Technology is rapidly changing the world around us. We already have consumer-facing tech solutions that dramatically enhance our quality of life. Today you can open an app on your phone and Facetime with anyone in any location on earth with an internet connection.
The future advancements of 5G wireless networks and artificial intelligence, combined with machine learning applications, will bring further innovations to the tech sector at a lightning pace.
Consumers can expect to benefit from further lifestyle upgrades as IoT, and AI continues to provide innovative products and services that add value and convenience to people’s lives.
Technology in the Workplace
Innovations in tech don’t confine themselves to the consumer market alone. As we move deeper into the digital era, it’s becoming clear that organizations are starting to take digital transformation seriously.
Today’s business is all about integrating intelligent, innovative, and intuitive tech systems into the workplace. As organizations undergo a digital transformation, they experience significant changes to the employee experience, and how employees do work.
Creating a digital workplace is no easy feat for any organization. A successful digital transformation requires a collaborative effort across departments and a management team that knows how to handle the change.
However, those companies that successfully launch and complete a digital transformation strategy are those set to succeed in the coming decade.
What Are the Benefits of Technology in the Workplace?
So, what are the advantages of launching a digital workplace in your organization? It’s a significant investment in capital and resources; So, is it a worthwhile process to undertake?
Let’s unpack the benefits of a modern workplace, and how it can impact the employee experience.
1. Work Fast
When it comes to measuring the benefits of implementing a digital workplace, the most prominent change it offers is in the speed of work. When employees have to bumble around a filing cabinet looking for the correct forms, they lose focus on the engagement with the client or prospect.
As a result, there’s more of a chance the prospect walks away from the deal. The same situation applies to internal policies, as well. Keeping manual documents might be necessary, but it’s no way to run an organization in the digital age of data-driven business.
Introducing digital workflows into the workplace helps your employees increase their productivity by allowing them to work fast. Automating forms, e-signatures, CRM, and cloud filing systems allow your employees access to customer and prospect data on the move.
If you go a step further and provide mobile access to a company data platform, you get a mobile solution that employees can access from any location through a mobile device connected to the internet.
Improve efficiencies at work through digital solutions that make a difference. Automation for email follows ups and calls reminders to keep employees informed and engaged at work, and higher levels of engagement mean better levels of employee retention and satisfaction.
Technology tools also extend into HR, IT, and across all departments within the organization. Streaming your document processes and HR practices with digital solutions improve business efficiencies. For example, using tech solutions for tasks such as new employee onboarding, speeds up induction processes, getting your resources to work faster.
2. Encourage Employee Creativity and Innovation
The digital workplace requires managers to think about enhancing the employee experience as much as the customer experience. Too many organizations place too much emphasis on refining the customer experience, without doing anything to improve the employee experience.
However, more companies are starting to wake up to the fact that improving employee experience leads to higher earnings and happy shareholders. By enhancing EX, companies are beginning to create better levels of job satisfaction with employees.
Feedback is one of the key components of the employee experience. Feedback provides a conduit between employees, management, HR, and the C-suite, providing a holistic communication solution that links all of the resources within the organization.
Creating feedback loops at the ground level with your employees is the best strategy for monitoring employee satisfaction, and it also creates a place where employees can offer ideas and innovations on current procedures and practices.
By listening to your employee’s thoughts on improving or using digital solutions on offer in the modern workplace, you create a means of improving the employee experience. Organizations that provide employees with a platform for feedback generate a culture of innovation and communication within the company.
Organizational culture is a significant component of the employee experience. Culture defines the persona of the organization through the employee’s eyes. Those companies that offer transparent management and workplace environment have higher levels of employee engagement and satisfaction, as well as reduced rates of employee attrition.
Organizations need to strive to create a culture of support and development for their employees. Digital solutions open up opportunities for employers to enhance culture through intuitive digital programs that engage with employees.
3. Coordinate, Collaborate and Communicate
The modern workplace consists of digital solutions designed to add value to the way your employees do work. As any manager knows, communication plays a vital role in the performance of your team.
Collaboration tools allow team members to work on projects without ever meeting for operational meetings. Tools like Asana, Slack, Basecamp, and Skype, now bring the boardroom to any location. Skip time-wasting between meetings and keep your team updated on the latest changes to workflows, projects, client information, and processes.
Higher levels of communication and collaboration in your organization lead to improved productivity, and higher revenues (which we’ll discuss in a moment).
However, it’s not only in the sales environment where communication and collaboration tools can benefit an organization. Improving communication across all departments allows for seamless interaction between sales, HR, IT, Finance, management, and the C-suite.
When there is better communication across all departments, you can expect higher levels of employee engagement and productivity from workers across all job descriptions.
4. Consistent and Uniform Results
If companies want to build their brand in the digital age, they need to focus on producing consistent results. However, companies no longer need only to concern themselves with its consumer brand. In the digital workplace, organizations need to pay as much attention to their employer brand as well.
There’s research that shows the employer brand matters to employees. Those organizations that are currently undergoing a digital transformation, or have successfully implemented a digital transfo5rmation, have higher levels of employee satisfaction.
Studies also show that millennials and Gen Zs would instead work for organizations with a reliable employer brand, than those that have little brand awareness but offer a higher starting salary. Digital workplaces create a system that generates consistent results and a uniform outcome. This strategy allows employees to work the system and achieve the results they want from their work.
When your employees have a digital workplace solution that produces consistent results, it gives them the opportunity and guidance they need to excel at their tasks and find meaning in their work.
5. Boost Employee Productivity and Efficiency
Every organization wants highly trained, skilled, and productive employees. Unfortunately, research shows that almost 70% of all employees feel disengaged at work. That situation presents a real problem for management.
Disengaged employees start looking around for greener pastures, and further research shows that it’s your top talent that walks out of the door first. By introducing digital workplace environments, you improve the way your team does work.
When employees feel actively engaged in their work, they start to find meaning and purpose in what they do at the office every day. As a result, they begin to improve efficiencies in the workplace, leading to higher rates of productivity.
Productivity is simply a measurement of how much your employees can do in the time they have at work. Digital workflows, e-signature technology, automated email solutions, and electronic notifications can go a long way to streamlining everyday tasks that take up an excessive amount of time at work.
6. Increase in Revenue
It’s a tragic fact that many organizations neglect to improve the employee experience by transforming to a digital workplace. The most common reason companies avoid a digital transformation, is that they think it’s not worth the investment.
Companies are quick to jump on any form of spending they think will enhance the customer experience. However, very few of them are willing to put the same level of spending and effort into improving the employee experience.
Organizations simply think that there’s no way spending money on a digital workplace can increase the bottom line and shareholder distributions. However, the reality is that digital workplaces increase company revenues.
When your employees have digital workplace solutions to help them manage workflows, they have more time to spend on other important business issues. Provided your employees have the right direction from management teams, they should find new ways to leverage their time.
As a result, employees rise to new challenges and find ways to increase productivity, leading to higher levels of employee engagement. When employees are working harder, smarter, and faster, it leads to more revenue flowing into the company’s bank account.
