Navigating the Digital Workplace: Ensuring a Productive and Empowering Future for Employees

In today's modern work environment, technology has taken center stage, playing a significant role in shaping the employee experience. In fact, according to a Gartner® report, “Predicts 2023: Build the Digital Day of Tomorrow” (Feb 2023): “The application boom has resulted in the average number of applications that an employee must use to do their job reaching 11 in 2022, with 17% of workers needing to use 16 or more. “

As technology becomes more pervasive in the workplace, it’s no wonder that employees are feeling isolated and disconnected from their team members. To ensure the increasingly digital workplace doesn’t lead to burnout, fatigue and “quiet quitting,” organizations should focus on strategic investments into the digital employee experience.

Here, we explore key findings and predictions from the Gartner report “Predicts 2023: Build the Digital Day of Tomorrow”.

The Human-Centric Approach

According to the report: “A 2022 Gartner survey on the future of work reinvented shows that human-centric strategies, flexible experiences, intentional collaboration and empathy-based management deliver more than five times greater employee performance, yet digital workplace strategies rarely center around the human experience. “

To address this concern, Gartner recommends digital workplace application leaders “design a hybrid work strategy with human-centric values by developing shared goals with HR, corporate real estate and line-of-business leaders.”

Involving the right voices in the decision-making process will help your organization maximize the usage and effectiveness of its digital tools. For example, someone who knows the ins and outs of your company’s real estate strategy may be able to offer key insight when considering digital meeting room and desk booking tools.

Overcoming Meeting Fatigue

Gartner found that “Digital workers have a strong preference for virtual meetings over in-person and least prefer hybrid meetings, where some participants join the meeting in-person and others virtually.”

Gartner recommends organizations: “Disrupt the meeting fatigue by supporting new collaboration norms that support synchronous and asynchronous best practices such as when to gather in-person, when to use cameras and when to gather off-site.” This may involve setting guidelines for when meetings need to be held, whether attendees should be virtual or in person and whether or not cameras need to be on in order to diminish fatigue from an “always on” mentality. Further, redesigning meeting spaces and leveraging collaboration tools can help create more equitable and engaging hybrid meeting experiences.

For hybrid workforces, access to real-time data on where employees are working from, as well as the days and times they are most likely to be in the office or at home can be helpful in planning mandatory meetings and events.

Fostering Digital Dexterity

Gartner found that: "Workforce digital dexterity — the ambition and ability to use technology to drive better business outcomes — will be one of the most critical factors in ensuring organizational prosperity through 2030.” It is crucial for organizations' long-term success. Establishing digital dexterity programs requires interdisciplinary efforts and support from the C-suite, HR, and all business units. These programs should enable employees to develop digital skills through a continuum of learning, from basic competencies to more advanced technical training.

By prioritizing digital dexterity, organizations can drive revenue growth and enhance employee career advancement opportunities.

Balancing Employee Monitoring

Gartner found that “86% of employees report being productive at work, but a majority of leaders feel that hybrid work patterns have reduced employee productivity, leading to an increase in client interest in deploying productivity monitoring tools.“

While employees largely distrust monitoring tools, Gartner found that “more than one-third of digital workers are willing to accept monitoring in return for assistance, if it is used to promote training classes and/or other career development opportunities. “ However, organizations must tread carefully to avoid negative consequences. Gartner warns: “We predict that organizations that broadly deploy invasive monitoring tools will experience higher levels of quiet quitting compared with organizations that choose not to adopt these tools.”

When employee monitoring tools are necessary, Gartner recommends employers “pursue a policy of transparency when gathering data on employees by informing them on the type of data gathered, how it will be used, how long it will be kept by the organization, and what methods are available for appealing disputed results.“ As an alternative, Gartner recommends implementing work style analytics that generate “insights and actions from technology usage patterns and organizational context, which are used to improve personal and team effectiveness, application proficiencies and process performance.” These insights are used to identify challenges in the digital workflow and proactively resolve them.

Embrace a New Way of Working

As technology continues to shape the modern workplace, organizations must prioritize the digital employee experience to ensure productivity, engagement, and overall well-being.

Sign In Solutions can help your organization develop a more human-centric digital workplace strategy through tools that empower today’s work-from-anywhere workforce. Our workplace management solutions encourage spontaneous and planned collaboration among colleagues while providing smart insights on where team members are, what resources are available, who’s visiting the premises and more.

Ready to reinvent the way your workplace works? Get in touch.