Dealing with the rise of hybrid and remote working [Q&A]

The pandemic led to a dramatic shift in working patterns with many more people working from home or spending less time in the office.

Recently though we've been seeing more calls for staff to go back to the office. So, have working patterns changed for good and if so how can productivity levels be maintained with remote working? We talked to Mark Cresswell, co-founder and executive chairman of Scalable Software, to find out.

BN: What are your thoughts on the current WFH vs RTO debate?

MC: While many companies and employees have embraced hybrid work, recently, several global giants have begun to call for staff to return to the office, at least part-time. One driver of this is the so-called 'productivity paranoia' befalling business leaders -- aptly coined to describe the fear that productivity levels drop when employees work from home. The issue here is that pushing employees back into the office to 'keep an eye on them' creates a trust gap.

In this hyper-competitive talent market, workers are likely to jump ship for a competitor offering better benefits – including hybrid working flexibility. To retain talent, organizations will need to strike a balance. And the starting point for many will be in determining whether hybrid work really is to blame for any productivity issues, or if there are other factors at play. This will require gauging productivity levels in an objective, data-led way.

BN: Why has 'Employee Experience' become a discipline?

MC: The adoption of hybrid and remote models means many interactions are now conducted via a screen. For IT and HR teams responsible for employee satisfaction and engagement, a lack of in-person contact can make it far harder to see how an individual is performing at work and if they are engaged.

Employees who are unhappy or frustrated at work are more likely to leave. As we've seen with trends like the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting, the power balance has shifted. Recruiting and onboarding employees is costly, so the focus is on retention of existing skilled staff. Companies realise that to keep employees happy, providing a great digital employee experience (DEX) is a must. This is why we're seeing more businesses looking to measure and improve employee experiences.

BN: What are some of the main elements of employees' experiences that employers should be measuring?

MC: There are several elements that businesses should focus on. Firstly, IT teams need to be able to rapidly identify non-performant hardware or software. For example, an outdated laptop that is running slowly and making the employee less efficient. Or a frequently used application that is repeatedly crashing and forcing the individual to start again.

After hardware and software, you need to measure how current workflows and processes are affecting staff. This includes things like non-intuitive processes for routine tasks, or poorly integrated systems and workflows that force employees to switch applications, resulting in slower processes, which defocus the employee and possibly increase the error rate.

Then should come relational and networking aspects of work. This includes ascertaining who is collaborating often, who is an influencer in the organization, and who is networking effectively -- and on the other end of the scale, who seems isolated or like they are struggling to collaborate. Finally, sentiment analysis could help gauge employee happiness and satisfaction and identify staff who may need additional support.

BN: How has measuring employee experience changed in a hybrid working world?

MC: Though hybrid working has created challenges in measuring employee experiences, the boom in digital devices does offer up a new avenue of assessment. Sophisticated digital employee experience (DEX) tools now make it possible to gain an objective assessment of hybrid workers’ experience.

DEX analytics deliver near real-time data that enables IT and HR teams to identify productivity blockers like application instability and fractured workflows. DEX exposes the digital friction associated with the devices, applications and application workflows that employees rely on, wherever they are working from. Data on device and app performance collected by DEX tools can be cross compared with subjective input from employees to identify when and why expectations aren’t being met.

BN: What is digital friction and how does it impact employees?

MC: Digital friction is the unnecessary effort exerted by employees when using technology and is one of the worst culprits for poor DEX. In fact, Gartner research finds that 47 percent of technology users experience high digital friction, and 34 percent experience this friction several times a week.

Examples of digital friction include having to repeatedly toggle between applications to find information or complete a task; struggling with applications that load slowly; or complicated workflows that require extra steps to complete. Events like these have a significant impact on employees' ability to be productive -- for example, the average employee wastes up to 32 days per year switching between different applications. Digital friction causes employees to waste hours of their time, becoming frustrated, disengaged, and less productive, and creating a financial drain on businesses.

BN: How can DEX solutions help address businesses' productivity concerns around hybrid working?

MC: Productivity paranoia is at the root of the WFH vs RTO debate. And that paranoia is why many businesses are questioning where employees work today. Research has even suggested that poor productivity is not the 'fault' of hybrid work, but that hasn't stopped productivity from becoming the lightning rod in the battle between WFH vs RTO.

The reality is that productivity has always been challenging for businesses to measure. The good news for employers is that it doesn't have to be this way. DEX tools now offer a way to quantify productivity. With insights from DEX analytics, IT and HR teams can create and measure the impact of policies based on hard data from across the enterprise. They can assess the uptake of and engagement with collaboration applications and software, understand how applications and device usage differs across teams, roles and locations, and ultimately identify ways to support employees to do their jobs. These data points are essential when setting WFH/RTO policies, but also for a more general understanding of how productive workers are in the current hybrid set up.

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