We are now living in a completely digital society, where consumer attitudes have changed dramatically. Consumers now expect instant access to services and digital is enabling them to achieve this. They have grown up in an era of fast moving technology, and they expect to be able to do at work what they do at home, and vice versa.
As well as this, the number of devices in a household continues to grow. We are constantly connected, with the average British household now owning an average of 7.4 internet devices, with four out of 10 households buying a tablet in the last year. Never has our workforce been so empowered – at least from a technology perspective.
But what happens when they leave the comfort of their home, and enter the doors of their work place? Alas, for many, they are going back in time.
The effect on the workplace
According to Fujitsu’s Digital Inside Out report, 73% of employees see digital as vital to the future success of their organisation, yet 55% feel they are not provided with access to the right digital services to do their job sufficiently.
This is quite a startling finding – with a significant impact on employee morale, on productivity and on workloads. If employees are used to operating in this way, if they feel skilled and capable to use this technology, think of the impact it has when they find that they cannot reach their potential at work? They are held back, they lose respect for their organisation, and they start to under-deliver for that business’ customers.
Additionally, businesses need to begin to look ahead five, ten even twenty years and consider the kind of employee base they want in the future. If they are a business that wants to grow and become more agile, there is no better way than investing in the workforce and catering to their demand for 24/7 connection. This is where we are seeing the rise of the mobile workforce – and it’s showing no signs of slowing down – with the world’s mobile worker population set to reach 1.3 billion this year.
Employees are now expecting consistent connection and accessibility to work servers from any device, from any place at all times of the day (and night!). It’s reported that employees are 84% more productive when they have remote plug-in capability, as they can instantly access data they need, when they need it.
The Solution
Embracing digital is vital for a business to be successful. Organisations need to digitalise the back-end as well as the front end to allow employees to work more efficiently – too much focus in too many businesses is on making a service look slick and sexy for a customer, but their employees live in a mountain of paper and Excel spreadsheets. This is inefficient, costly, and does little to enhance the morale of their workforce.
But it needn’t be that way. Digital technologies can help make life easier for employees, simplifying processes for employers, leading to cost savings (and higher profits) for those businesses and better service (and hence loyalty) for customers.
Not easy but necessary
As we move to a digital first Britain, businesses need to keep up with the digital trend or they risk falling behind. However, new entrants into the market do not have this challenge. They are leaping straight to a digital operation, having “generation jumped” the issues that is bogging down their more traditional competitors.
The new kids have it easy as they are starting afresh and can offer customers the most up to date digital services, while adapting modern IT infrastructure internally. Due to the benefit of starting with a blank sheet of paper, start-ups can design their business based on a ‘digital first’ foundation.
As heritage organisations have spent decades building up their infrastructures – which would have likely started with pen and paper technologies – it is a considerable challenge to ‘go digital.’ However, it is one they must undertake if they are to remain competitive to the start-ups in their sector.
Go digital, be profitable
Employees are (or should be) the most valued asset of any organisation. While adapting a more digital-savvy approach to supplying the tools staff have now come to expect, not only will companies keep their staff happy, but by implementing an IT strategy that allows employees to work on-the-go, businesses eliminate the need for the ‘out-of-office’ – consequently boosting profitability through productivity.
