Over half (52%) of UK employees believe their personal technology feels more modern and is more user friendly than their workplace technology, and a further 50% wishes their workplace technology performed in a similar manner to their personal technology.
These UK-specific findings are from a global survey of 3,000 employees conducted by The Workforce Institute at Kronos Incorporated, called Building the Workplace of the Future, which unveiled employees’ opinions of their workplace technology and how this compares to the technology they use in their personal lives, as well as what they believe to be the barriers to adoption of new technologies.
Any technology implementation should be about empowering the workforce and helping them to perform their roles more efficiently. However, almost half of employees (47%) said that their workplace technology requires more training than their personal technology and 49% stated that their workplace technology often seems to make common activities more complicated than they need to be by adding unnecessary steps.
In addition, nearly two thirds (60%) stated that it’s easier for them to search for new movies on Netflix than it is to search for their work benefits information and 43% said it’s easier for them to book an Airbnb than find out how many holiday days they have left.
Considering the technologies that have become commonplace in everyday lives such as Netflix, Airbnb or Uber, organisations can no longer implement workplace technologies that do not meet these same high standards of usability.
The research also found that while 40% believe that their job is made harder because their employer relies on outdated processes and technology, over a third (39%) say that their company invests in a lot of technology, but it isn’t the right technology to help them do their jobs. A further third (33%) stated that their company invests in the latest technology but that they haven’t been trained on how to use it properly and their company invests in the latest technology but forces employees to rely on old processes.
This is also mirrored in the fact that 42% stated that the top issue preventing them from embracing new technology at work is the fact that a lot of employees have been at the company for a long time and have a set way of doing certain processes and/or aren’t open to change.
When we consider that the majority of UK employees believe they are early adopters of technology (34%), followed by 31% believing they are innovators, there is a clear calling for organisations to be doing more to implement and embrace technologies that will better help employees.
Peter Harte, vice president, enterprise sales at Kronos, said: “Clearly there’s a real need for employers to embrace more intuitive and user-friendly technologies that will not only help to engage their workforce more, but also increase their productivity.
“The fact that many UK employees feel as though their workplace technology actually makes tasks more difficult or isn’t right to help them do their jobs, demonstrates a lack of communication between managers and employees.
“The success of any business is completely dependent on its leading force – its employees so it’s essential that managers and IT teams are listening to what those at the coalface have to say in terms of what will aid them best and ensuring they’re implementing the best technologies accordingly.”
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