It is not uncommon for mistakes to happen in the workplace. It’s a reality that we all make mistakes, and there isn’t a single person in the working world who hasn’t found themselves forwarding an email to the wrong person or leaving a typo in an important document.
It’s human nature to make errors, but regrettably, they often come at a cost. Whilst you can never expect your staff to always be perfect, you can have a system in place that means they don’t have to worry about making errors in the first place.
Minimizing human error is difficult when tasks are manual – if a person is involved, there will always be the possibility that a mistake is made. In the secured finance industry however, when it comes to handling sensitive data, the margin of error needs to be minimal. Failure to meet strict regulations can be devastating to your business, especially if an error is related to sensitive personal data.
Examples of human error
So, what causes human error in a secured finance business? Some examples include:
- Complacency – When manual tasks are repetitive, the person may become too comfortable as muscle memory takes over. This can lead to a slip in work quality as the person is not fully engaged in the task at hand. Complacency can be expected where the tasks are monotonous and unchanging, with habits quick to form and hard to break.
- Decision making – If you are making decisions based on individual circumstances, there is a lot of room for interpretation. One mistake at the decisioning stage of the finance process can lead to a domino effect, costing you time and money.
- Lack of resources – If your business doesn’t have enough resources, especially if you are a small business, you can find your staff stretched too thin to meet the needs of the business. This can lead to mistakes as your staff rush, cut corners, or forget about tasks as they try to keep up.
How can I tackle human error?
Human error is the cause of more than 49% of all business interruptions. According to Gartner, the average cost of IT downtime is $5,600 per minute. So, if you only experience an hour of downtime, you could still be spending in excess of $336,000 on just one incident.
The best way to combat human error is to automate your processes. No, this doesn’t mean replacing your entire workforce with robots! What it does mean is that those manual tasks that are causing roadblocks can be solved using automation to support your workforce, allowing them to focus on other areas of the business that need attention.
The Solifi Open Finance Platform is a cloud-based end-to-end finance technology solution, meaning everything you need is on one unified platform. This allows for easy automation of repetitive admin tasks across the loan lifecycle. For example, Solifi Originations features automated decision-making, which rapidly drives credit decisions when you need them, with automatic scoring, debt calculation, and automated approvals and declines for routine applications. This means you can stop worrying about human error, as the system does the work for you.
