Does your workplace fully optimize employee productivity?
Tech Trends · Aug 15, 2018
Digital Transformation has created a wave of fresh opportunities and new business priorities - forcing companies of all sizes, in all industries, to consider the profound and immediate role technology will play in their success. Its influence is powerful and far-reaching, having already impacted employees, operations, markets and customers in a variety of ways.
Have you decided how to plan for this transformation in your area of business? TELUS believes that evolving your workplace sets the proper foundation to effectively embrace change that is inevitable, inescapable and ongoing.
According to IDC, Digital Transformation is present and accelerating in the workplace:
A record 5 generations occupy the workforce today, bringing with them a variety of social behaviors and expectations regarding where, when and how they work best
85% of millennials prefer flexible work, a generation that will account for 50% of the workforce by 2020
Employees now spend 80% of their time collaborating, each using an average of 4 connected devices to complete tasks
This data validates the new normal observed in today’s work environment. Business models that don’t acknowledge this reality will require continuous reshaping, costing time and money with little long-term benefit. Companies need to ask themselves tough questions as they seek to invest in the right areas.
Deploying the correct workplace solutions will provide an opportunity to ride a wave to higher growth and efficiency over the next decade, through engaged employees and customers.
Businesses must move at the speed of customer demand to stay relevant. That means redefining the workplace to accommodate a fast, agile, digitally-enabled team which can collaborate and innovate without restriction.
Redefining the workplace by enabling people
At TELUS, we believe that redefining the workplace must be driven by the needs of end users. You can change technology and you can change processes, but your employees and customers must embrace those changes in order for them to be effective.
There is already evidence of a marked shift in workstyles, driven largely by how people want to work. The traditional approach, characterized by employees clocking in at their workspace between 9am and 5pm has advanced along a continuum. Some organizations have adopted mobile workstyles, while others have evolved to a fully agile model which promotes untethered access to collaboration technology within and across any location. The objective: drive innovation and productivity though flexibility in how, when and where people work.
As workstyles change, so do device and application demands. The network relied on becomes even more critical, enabling the use of collaboration tools across a host of physical and virtual workplaces. Security underpins it all to keep employees, customers, applications and data protected.
If you want to redefine your workplace, where should you begin?
Assess, build trust and pilot
To set out on the journey of redefining your workplace, we recommend three key steps:
1. Assess
When you assess your business environment, it’s important to evaluate three aspects.
First, look at the needs of your people and groups within your organization. What do they do? Who do they work with? Where do they work? What is the makeup of your teams? At TELUS, when we set out to redefine our workplace, we recognized that we had a diverse group of employees who leverage different technologies in varying degrees based on their job function.
Next, it’s important to review technology, including applications and how they are enabled through your network and infrastructure. What do you need to be able to communicate effectively with each other and with customers? Do you need collaboration tools? Voice? Video? Messaging? File sharing? What are your requirements to ensure employees can work effectively from a remote location?
Third, you should examine your industry. What is your competition doing? What types of new technologies and processes are their employees and customers embracing? How have your competitors improved their speed or quality of delivery?
2. Build trust
Culture plays a vital role in any redefined workplace. How are you going to compel your employees to embrace change? At TELUS, we chose a “management by objectives” approach, rather than evaluating performance based on time spent in the office. Our productivity and engagement metrics ensure employees and the business remain accountable to one another.
Moving to a mixed physical and virtual work model also requires a rethinking of team dynamics. What is your ideal balance between face-to-face interaction and virtual work for each team? The leadership group plays a pivotal role in defining a new standard; finding an appropriate balance which serves the business while offering employees flexibility and trust.
3. Pilot
With both technology and culture changes ready, it is time to conduct a proof of concept with the right test group within your organization. It’s important to pick a team that is both willing and ready to experience a redefined workplace. Perhaps the team already operates across multiple locations and needs to improve collaboration. Ensure you track the impact on people and technology, gathering evidence of the right balance to serve as your guideline when embarking on a wider implementation.
By piloting the right mix of technology and culture change, you gain trusted insights to help shape your roadmap and secure executive buy in. You can also make more informed decisions around the right investments concerning people, processes and technology when addressing your physical and virtual workplace needs.
Your workplace redefined
Digital Transformation has created an opportunity for exponential growth, and is forcing organizations to prioritize their attention, efforts and resources to it – without delay. At TELUS, we believe that redefining the workplace is one of the most logical and strategic opportunities enabled by DX. By focusing on your people and aligning your processes and technology accordingly, you can enable teams that are engaged, empowered and ready to deliver at the speed of customer demand.
Interested in reading more about Digital Transformation, and the solutions which prepare your business to accomplish it? Here are some useful articles:
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