After the world was hit hard by the global pandemic in 2020, we saw the hustle and bustle of corporate offices fade into thin air. Entire corporate floors, which used to accommodate hundreds of employees at a time, painted a picture of complete desertion. Those images were comparable to the scenes in movies, where the world gets hit by a plague or some alien invasion.
Both fear and government-imposed restrictions forced a large number of employees to stay at home and work if they even possibly could do that. Due to this, a lot of previously “busy and buzzing” corporate offices, sat empty for months. Turns out, this was not something temporary, but rather a change of permanent nature.
Back in 2020, the Vice President of Gartner, Gavin Tay, said that the pandemic would have a long-term impact on the global workplace and that things would not return to normal. He went on to say that Chief Information Officers (CIOs) needed to lay strong technology-based foundations to support future digital workplaces. Interestingly, all his predictions turned out to be quite true.
In this post, we have delved into the four major digital workplace trends that definitely warrant your undivided attention, for the year 2022 and beyond.
1. Hyper Automation for Structured Workflows
The main idea around Hyper-automation is that any workload or process that can be automated, should be automated to increase efficiency and productivity. The notion to automate managerial and other workplace activities has been around for a while, but the pandemic took its urgency to the next level.
Tasks like job assignments, collection of feedback, performance evaluations, ratings, chatbots, and even repetitive paperwork can now be automated. This can be achieved by using Artificial Intelligence (AI), algorithms, or “Robo-bosses”. According to Gartner’s report, 69% of managerial tasks will be fully automated by the year 2024.
Gavin Tay further said that managers would only be needed to perform the following two tasks, in the very near future.
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- Setting up strategies – This will demand creative skills.
- Advanced level management of teams – This will require strong social skills.
A multinational consumer goods company, Unilever, managed to save around the US $1 million, and more than 100,000 hours of recruitment and interviewing time. Unilever achieved this by leveraging AI-backed technology to hire entry-level employees. The time and resources saved during this were utilized to focus on more creative and impactful tasks.
2. Digital Employee Experience (DEX) & Productivity
DEX represents the holistic experience and quality of employees’ touchpoints with technologies that are necessary to perform their daily tasks. It entails the adoption, integration, and implementation of reliable devices and digital tools to enhance employee productivity and ultimately, make their work lives easier.
The end goal is to do things seamlessly and overcome the bottlenecks that might hamper employee productivity. For instance, by deploying digital transformation initiatives like Cloud Computing services and solutions, enterprises can provide a seamless, flexible, and secure digital workplace experience for their employees.
3. Bridging the Digital Dexterity Gap with AI
The ongoing technology advancements result in new tech innovations every other day. From an employee’s perspective, it sometimes gets stressful and time-consuming to continuously learn about new systems. This is because employees usually prefer to work with familiar tools, and tend to show resistance to any form of change.
This results in a “digital dexterity gap” that needs to be bridged immediately. Digital dexterity is a concept in which enterprises leverage digital initiatives to deliver value and faster outcomes.
To fill this gulf, organizations can use Artificial Intelligence (AI) for just-in-time learning on the job. This will help employees learn new tasks, tools, and digital workplace solutions faster, while also reducing their stress levels and improving their performance.
There is a concept of “Kaizen” in Japan, which was also utilized by the Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, Hitachi, back in 2015. Hitachi leveraged AI in its warehouse operations for the guidance and personal improvements of its workers. All this greatly improved their digital dexterity as well.
4. On-Demand; Yet Physically Dispersed Workforce
It does not matter whether or not enterprises are willing to embrace remote-based work. The truth is that remote work has now become the “new normal”. Gone are the days when employees used to stay within the physical boundaries of the workplace / traditional offices.
Today, enterprises that figure out ways to leverage technologies to change their hard-wired processes, and effectively sustain their distributed workforces, experience long-term business success. This is the reason why forward-thinking and successful enterprises have now developed such mechanisms that dynamically assemble teams on short notice, even if those human resources are from dispersed geographies.
Take the example of technology giant Samsung, which leveraged online freelancing platforms for the assembly of diverse and talented project teams, in a matter of just two days. Considering the current market scenario, the on-demand workforce has now become a business imperative.
Digital Workplace as the Gelling Factor
Gathering a physically dispersed, yet talented workforce is just one part of the equation. The gelling factor among physically dispersed teams of skilled professionals will be an effective Digital Workplace, which seamlessly incorporates the latest digital and collaborative solutions under one roof.
Conclusion
As time passes, enterprises have realized that along with customer experience (CX), they also need to focus on the employee experience (EX), as the latter has become a critical part of the digital transformation journey.
The “one-size-fits-all” approach to workplace solutions has now become outdated. Enterprises are now looking for ways to facilitate their employees with more flexible and dynamic working environments. All these efforts will ultimately enable enterprises to deliver a superior Digital Employee Experience (DEX), and boost employee satisfaction, productivity, efficiency, and retention levels.
It is high time for your organization to demonstrate its commitment to employee well-being. You can start off this journey by contacting dinCloud, an ATSG company. Our state-of-the-art Cloud Computing solutions can prove instrumental in delivering a flexible, cost-efficient, scalable, and secure Digital Workplace for your enterprise.
