Providing employees with the exact devices, apps, and other digital resources they need makes for more productive digital workplaces
Today, many businesses are in a state of transition. They’re working on establishing the ideal mix of in-office and remote work and, in the process, are making infrastructural or organizational shifts to support a hybrid way of working.
Perhaps it’s no surprise then that the top budgetary pressure facing IT teams is supporting hybrid workforces, according to findings in Lakeside Software’s Digital Workplace Productivity Report 2022. The change to hybrid work often means equipping employees with the devices, apps, and other resources they might need to be productive in any location. At the same time, though, it can be harder to know what users in distributed workforces need due to a lack of visibility and insights.
Regardless of its difficulty, though, there’s no question that equipping users with the precise digital resources they need is essential for today’s transitional, hybrid-first work landscape. And the best way to provide that is through a robust right-sizing strategy.
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The Key to Effective Right-Sizing and Provisioning
The Consequences of Unsuitable Technology
An inadequately equipped digital workplace can result in poor digital employee experience (DEX). Poor DEX, in turn, can have a profound impact on the overall business.
In fact, Lakeside’s Digital Workplace Productivity Report — based on a global survey with a total of 600 responses from executives, IT leaders, and employees — found that technological limitations cause employees to perform at only 60% of their potential productive capacity. Not only that, but employees report losing nearly an hour (54 minutes) of productive work time a week solely due to technology disruptions and downtime.
Across the board, employees claim employers could be doing more to help them work productively. According to Lakeside’s The Future of Digital Workplaces report, 90% of employees believe that IT problems can be avoided or prevented — an expectation that may feel demanding to IT professionals, but one that’s important to strive for to improve employee satisfaction. Failing to improve users’ digital experiences can lead to user frustration that can have business implications well beyond productivity.
When employees can’t do their jobs because workplace technology keeps failing, they’re likely to become dissatisfied, unmotivated, and lose trust in the IT department. That can mean users file fewer tickets, instead suffering in silence when their apps crash, lose connection, or devices fail. This results in a Watermelon Effect where DEX continues to decline, all without IT knowing the full extent of the problem.
So in order to keep hybrid workforces productive and satisfied, organizations need greater IT visibility to address digital experience issues head-on.
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Digital Workplace Productivity Report 2022
The Need for Holistic IT Visibility
The prevalence of digital experience issues across organizations might suggest that they’re difficult to prevent. In reality, though, a shift in perspective is often all that’s needed. Many business leaders inadvertently leave DEX problems unchecked solely because they’re not aware of them.
For example, only 12% of C-suite respondents in Lakeside’s 2022 global survey said their employees had somewhat or significantly less technological capabilities than needed. In contrast, nearly twice (22%) as many employees claimed they had either somewhat or significantly less technological capabilities than needed to do their jobs.
The issue here is poor IT visibility. If IT leaders cannot see exactly what employees are experiencing and how their devices are performing, they won’t know when and how to take steps to improve digital experiences. This is especially true if employees are resigned to suffer with poor DEX instead of contacting IT.
But with full IT visibility, organizations have the data and insights they need to provide employees with the right tech and quality experiences.
How Full Visibility Leads to Strategic Right-Sizing
Gaining that level of visibility starts with investing in tools that can provide organization-wide insights. The ideal solution should provide IT professionals with granular data into every aspect of end-user experience, as well as intelligent analysis, actionable insights, and single-pane-of-glass views that can inform decisions made by business leaders. This can provide IT with a clearer picture of what devices and apps employees use, how they use them, and what they might need.
This kind of information can also help cut down on IT costs by pinpointing the most necessary upgrades or device replacements users need. For example, if data shows an individual user needs more RAM than their current device allows for, IT can justify repurposing a different device instead of replacing it with a newer model that will cause the same issue. If a device battery is failing, better visibility can alert IT to replace that specific piece of hardware instead of provisioning an entirely new device.
Greater visibility also helps organizations anticipate what employees need to improve their digital experience. For example, knowing that a certain user frequently switches between windows could suggest that they’d be more productive with a second monitor in their home office. Proactively giving them that second monitor before they need to ask for it could make them immensely more productive as well as more satisfied.
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Equipping a Successful Hybrid Workforce
Right-sizing means not just giving users the correct amount of resources, but also giving them the exact type of devices and apps they need to do their jobs without disruption. This guarantees not only better productivity, but better morale, as well. In this era of hybrid work, when employees are more dependent on their technology than ever before, right-sizing technology can make a significant impact on employee attitudes as well as productivity.
Building a well-equipped hybrid workforce doesn’t have to be difficult, either. With clear, thorough insights that can be shared with business leaders, you can gain the knowledge you need to assign each user the technology they require.
Right-Size Your Digital Workplace
Explore how Lakeside’s Digital Experience Cloud can help provide employees with the resources they need, when they it. Request a customized demo today.
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