Walk into two branches of the same organisation and watch them manage the same request. Chances are you will see two different routes, two sets of forms and two ideas of what "done" looks like. Each site believes its way works. Often it does, for that site.
The problem lands at leadership level. You cannot compare performance across sites when every site works differently. You cannot find onboard staff quickly when every office runs its own version of the process. And you cannot fix a recurring problem when nobody can see that it recurs.
Recurring exceptions and local workarounds do not mean your business is uniquely complex. They mean your repeatable work has no defined structure. This article sets out how to turn that variation into one consistent workflow, without ignoring the realities each site faces.
- Find the work that repeats, and treat it as a process
Not every task deserves standardisation. Start with the work that happens every week, at every site, in roughly the same way. That is where variation costs you most, because the same inefficiency multiplies across every location.
Good candidates usually include:
- Purchase requests and supplier invoices.
- Leave, onboarding and other HR requests.
- Customer applications and account changes
- Incident reports and maintenance requests
- Contract and document approvals.
- Treat recurring exceptions as design signals
When the same "exception" appears every month, it is not an exception. It is a missing part of the process. Teams manage it with a workaround, the workaround becomes habit, and the habit becomes invisible.
Review the exceptions your sites log, and the ones they manage informally, then ask three questions:
- Frequency: does this happen often enough to deserve its own defined route?
- Cause: does it start with missing or incorrect information at the front of the process?
- Resolution: do different sites resolve it in different ways?
If the answer to any of these is yes, build the exception into the standard workflow rather than leaving it to individual judgement.
- Define one standard route, then allow controlled variation
Standardisation does not mean pretending every site is identical. A rural depot and a head office may face different approval limits, staffing levels or regulatory requirements. The goal is one core workflow, with variation managed by clear rules rather than local improvisation.
- Fixed core: the steps, information and records every site must follow.
- Rule based variation: thresholds, approvers or routes that change by site, value or category.
- No local shortcuts: any variation outside the rules goes back to the process owner for review.
- Standardise the information, not just the steps
Two sites can follow the same steps and still produce inconsistent outcomes if they capture different information. One site records a reference number, and another does not. One attaches the supporting document and other emails it separately.
Define what every submission must include before it can move forward:
- Required fields that nobody can skip.
- Consistent naming and classification of documents
- Standard supporting documents for each request type.
- One place where the record and its documents live together
When the information is consistent, reporting, auditing and handovers all become simpler.
- Make one person accountable for the standard
A standard without an owner drifts. Within months, sites start adjusting to it locally and you are back where you started. Appoint a process owner at organisational level who holds authority over the workflow across all sites.
That person should:
- Approve every change to the standard workflow.
- Review exceptions and decide whether they become rules.
- Monitor performance across sites using the same measures.
- Communicate changes to every site at the same time.
- Measure every site the same way
Once every site follows the same workflow, you can finally compare like with like. Turnaround times, volumes and stalled items become meaningful, because they reflect performance rather than different ways of working.
This is where a structured workflow platform such as BCMFlow earns its place. When every site runs the same defined workflow, every item carries a status, an owner and a history, and you can see where one site falls behind the rest.
- Turnaround time: how long each request type takes, per site.
- Stalled items: where work waits, and with whom.
- Exception rate: which sites raise the most exceptions, and why.
- Roll out in stages and learn as you go
Launching a new standard across every site at once invites resistance and hides problems. Start with one or two sites, prove the workflow, refine it, then expand.
- Pilot with a site that represents typical conditions.
- Capture feedback from the people who do the work.
- Adjust the standard before you scale it.
- Train each new site on the why, not only the how
Your standardisation checklist
- Identify the work that repeats across every site.
- Turn recurring exceptions into defined routes.
- Set one core workflow with rule-based variation.
- Standardise required information and documents.
- Appoint one process owner with authority across sites.
- Measure every site against the same indicators.
Consistency is not control for its own sake. It gives you a reliable picture of how your organisation runs, and it frees your managers from solving the same problem in different ways at different sites.
Organisations that scale well do not rely on every branch inventing its own process. They define the work once, make it visible and improve it centrally, so every site benefits from every improvement.
BCM Transform helps operations leaders design and run structured workflows on BCMFlow, so repeatable work follows the same route at every location.
Ready to bring consistent execution to every site? Talk to BCM Transform.
Anriët Pretorius
General Manager