"Thank you so much for your effort. I didn't expect it, but you were right. Your project has not only made our work easier, but there is more time for the things we care about. The work has simply become more enjoyable..."

I have longed for such recognition for at least ten years and never received it. IT once promised to change the world and come up with innovative solutions for every human problem. Unfortunately. In 2021, the IT department is a conservative stronghold, and compared to an IT project manager, the average accountant is a welcome guest in the department.

But recently, hope has risen in me again! I think I've cracked the problem and I can't wait to tell the world how we can be happy with IT again.

Over the past thirty years, many IT investments have been focused on process automation. Supported by concepts such as workflow and business process management, this effort was mainly aimed at streamlining business processes. The customer has definitely benefited from this, and information provision has also improved enormously. Government and business have embraced automation and digitization and have developed rapidly into digital organizations, historically speaking.

However, all this IT power also has a loser. The employees. Those who fill systems with data day in, day out. Customer data, policy data, quality data, and so on. Like a large, hungry information machine, the screen is already waiting for a new day full of data when we log in in the morning. The white input fields as teeth in the drooling information mouth. And humans as willing feeders of the ever-demanding information machine. Always more and always faster...

The human as part of the machine... Modern Times, but digital.

If you talk to someone who has a job in education, or in healthcare, you hear about the misery it brings. It's called 'the administrative hassle' that has made the profession less enjoyable for years. Taking more time away from patient care or teaching children. Or 'the rules' that make it impossible to give your profession your own twist. But if you listen carefully and ask further, it's not about the administration or the rules. It's about the paperwork, or rather: filling in systems as a result of that administration and the rules!

From that realization, you can imagine that when a decision is made to set up a new system, the average employee is not eager. After all, they have learned from trial and error that 'a new system' in practice means 'more administration'.... In the past ten years, I have regularly been a project leader of so-called 'implementation projects' and in practice, I have experienced negative reactions. Even if we did everything we could to guide the change, we hardly ever scored higher than a six-minus.

When I look back on those ten years, I have always seen that work more as a mission than as a passion. It was a struggle! I crawled through the mud. Infinitely patiently, I explained that working in the central system was important for the customer. For the company. For the information position. And that you better embrace it. Accept it. Then it would get used to it on its own... Now, with the insight I have gained in the past two years, I am a bit embarrassed about that. No, I downright say; MEA CULPA! I'm sorry. Forgive me. But I didn't know better...

"But Robert," you might ask, "but Robert. What was the insight you had?" A valid question. And I will give an answer. 

I stopped automating processes and started automating labor hours! 

To be precise: automating precisely those labor hours that people spend on systems. It may not sound so revolutionary at first glance, but it is! In the upcoming blogs, I would like to tell you more about what that means and what the exact difference is with classical IT, but for now, I want to stick to the most powerful evidence I have that this approach works:

My clients are now happy with IT...

Robert Mekking is managing partner at MvR Digital Workforce and regularly writes about what he notices in his field of work. Trends, remarkable initiatives, or just an opinion... Would you like to receive his new blog occasionally? Then sign up below and keep an eye on your mailbox!