on boarding process is necessary.
Expected results for this process were slightly different compared to those for the “pre-start” process, as the first day is influenced by more variables such as a company’s office
infrastructure, partnerships, role responsibilities, and so on. The expectations were that even in similar profile companies, the differences would potentially be drastic.
Ref. Company B’s Starting-day EPC visualization:
All participants in the experiment (6) responded to the follow-up questionnaire. The results were unanimous: All the participants responded agreed that using EPC modeling created transparency and thus efficiency in their companies’ onboarding processes. What was
interesting, however, was how managers and new recruits evaluated the benefit received. The recruits (2) responded that average transparency and thus efficiency gained from applicants’
perspective were on average 18%. The managers (4) responded that average transparency and efficiency gained from applicants’ perspective was on average 12.25%.
The results of the research
The research results gathered from the initial interviews provided by target companies gave an insight into the target technology businesses’ pain points and onboarding processes. The current study revealed two main issues. First, employee training during the onboarding process takes valuable time away from other employees. Second: new employees’ skill and ability are different with every new hire. Typical onboarding-process training does not account for this.
Based on the EPC visualizations gathered, a safe assumption can be made that a more streamlined approach seems to be more efficient. The EPC graphs suggest that Company B has faster processing times (“cycle time”) than Company A. Company B as a company is a larger organization; hence, it has probably optimized its onboarding in such a manner that there is the least number of telecommunications and emails required with a recruit candidate. Company A as a more conventional and smaller company has probably less recruits a year; hence, its onboarding process has not been optimized to its core, similarly to Company B.
The most valuable aspect of the current study was the confirmation through a follow-up email that EPC modeling does increase transparency and efficiency. These results prove that operations can be streamlined and adjusted through business-process modeling such as this.
Also, the most notable finding, which was outside the current study’s primary objective, was that the new recruits found the process much more transparent as they were able to analyze their own recruitment journey whilst executing it. The current study’s results ultimately paved a way for further expansion on the research for process optimization and EPC modeling.
Limitations
Finding results to the interview questions proved in various ways that EPC can be applied to onboarding, and some main issues that were found in the current study, which could be further researched, were the following: How to create a better way of collecting EPC and sharing EPC-process maps? This issue was raised during the data gathering and interviewing of professionals in the research phase of the current study. The overall issue of EPC-process mapping is that when it is done accurately, it is extremely time-consuming. Whilst
approaching the issue using “pen and paper”, i.e. a template fill-in method, the current study gets even more difficult because of the knowledge gap. The small volume of researched companies leads to higher volatility in the results. In this case, the overall estimates can be achieved through interviewing a special group of managers with direct control and
Another question raised by the current study was: How could EPC process modeling be also applied to other business processes within company?. As the EPC-process map is tied to a specific job title within an organization, the integration of the same process mapping tool to other job titles within the company would not work. Hence, the only solution would be to draw an EPC-process map for every position. This means that to reach benefit, integrating EPC-process modeling to a specific company's onboarding strategy would require a large volume of employees in the same job; otherwise the benefits would not outweigh the costs.
Research assumes that EPC-model is a benefit when the organisation size scales up and the processes come more frequent, but some research indicates that this is not the case (Mabert, Soni and Venkataramanam, 2003). Onboarding is more complicated process in big
corporations as often several people are involved in the process. For example in a small technology company one employee might be in charge of the complete on boarding process, but when the company has more people usually more people within company start taking control of smaller segments of the process. For example in researches target companies the responsibility of several employees was needed to go through the full “pre-start” and “first-day”-processes.
The final limitation that arose was “how companies should take the business-process
modeling of onboarding into action?” The managers and the new employees being onboarded had never seen or heard of EPC-process mapping before. This meant that everything had to be explained, even though once the idea was understood, the logic seemed to be
self-explanatory. Integrate something this unknown into any organization is a very hard task, but some software might serve as a solution in future. The resistance to change is always great in
the adoption of new technologies and methodologies; hence, receiving a proof of concept would require a research from other professions within the technology sector. More research like this one should also be conducted for other companies.
Some of the above-mentioned points are interesting topics for further research as the current study was able to indicate that EPC increases the transparency of the onboarding process. Determining how to integrate this as a solution is a valuable asset that should be researched further.
Discussion
The significance of the current study is valuable, as EPC business-process modeling has not been previously studied from the perspective of using it in an onboarding strategy. This makes the current study a unique approach to a universal problem, and the capability of creating a solution to a universal problem can have a great impact on improving the
onboarding process. This impact is ultimately dependent on adoption and execution of event-driven process chain usage within companies on boarding strategy; hence, creating a larger proof of concept through big data would require further research.
as follows: employee training during the onboarding process takes valuable time away from the other employees.
The current study indicated that transparency increased the overall efficiency of companies A and B. This could be interpreted by the fact that as efficiency gets higher, less time is required from other employees to assist through communication. This would support the statement that EPC business-process modeling would reduce the time that experienced employees need to spend to onboard starting new employees. This interpretation has multiple variables such as the position in which the new employee starts; hence, every position has a case-by-case situation when it comes to measuring the benefits received through one individual
onboarding.
Hypothesis of the research stated that reduced idle time and cycle time would appear when the research would use EPC structure behind its onboarding process. Based on the research the hypothesis presented in the “Figure: 3” in the research has no proof. These statements can not be proven, because every hiring process is unique and getting the idle time and cycle time measured accurately without tracking and using EPC or similar business process modeling tool is inaccurate and inefficient.
For these reasons the second pain point was as follows: new employees’ skill and ability are different with every new hire. Typical onboarding process training does not account for this. EPC modeling allows companies to use “branches” to bypass processes within onboarding. For example, if an employee already has previous knowledge or possesses a certain skill, the
employee can bypass a mandatory onboarding process. For example, this could for software developers be an introduction to a company’s selected IDE tool, such as Visual Studio or Atom, or a specific technology library such as React js, Vue js or Angular js.
Theoretical implications
The theoretical implications supported by the literature review of previous research provided lots of supporting evidence to existing research. This could be an indication on behalf of the value proof from the previous research conducted about business-process management and onboarding as a process. Finding the evidence to back up the statements other researchers have generated into their theories, supports the study conducted with the research case study companies.
Based on the theory of (Panagacos, 2012) that, business-process management (BPM) is a tool used within organizations to organize and measure organizations’ effectiveness. The research indicates that transparency can be gained using event-driven process chain as a form of business-process management. The indication that transparency was increased was able to be seen from the feedback received from the managers and employees of the study.
Peter Druckers theories discussed in the literature review, make a strong argument on behalf of measurability. EPC gave a measurable way of identifying the onboarding process into individual actions and then using this actions to calculate the value added, idle-time and the cycle-time of the process. These values create the option of measuring different points of the process and create a framework in the research what managers are able to modify. With
onboarding process
Using EPC as a business-process modeling form is a technique for understanding, representing, and, when necessary, redesigning the fundamental business processes (Davenport and Short, 1990). Finding the overall pain points of each on boarding process through interviews and event-driven process chain mapping the Davenports and Shorts statement of fundamental business process chance was achieved.
This also supports Hammer and Champy’s objective described previously is also supported by the research through . Goal of process modeling is to support the "understanding and radical redesign of critical business processes better serve its business” (Hammer and Champy, 1993).
In more practical way Bauers theory: "onboarding is a process of getting the new hires adjusted to the social and performance aspects of their new jobs quickly and smoothly.", is improved by the increase of transparency. Transparency works as a form of speechless communication between the employer and the employee. The increased data flow through these two parties results into social and performance aspects directly. This would support the statement that the on boarding process is then completed quickly and smoothly. By
integrating EPC modeling to this onboarding process, the current study aims to prove the capability of measurability of increased transparency and, therefore, theefficiencyachieved using information achieved from EPC-model map to alter the onboarding process.
model for onboarding are considered “best in class”, compared to those without a formal onboarding process” (Martin and Lombardi, 2009). Based on this theory using any structured process in the on boarding process, would typically perform better than an organisation without any structure. This would support and emphasise the fact that every single company should adopt at least some sort of controlled and manageable structure to achieve the highest operating efficiency.
The theories of (Kim, 1997) about event-driven process chain support the overall ideas of this research and the structure that business process management can be widely applied to various processes. In this case also including the company onboarding process.
Practical Implications
The practical implications concern the improvements what should be taken account for both of the researches target companies. Firstly it is based on the research it is encouraged to actively improve the current repetitive onboarding process as time goes by. New solutions and strategies around optimising onboarding are being developed weekly and keeping up with the current trends and innovations will make the company onboarding employees more agile. Agile processes lead to self-organising organisation where framework is not followed by the book but through practice. This leads to people conducting the onboarding process repetitively to developed their own skills what they are able to follow and measure through a business model such as event-driven process chain.
employee adoption of the new organisation processes. When newcomers understand the value of the resources such as other employees time in the onboarding process, appreciation
towards organisational culture might increase. For example, newcomer just starting at the company might not have realised how valuable it was to get time from an experienced person during the onboarding process. But once joining the daily operations the person might start appreciating how lucky he was to have someone so experienced helping the new employee to get started in the new company.
Currently onboarding in technology industry is most often done without using a business model behind it or a clear onboarding structure. Its strongly advised that companies use business model based onboarding process, which allows the alterations during the onboarding a technically skilled person to reduce and save wasted time. Process should be designed in a way where the potential previous knowledge is taken account and onboarding process can be fast tracked in case the newcomer has already strong skills and knowledge in the onboarding topics. Some aspects though which affect the cultural elements such as team traditions or anything which relates to other people in the company should not be skipped on a loose basis. Lastly individualistic aspects into the action processes within the business model can be achieved through setting up individual challenges. These often let the more technically skilled people to progress faster to the daily operations if the tasks have been done accordingly. Great example would be a first day coding challenge in the company’s development environment which is meant to be done to learn the company’s operative environment fast. These let experienced people to progress to the next tasks and duties significantly faster than those without previous experience.
Conclusion
The research question (How does EPC business modeling help streamline the onboarding process of new employees?) has been answered through the research conducted in the current study. By interviewing and producing EPC graphs of two similar technology companies, a comparison point was created between the current study’s target companies. Also, the analysis of the interviews and questionnaire conducted on companies and their recruits provided a clear answer to the research question.
The overall consensus was that EPC business-process mapping provided value in the form of increased transparency. This resulted in efficiency and lack of unnecessary extra
communication between a starting new employee and a company.
The full concept of modeling the onboarding process helped increase transparency in the technology companies by 12.25%. The employees who went through the onboarding process gave an 18% increase in the transparency of the onboarding process. Therefore, from the applicants’ perspective, there is more lack of knowledge of what is currently happening in the onboarding process compared to the perspective from the managers, who take the employees through this process.
For managers, modeling the onboarding process using EPC-process mapping gave another valuable data point what they can use to learn from, adjust their processes and gain better transparency for resource evaluation of the companies. Based on the current study’s results, managers are able to determine how much onboarding a new employee takes their
companies’ resources (time and money) away from other company activities. In the
interviews, this issue came up in both of the companies researched. Hence, a conclusion can be drawn that EPC process modeling gave an insight into the solution of the problem of how companies could potentially increase transparency in onboarding process. One major issue raised in the research was: How can one optimize onboarding in such a manner that the actual onboarding does not affect normal daily operations of current experienced employees? This would be interesting topic to further on research and find a solution whether for example event-driven process chain could be used as an answer to this problem. Based on this research interpretation could be made that this could be applicable.
