Improving Employee Engagement in a Procure-to-Pay Center
Situation
A global chemical company entered into a multiyear outsourcing contract with a technology services provider to operate and optimize its global procure-to-pay processes. This agreement involved transferring responsibilities to innovation centers in multiple countries and managing an existing company location in a European country.
Approximately 145 resources, predominantly contractors, found themselves in the midst of a complex organizational transition. Despite minimal changes to day-to-day activities and HR policies, employees experienced increased work pressure from new management and a growing sense of uncertainty. There were murmurs of a work stoppage, which would severely disrupt the service provider’s ability to deliver on its contract and the client’s business operations.
The transition led to:
Declining employee morale and productivity
Strained relationship between management and employees
Risks of significant operational disruption
Project
To address the deteriorating workplace environment, the service provider tasked JCY Advisors with facilitating a multiday, onsite workshop focused on:
Resetting dialogue with workers
Improving employee engagement
Identifying short-term quick wins
Setting a strategic direction for long-term improvements
Approach:
Conducted initial research to understand staff and management perspectives
Divided participants into four role-based groups (process clerk, procurement, business requisitioner, supplier)
Organized and facilitated six workshop sessions with 20-25 participants each
Used collaborative techniques including:
Storyboarding current processes
Creating empathy maps
Conducting ideation and prioritization exercises
Held a final playback session to share insights, prescribe recommendations, and encourage employee involvement.
Results
The Design Thinking intervention produced significant positive outcomes:
Measurable improvement in employee engagement and motivation
Enhanced understanding of end-to-end process from multiple perspectives
Identification of key improvement areas, including:
Communication
Training
Process documentation
Process improvement
Performance measurements
Organizational changes.
In addition to making the employees feel that they were being heard, the workshops generated concrete follow-on steps to be jointly implemented:
Developed a list of prioritized solution ideas
Created six implementation teams
Identified enthusiastic change champions within the organization
Planned both immediate and long-term improvements
Established governance to ensure result delivery.
The collaborative approach to organizational change transformed an adversarial workplace environment, empowered employees to contribute to process improvements, and set a foundation for ongoing organizational development.