Enhancing the employee experience with IT

Technology is the fundamental driver of modern employee experience. According to The Experience of Work: The Role of Technology in Productivity and Engagement, new research conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, organisations across the globe that use IT to provide employees with tools that make work more efficient and meaningful can deliver a superior one. This aids in attracting the people they need and keeping them engaged and productive and improve their business results.

To compete and win in the raging battle for talent, Indian organisations need to up their game and give employees what they really want - a simple and flexible way to get work done. Because right now, it’s simply too complex.

Better Employee Experience = Better Business Results

Across geographies and industry sectors, many companies are recognizing and proving—that a better employee experience can lead directly to better business results.

Employees today expect things at work to be as easy as they are in their personal lives – particularly millennials and the Gen Z who now account for the bulk of the global workforce. At work, they need to navigate through multiple apps and drill six levels in to get the same thing done. And they’re over it.

Employees also want the freedom to work when, where and how they want. According to a recent study, 70 per cent of knowledge workers living in urban locales say they would move to outlying areas and work remotely if they could do their jobs at the same level.

To attract and retain talent in today’s tight labor market, companies need to rethink what “workplace” means and create digital environments that accommodate these new work models and deliver the tools and information employees need to do their best work in a simple, unified way.

Eliminate the Noise

Today’s workplace is filled with distractions and complexity that frustrate employees and prevent real work from getting done. Within any organisation, the average employee needs to navigate four or more applications just to execute a single business process and accessing them requires managing multiple passwords and interfaces. All of this takes time and focus away from doing what is necessary – and what they are paid to do.

Employees spend more than 25 per cent of their time searching for the information they need to do their jobs, and managers more than half of their time executing routine tasks. They’re frustrated and disengaged as a result. And it’s killing the business.

Focus on Employee Needs

It’s a problem IT has largely created by steadily implementing the technology they thought would simplify work that has only made it more difficult. Employees are, after all, consumers. Providing digital tools in a way that’s insightful and familiar will improve their experience.

Among the key enablers of strong employee engagement identified in The Experience of Work:

• Ease of access to information required to get work done (47 per cent)
• A consumer-like user experience (33 per cent)
• Ability to work from anywhere (43 per cent)
• Choice of devices (32 per cent)

Employee experience is all about creating the right environment that inspires people to do great work. And this isn’t just the responsibility of human resources. Of the IT executives polled as part of The Experience of Work, 74 per cent and 75 per cent, respectively, feel personally responsible for improving the employee experience. And this promises to change the game.

Technology is resetting the boundaries for both where and how work gets done, and traditional models won’t cut it for long. The future of work is dynamic and decentralized. Businesses that can seamlessly shift their people and digital resources across workflows and put the right insights and information at employees’ fingertips can redefine work and ultimately, their customers - in new ways that enhance their success.

By Ravindra Kelkar, Area Vice President, Sales & Services, India Sub-continent, Citrix