Workflow Documentation: A Productivity Strategy

Description

Building Singapore: A Vibrant Construction Industry

As one of the most urbanised cities in the world, Singapore’s construction industry is an important sector supporting the country’s modernisation and development. In 2023, the construction sector contributed to 3.5% of Singapore’s GDP, and grew by 5.2% year-on-year in the fourth quarter. In 2024, the total construction demand is projected to be between $32 billion and $38 billion.

With the public sector committed to continually developing and upgrading our civil infrastructures and housing, the construction industry is set to maintain its expansion in the foreseeable future. In tandem with the sector’s growth, local construction companies have also been steadily transforming their workplaces, such as embracing digitalisation and reviewing processes, to become more efficient and productive.

KTC Civil Engineering & Construction, a local civil infrastructure and building contractor, is one such company who has embarked on productivity initiatives. Partnering with IAL’s Centre for Workplace Learning and Performance (CWLP) in 2024, KTC successfully improved their productivity in their HR processes. CWLP, driver of the National Centre of Excellence for Workplace Learning (NACE@IAL), provides consultancy services to help enterprises embark on employee-driven workplace learning projects, which in turn bolster their performance.

Aiming to be the premier earthworks and civil infrastructure contractor

Today, KTC offers services from civil infrastructure, building and earthworks to transport and logistics, a far cry from its humble origins as a small earth-moving sub-contractor established in 1988. The company has grown its capabilities over time and has contributed to iconic projects in Singapore including Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa.

With a staff strength of 1,800, KTC is focused on accelerating its drive to become the premier civil infrastructure and building contractor in Singapore. At the same time, the company recognises that it faces challenges in increasing its productivity. Given the sector-wide manpower limitations, KTC realises that it needs to further optimise its human resource utilisation and work processes such that its workforce may become more efficient to support the company’s growth.

Chan Hiang Kiat, CEO of KTC, shares, “I was exploring with training institutes to equip KTC’s HR team with the knowledge to review and document HR processes with an on-the-job training blueprint, with an interest to work on digitalising and automating HR work processes. Then I found out about IAL’s work to help SMEs to transform the workplace.” The company thus worked with CWLP’s consultant to address opportunities for improvements.

Streamlining payroll processes

To kickstart their workplace transformation, KTC focused on improving its payroll processes. Working with IAL’s consultant, interviews and observation sessions were carried out with the HR team and other stakeholders.

Identified areas for improvement included an outdated time management system, duplicated processes, and challenges in tracking manhours at distributed worksites island wide. As a result, the work in reconciling and verifying work hours with respective departments and calculating the right compensation was extremely time-consuming.

IAL’s consultant thus led KTC’s payroll team to map their existing processes and roles via the development of a swim lane diagram and a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) matrix. These documents helped the team gain clarity on the roles and responsibilities of their team members in completing current tasks and identify existing redundancies and duplication in their work.

The exercise also enabled KTC to realise that its current payroll processes relied heavily on manual tasks with minimal automation, such as manual approvals for attendance. This in turn increased staff workload and a higher likelihood of errors in calculating payout.

Putting new skills to practice

To increase the efficiency of the payroll team, KTC developed an SOP document to standardise workflows across the board. It also followed up with IT vendors to update its time management system and digitise more processes so that staff workload could be reduced.

Equipped with the know-how to develop swim lane maps and RACI matrixes, the HR team began to actively apply these skills to establish clarity in roles and streamline more processes. This also improved cross-departmental collaboration and allow HR to continue refining existing workflows while bringing about more efficient communication and enhanced effectiveness.

Senior Manager of HR and Admin, Juslene Aw, who was also the Project Champion, shares, “The team has gained insights on how to do process mapping. We are currently applying what we have learnt to the rest of our HR processes, including onboarding, off-boarding, learning and development.”

Moving ahead

As a result of the NACE project, KTC observed that the time spent by an employee on payroll processing had been reduced by 0.5 days, thus improving their productivity. Its HR team has also gained new skills and knowledge in systematic and structured documentation of work processes.

The initiative has jumpstarted KTC’s workplace transformation. Juslene Aw shares the next steps the company is heading towards, “We have started to develop on-the-job training blueprint and to use it in our training and onboarding programme. Moving forward, we will be working with our IT department to digitise and automate our processes, starting with the simpler workflows.”