Embracing the digital workplace: IT's new role in driving productivity

Britain is plagued by sluggish productivity, with the Office of National Statistics (ONS) reporting UK productivity growth as 'anaemic' for the past 15 years. And things are getting worse, not better.

In London -- the country's largest and richest regional economy -- output per hour worked has fallen by 2.7 percent between 2019 and 2022. But what is the root cause of this underwhelming growth?

Many UK business leaders are placing the blame for poor productivity on remote and hybrid working. As a result, some companies, including household names like Barclays and Boots have introduced strict return to office (RTO) mandates. This perceived correlation between hybrid work and productivity loss exists in many businesses; our research of UK and US firms found 90 percent of IT decision makers say that hybrid working creates ‘productivity paranoia’ in their organization.

But the slump in productivity far outlives the introduction of hybrid work, suggesting there may be something else to blame. The rise of the digital workplace, coupled with productivity barriers like non-performant technology, unnecessarily complicated digital processes, and 'notification overload,' are all taking their toll on employees.

Ineffective productivity metrics

So how does a business measure productivity in the first place? Many of the commonly established metrics include volume of output, time tracking, and reporting from employees or line managers. Yet these metrics are subjective, and often too narrow to determine how effectively employees can carry out their work in today's digital workplaces. IT departments have a significant part to play in determining how digital experiences are impacting productivity, and where they can be improved.

What IT leaders must consider is how to navigate the nuances involved with measuring productivity. For instance, a financial services organization might consider four mortgage originations completed per hour by a customer service agent as a target for a high level of output, and so deem employees completing four originations as productive. Yet, relying on a single figure doesn't gives any insight into how that task was completed, what digital friction existed along the way, or if the origination workflow could be optimized for greater productivity. By eliminating digital friction, and streamlining the workflow, the business could boost the number of originations by 20 percent for the same level of effort. But lacking the ability to accurately assess this real-world digital employee experience (DEX), organizations are left blind as to how to the workforce can become more productive.

Making the most of DEX

The rise in remote and distributed workforces has sharpened the focus on accurate digital experience and productivity analysis. And DEX is becoming more important to businesses than ever. In fact, three-in-ten knowledge workers have reported that sub-par DEX has made them want to quit their role. With widening skills gaps making talent harder and more expensive to find and replace, keeping workers happy can make all the difference to a business.

Our research found that the core drivers of digital friction for knowledge workers are:

• Applications that repeatedly freeze, crash or are slow to load
• Workflows that require repeated 'app switching' to complete or find information
• 'Notification overload' caused by the existence of multiple communication channels

IT needs to look out for these issues, because knowing where problems lie is the first step to resolving them. But traditionally, the role of IT departments has followed a 'break/fix' mindset, with measures of success hinging on metrics such as volume of support tickets and the time taken to resolve them. This might fix a broken printer in good time, but it does little to eliminate the everyday barriers to productivity that employees are working around. To deliver the best service for modern enterprises, IT needs to shift focus to the experience of employees.

Taking a sophisticated approach

To evolve from the 'break/fix' model and uncover hidden digital friction, organizations require deep visibility across the enterprise delivered by DEX observability data. This real-time insight into employee’s digital experiences allows IT teams to surface productivity blockers and eradicate them.

This includes building an end-to-end picture of workflows to identify where friction like excessive app switching is taking place, and why. It could be that parts of the workflow can be automated simply to reduce the need to switch. And a small change can deliver notable impact. Application switching is prevalent in modern workflows, with the average employee doing so more than 10 times an hour. Not only is this a drain on time, but also on employee experience and productivity -- creating knowledge silos and collaboration issues and causing frustration and impacting focus.

Insights on where employees face challenges help IT to better understand where to invest time in developing or acquiring new tools to speed up processes. The result is more effective workers with access to optimized workflows that enable them greater efficiency. Moreover, DEX data is increasingly important when it comes to helping employees that work remotely, where diagnosing digital friction becomes much harder using conventional management methods. DEX data allows organizations to best support employees regardless of where they are working from.

The productivity payoff

Asking sophisticated questions -- and making decisions on sophisticated data -- will help businesses to tackle productivity barriers. IT leaders have the opportunity to apply DEX insights to identify and solve problems before they arise to improve digital employee experiences. The organizations that adopt this new approach will reap a range of benefits, from a more satisfied and engaged workforce, to better resource allocation and a healthier bottom line.

Image credit: HeyDmitriy/depositphotos.com

Mark Cresswell is co-founder of Scalable Software