Better employee engagement and productivity through technology transformation

Organisations in all industries face significant disruption and increased competition due to emerging technologies. Employee engagement and productivity levels are rapidly transforming with the increasing digitisation of business processes. Consumption-based models allow companies to adopt new digital services without large upfront investments, making it easier to keep on top of digital changes.

However, choosing the right technology to transform the appropriate processes is what’s crucial for organisations who are looking to improve employee performance and productivity. Organisations need to adopt the right technologies to deliver the kind of flexibility employees increasingly expect.

Getting it right can help businesses ride the wave of disruption and achieve strong growth. Getting it wrong can be costly in terms of time, money, employee engagement and ability to compete. A study by Microsoft showed that 93% of millennials consider technology one of the most important aspects of a workplace.

Every organisation can assess its IT environment and the ability to improve productivity and deliver flexibility for employees by asking some of the following questions:

1. How easy do we make it for our employees to collaborate?

   According to research firm Telsyte, nearly half of Australian enterprises already support activity-based working (42%) and this is only expected to rise. Unified communications (UC) technology helps deliver activity-based workspaces and it lets employees collaborate seamlessly regardless of where they’re located in the world.

   Consider how your employees engage currently. Can you make improvements to technology that will allow them to react more quickly to change, work together to meet customer needs, make better decisions faster, and generally improve culture through communication?

2. How many of our processes are manual?

   By automating as many manual processes as possible, businesses can streamline those processes for time and cost savings. Importantly, this frees up employees to add value and creativity, which are prerequisites for an organisation to be competitive. Consider how much of your people’s time is being spent on tasks that could be digitised.

   Automating the right processes results in faster and better customer service. It allows each employee to contribute more effectively, as well as allowing businesses to innovate more rapidly so they can provide products and services that will satisfy market demand sooner.

3. How much autonomy can we give our employees?

   Letting employees self-serve when it comes to managing everyday processes saves the business time and lets workers get what they need sooner. Rather than processing holiday requests and doctor’s certificates, the People & Culture team can focus on growing skills and nurturing talent.

   Instead of being bogged down in helpdesk issues and basic changes or reports, the IT team can address more significant issues and spend more time innovating. At the same time, employees gain a greater sense of autonomy and control, and can, within set parameters, service their own needs.

The result is a more streamlined team that helps power the organisation’s overarching goals rather than spending time maintaining systems and processes. Achieving business transformation that lets the organisation compete more effectively even in a disrupted marketplace takes careful planning.

More important than the technologies themselves is how they are applied in the business. Businesses must plan to ease the transition to new technologies and change employee behaviour as needed so that the technology becomes embedded. Only then will a transformation be deemed successful.

Business leaders should seek professional help when beginning their technology transformation. A strong IT partner can help to map out a strategic IT approach that delivers business benefits and only moves as fast as the business can support.

The right partner can offer a strong project management structure that incorporates proactive change management, considering both the commercial and technical requirements. This is likely to deliver a more successful project with stronger business benefits.