3 key drivers to adopt new tech in your organisation
As organisations define the extent to which they return to the office, it’s widely accepted that five days a week in the office is no longer a hallmark of working life. We’ve spoken about how productivity has been maintained and even increased in some sectors over the pandemic. For many, the biggest-ever experiment in working from home was a success story. Embracing new tech and solutions is critical to drive organisations forward post-pandemic.
However, to continue to support hybrid working models and ensure a seamless experience for employees wherever they are based, tech support must be an enabler. Legacy systems are being reported as negatively impacting employee experiences, whether in the workplace or at home. There is a need for a frictionless, technology-based employee experience that delivers an intuitive, positive experience. Here, we outline the three key drivers behind HR assessing their tech capability and current software to evaluate if it’s fit for purpose.
Employers want to offer a positive employee experience
Employers must facilitate an equal employee experience, regardless of whether individuals are predominantly based in the office or home, to ensure cultural divisions don’t emerge. Giving employees the real-time opportunity to feedback with pulse surveys is essential to identify what matters most to employees. It is also critical to equip them with easy-to-use interfaces that take away hours of admin. Forrester’s research suggests that 90 percent of HR employees are losing four hours a week on admin because of legacy HR solutions, demonstrating the importance of deploying intuitive software.
For companies looking to improve the employee experience, adopting the employee perspective can provide an important starting point – using data and analytics to identify needs and measure impact on business outcomes.
During the pandemic, the stakes could not have been higher when it came to any disconnect between the priorities of employees and employers. Whilst employees feel overwhelmed, employers generally focus on the immediate challenges of employee safety and remote work access. IBM’s report, ‘COVID-19 and the Future of Business’, captured responses from 3,800 C-Suite executives and employees in 20 countries from over 22 industries who flagged the deprioritisation of employee satisfaction. Only half of employees reported that they believed their employer cared about their welfare, highlighting the tremendous opportunity for employers to get this right and offer the required HR tools to support their employees.
Source: https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/institute-business-value/report/covid-19-future-business
At the heart of organisation-wide tech lies the need to balance automation with the individual. This is where HR has come into its own during the pandemic. Tech centred around employees and customers who don’t lose sight of the need to engage individuals is the key to adoption. Providing a strong user experience, whether logging in from home or the office, is critical to software longevity and can affect recruitment and retention because of the impact that systems have on employees’ day-to-day roles.
Organisations must embrace innovation and agility
The pandemic showed how an organisation’s ability to redefine itself and remain agile determined whether the business thrived or closed over the past eighteen months. Similarly, adopting tried and tested tech that improves efficiency across the company can help free up crucial time spent on client-facing work that successfully enhances the bottom line.
Executives identify competitiveness and workforce resilience as the benefits they most want from ongoing digital transformation.
Covid-19 and the future of business, IBM Institute for Business Value
More than ever, the pandemic sped up projects and processes that would have taken months in the pre-COVID era. According to IBM’s ‘Covid-19 and the Future of Business’ report, 66% completed initiatives that previously encountered resistance, and 59% accelerated digital transformation as a result of the crisis. Previously held anxieties around technological capabilities shifting to cloud-based business activities, flexible working and productivity levels have proved unfounded. Time will tell whether the momentum behind change seen during the pandemic will continue at pace. Still, digital transformation has been revealed as a key trend during the pandemic, and remote working set a precedent for what can be achieved virtually overnight.
This also highlights the critical role that collaboration across the business can present. IT, Finance, HR, and Marketing, all working together as strategic partners, will increasingly position these core business services teams as the collective digital enablers of the business.
The finance organisation’s adoption of digital is more common at the best-performing companies and has also increased over time.
Mastering change: The new CFO mandate, McKinsey & Co.
IT and digital investments that generate advanced analytics for the benefit of the entire organisation are vital to a company’s competitive edge. Insights that can lead to evidence-based decision-making will give companies a long-term competitive advantage amid COVID-19, which is still a threat that countries worldwide are navigating. The ability to harness the benefits of cloud computing and be an early adopter is projected by McKinsey to involve a combined market value of $1 trillion for those who embrace digital transformation. A globalised economy where people are part of a community worldwide will drive innovation and increase the ability to weather future crises.
The COP26 is the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference. It will be held in Glasgow, Scotland.
When it comes to being agile and future-ready, climate change is also a vital part of this. COP26 is looming large on the horizon – the most imminent opportunity for world leaders to agree on the steps to combat climate change and achieve net zero by 2050. Organisations increasingly recognise their role as global citizens and the need to scale up existing technologies to help reduce emissions and lower their carbon footprint. Companies are using tech to advance their record on sustainability and create a cleaner future.
Employers have the opportunity to create stronger teams
Digital transformation can move a department’s work to a whole new level. Strengthening processes internally is an opportunity to facilitate a greater focus on continually improving. How to enable cohesiveness when teams are still defining the extent to which they will embrace hybrid working is a concern for employers faced with the “new normal”. The difficulty with the prolonged uncertainty over the past 18 months is that businesses have been left to define the level of return to the workplace, which requires a careful balance between employee concerns over safety and what works best for the business. Fluidity requires seamless technology to optimise collaboration and avoid silos throughout organisations.
Given improved remote collaboration, our teams and colleagues have more options for professional contribution. The post-pandemic workplace is now a metaphoric continuum and may often be based on individual choice.
A growth mindset is critical to the success of teams always looking for ways to do things better, free from established ‘ways of doing things’ and legacy systems that can add to the workload. Remote collaboration has given teams and colleagues more options to contribute professionally. Many are leaving the decision of returning to the office for now as a decision based on individual choice. When navigating pandemic-induced shifts in the workplace, the individual is increasingly empowered with more ownership over their time, pursuing projects that align with their values and requiring continual supervisor feedback. Those who champion this growth-oriented mindset across the organisation and in the cultivation of its people will be set to thrive.
Clear communication to coordinate team efforts and mobilise everyone towards common objectives that everyone is aligned towards will enable teams to thrive in the “new normal”. Leaders must ensure that teams are equipped with the tools they require to strengthen morale and improve the efficiency of projects that involve collective contributions. This relates directly to giving employees a purpose. Organisational purpose is crucial for managers and team members alike to understand their role in delivering the company's wider mission. Ensuring this is at the heart of how teams operate can improve how they work together and deliver integrated work, regardless of where employees are physically located.
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