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If your company is on the cutting edge of innovative technology solutions, you empower your business and your employees. The result is the fast track to achieving your business outcomes and objectives. Technology in the workplace helps you lower costs through remote work and BYOD policies and keeps your employees connected wherever they are in the world.
Leveraging the latest technology solutions allows you to provide your clients with higher-quality services or products and enhance the user experience and customer service while reducing waste and improving productivity. These strategies add up to increased profit margins for your business.
Properly implementing and utilizing technology solutions in the workplace gives your organization a competitive advantage. Tech gives you the edge you need to stay ahead of the competition and dominate your market in a noisy, crowded online environment.
If you don't implement tech solutions in your business, you're falling behind your competitors that implement these processes and policies. Technology in the workplace is now essential for your business's success. This post unpacks the important benefits of technology in the workplace and what you can do to bring your company into the modern era of tech solutions.
To understand the impact of technology in the workplace, we need to look back on its influences on businesses and corporate culture. Let's run through a brief timeline of how technology emerged and evolved in the industry.
Tech emerged in the workplace in the late 1960s. The Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) computer chip was invented in 1967, drastically changing computing power. However, it wouldn't find its way into the market until many years later.
TV and radio were households' dominant forms of communication at this time. Companies had few communication tools and infrastructure available until the advent of email in 1971. However, at the time, email was an obscure technology, limited to use in academic circles.
The 1970s saw a boom in tech innovation, with the floppy disk and daisy-wheel printer coming onto the scene. However, at the time, computing systems were still not widely used across the industry. Xerox changed the game by inventing the "Ethernet" in 1973. Once again, computing tech failed to enter the mainstream.
The 1980s saw computing technology start to gain steam in business practices. The rise of tech companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Apple pushed businesses into the technological age. The first laptop hit shelves in 1981, and the Motorola DynaTAC 800x, the world's first cellphone, launched in 1983.
These innovative communication tools enabled organizations to expand their business beyond physical locations. The real breakthrough came in 1989 with the introduction of the internet. By the time the 1990s rolled around, industry and the public were starting the mass adoption cycle of computing technology.
Companies started using email, and the whole world exploded with the technological revolution with the launch of Google in 1998.
By the time the 2000s rolled around, email was under mass adoption in the public and private markets. Google positioned itself as the dominant search engine, and its workspace tools, like Gmail, started gaining traction in the global market.
The rise of social media networking sites in 2006 saw people flocking to Myspace and Facebook to share their lives with their friends. Steve jobs changed the game with the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, starting the mobile revolution.
The 2010s saw massive innovation in the tech sector, with companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple, dominating global communications. Companies started realizing the value of marketing, and the digital marketing revolution took off.
Innovations like CRMs led companies to plan their digital transformations, and that takes us up to today, where technology benefits every aspect of business and our personal lives.
Embracing technology in the workplace is vital for companies that want to get ahead of the competition. Tech solutions will transform your organization into a modernized, successful organization.
Undergoing a digital transformation allows you to leverage the digital environment and the mobile revolution. Let's unpack five important benefits of technology in the workplace.
Over 40% of surveyed workers spend a quarter of the workweek completing repetitive tasks like data entry and emails. Implementing automated solutions in the workplace eliminates the need for these tedious tasks, putting them on autopilot.
As a result, your employees spend their time on high-return activities, improving their productivity. Automating your processes impropriates accuracy and time to completion. It also leaves more time for high-value activities like building and maintaining client relationships or completing customer service tasks.
Using software solutions to collect, upload, and sync your data into systems reduces the risk of employee errors that skew data sets.
Saving on your overhead costs is another one of the attractive benefits of technology in the workplace. Tech solutions allow you to implement remote work for your staff, increasing productivity and mobility for your team.
A "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) policy allows employers to minimize expenditure on company assets while improving the user-friendly operation of devices. Employees don't need to train to learn how to use new devices, saving you on training costs.
Remote work policies allow for reductions in office space and on-site assets. The result is a significant drop in overhead expenses. According to a study by Cisco, companies save approximately $3,150 per employee per annum on BYOD policies, thanks to the savings they offer in hardware, data, and time savings.
Implementing tech solutions in the workplace improves the employee experience. Too many companies focus on enhancing the customer experience without paying attention to their employees. Happy employees are productive employees. Turning your staff into a productive squad of efficient, effective earners is easier than you think.
By implementing tech solutions that take the mundane, repetitive takes out of their job description, you free their time to focus on more productive activities. If your staff spends the bulk of their workweek capturing and processing data, that's a lot of time. Allocating this time to high-value tasks like communicating with customers is a better choice.
A better employee experience leads to improved employee engagement. When your staff becomes highly engaged with their work, they have higher productivity and produce better results. Research shows businesses with highly engaged employees have lower absenteeism, enhanced productivity, better customer service ratings, and more sales.
Implementing tech solutions in the workplace allows businesses to increase marketing activities and take care of their customers with personalized service. Employees can leverage data to discover where to place ads for optimal response rates. They can participate in social networking events to understand the customer's needs.
Tech solutions allow your business to discover customer pain points, leveraging tools like chatbots gives clients a better customer service experience, automates email responses, and more. There are myriad opportunities for tech to enhance the employee and customer experience.
Implementing these tech solutions helps companies differentiate themselves from other companies and brands. These strategies lead to better development of long-term loyalty in your customers, improved lifetime value, and higher revenues.
Implementing technology that leverages BYOD and remote work strategies helps businesses overcome hiring difficulties, attracting the best talent to your organization. Research shows that millennial and Gen Z workers prefer a favorable work environment over receiving more pay.
By improving the employee experience, you'll have access to a deeper pool of candidates for your business. Before the advent of tech solutions enabling remote work, companies had to limit themselves to hiring talent in their local geographic area. Or they would have to find employees willing to relocate to fill the position.
This strategy meant reimbursing relocation expenses and increasing the cost of making new hires. In today's technologically advanced environment, companies can hire employees from around the world, attracting them with remote work policies.
There are several advantages of technology in the workplace. However, these benefits also come with a few drawbacks. It's important to know the adverse effects of implementing these systems to safeguard your employee experience, business objectives, and outcomes.
Employees must create a strong work-life balance. Well-adjusted employees have better mental health, employee production, and satisfaction. If employees stay plugged into their workstations and devices all day, it becomes challenging for them to detach from their work.
As a result, they find it challenging to wind down in the evening. The thought of receiving that late-night email from the boss might lead to developing work-related anxiety disorders. This issue is most prevalent in employees who have remote work positions and feel they must be available to their employer at all hours to prove they are working and adding value to the company.
Employees might also find they develop cases of loneliness from remote work positions., They might miss being around others at the office, even if they must complete work tasks. The feeling of human connection in a physical workplace might be more vital to some employees than others.
Employees that feel lonely are more subject to burnout, and their productivity starts to suffer. As a result, they might start looking for another position with the competition.
Companies need to give their employees the tools they need to enhance the employee experience, allowing them to effectively communicate and collaborate with their fellow team members from their remote position.
Implementing a digital transformation in the workplace has more benefits than drawbacks for companies. However, since most companies don't have in-house teams, they rely on service providers for the bulk of the work in bringing them online.
This strategy might leave gaps in internet security, allowing bad actors to exploit these vulnerabilities. From IoT devices to insider threats, there are plenty of ways hackers can manipulate employees and systems to gain unauthorized access to systems.
AS data breach could ruin the company's reputation, causing the opposite effect of what they intended to achieve with the digital transformation.
While there are a few drawbacks to implementing technology solutions in the workplace, the pros vastly outweigh the cons. Every company needs to consider completing a digital transformation to bring them into the modern environment of digitized business.
It's more than possible to mitigate the adverse elements of digital transformation. Technology in the workplace gives you the systems, software, and solutions you need to dominate your market, position you at the top-of-mind awareness with your customers, and improve the customer journey and employee experience.
Technology can improve employee productivity, communications, and collaboration. Applications, software solutions, and platforms give your employees the advantage they need to make more out of the time they spend on the clock.
However, if there is one place companies fall down in their digital transformation, it's with the implementation. Since most companies don't have an in-house IT team, they rely on outsourced partners to help them move to a digital workplace experience.
Choosing the right partner for IT support in Markham is vital if you want to complete a successful transformation. With the right team, you get the technological solutions you need to drive your business forward while mitigating the security risks involved with the process.
The right managed services partner ensures you successfully transition to a digital environment while maintaining the security and integrity of your systems. There's no risk of bad actors penetrating your systems. There's also a minimal threat of experiencing a data breach that ruins your reputation and leads to legal and financial liability.
Choose the right partner and experience a seamless digital transformation that benefits your business, the employee experience, and the customer journey.
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