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Design more efficient processes
Having been in technology now for 30 years, I often say this, I don’t think we have a technology problem because there is technology that can do so much for us personally and professionally, but we have a people and process problem. Fifty-two percent of the C-suite, globally, believe that the technology they have in their organization is working effectively. Only 32% of employees agree with that statement, but wait for it. Only 20% of customer-facing employees believe the technology they’re using helps them collaborate and work more effectively and be more productive.
So, I started to approach looking at process from a design-thinking lens. We have spent billions of dollars globally on technology and on processes, systems, and tools to make it easier for customers to do something with us. But we didn’t do the same thing for the employees. Would you ask your customers to have to go to five applications to do something with you? But yet, we do it every single day to our employees. The amount of time it takes for an employee to switch between one application to another application, it’s a little less than four hours a week wasted on switching time in the brain.
So I know we could do a better job of setting our employees up for success as it relates to technology. It’s not about more technology. It’s not about less technology. It’s about the better use of technology. Don’t ignore that part of your business, otherwise you will start to have dissatisfied employees and very disgruntled customers.
Bring your employees with you
One of the top questions I get now is, will technology replace my job, my role? Leaders are saying, “Can I use technology to reduce my headcount, reduce my workforce?” And I think that’s the wrong way to approach it. In the most high-performing organizations we see, we see them using more AI, and when they do, they actually hire more people. I think that there are opportunities for us to find ways to bring our employees with us.
For example, the World Economic Forum has predicted that by the year 2025, 2026, that some 50% of employees will have to re-skill across the globe. A lot of that has to do with this introduction of new technology. It’s coming at a really rapid pace, which means we need to make sure if we’re going to deploy new tech, that our employees know how to use it. Use technology to help your employees become more efficient and effective and productive.
Or you may be deploying tech to replace employees. Then you need to make that investment in saying, “Do I reallocate that resource and retrain them on some other part of the business? Does this now allow them to do more value-based thinking work,” right, where they have to be more creative – the part of the human brain that technology is not going to do? That allows us to say, work will be more meaningful. But if it gets in the head of your employees that they think they’re going to be replaced by technology, they’re never going to embrace it.
Listen to the front lines
We want to make sure when you are looking to deploy technology, you create something like an employee advisory board where you run it by that board and it’s made up of a cross-section of employees. You ask them, we’re thinking of deploying this technology. Here’s why. Here’s what we’re considering. Here’s what we’re looking to replace or we’re looking to accomplish. And that employee advisory board can go, “Well, if you do that, let’s get rid of these two applications. If you’re going to deploy that, let’s fix these processes. If you’re going to do that, we need to be trained.”
Hear from the front lines on how and where they would use that technology so that you can be more effective, it can be more effective, you can get the results you’re looking for. So technology is not about an “or play,” human or technology. It’s an “and play.” Human and tech. Companies that win in the future will use technology better than their competition. Tech is absolutely the way in which you can become more resilient, you can scale faster, you can grow today, you can continue to serve your customers, and you can give your employees the technology, systems, tools they need to be successful.