Employees spend over 25% of their time looking for info needed to do their jobs: Research

It is a known fact that better employee experience means more productivity and business growth. The Experience of Work: The Role of Technology in Productivity and Engagement research conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and sponsored by Citrix Systems, reveals that unfortunately, employees today spend over 25 per cent of their time merely searching for the information they require to perform the jobs they have been assigned. Managers actually spend more than 50 per cent of their time trying to execute mundane tasks. This clearly indicates that technology has made work more complicated and difficult rather than easy and simple for the workforce.

According to the study, companies that use technology to support new models for work have a competitive edge. It is the organisations that offer employees tools that help them be more efficient and contribute more meaningfully to their work, that manage to attract the best talent. These are also the companies that succeed in keeping their employees engaged and productive, and report better business growth.

In future, success will only come to those companies that are willing to create digital environments, where traditional, remote as well as gig workers co-exist and work together smoothly. The workforce of the future expects organisations to provide them with the tools and information required to deliver their best work in a simple and unified manner.

Out of the over 1,100 senior executives surveyed across eight countries and industry sectors, 36 per cent felt that enhancing customer experience and satisfaction is essential to improve employee experience. Forty per cent believed that productivity and employee engagement (40 per cent) are essential for employee experience. While 31 per cent believed profitability to be an important factor, 30 per cent stated talent retention as the main factor.

However, in today’s workplaces, on an average, workers are expected to handle at least four applications to perform one business process. This also means they end up having to handle and manage several passwords and interfaces. This not only eats into the time that is required to actually perform the work the employees have been hired and paid to do, but acts as a huge distractor.

The employees who participated in the study wished that they would be treated as consumers so that in creating a good experience for them, companies end up investing in digital tools that are simple and user-friendly.

The focus of organisations should be on the needs of the employees and not on speed of work.

The key requirements for ensuring a positive employee experience are as follows:
• Easy and convenient access to the information needed to accomplish the job (47 per cent)
• Simple and user-friendly applications (39 per cent)
• User experience similar to that of consumers (33 per cent)
• Provision to work from anywhere anytime (43 per cent)
• Range of devices and tools to choose from (32 per cent)