Just a few years ago, the notion of employees introducing their preferred technology into the workplace was widely considered a threat to both enterprise security and efficiency.
Today, this same tendency is being broadly recognized as a critical step toward digital workplace maturity — and deservedly so.
According to a survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCooper (via The Wall Street Journal), nine out of 10 executives said they consult with employees about their needs when bringing new technology into the workplace. If this practice may once have been seen as problematically encouraging shadow IT, it is now recognized as a key building block of digital maturity. As the concept of shadow IT continues to drift into irrelevance, I believe it's time for enterprises to consider how frontline workers can shape a better and more efficient workplace.
Why And How Consumer Technology Is Evolving Workplace Norms
Traditionally, company tech buying and implementation has been a top-down process.
But as the survey highlights, enterprise-wide tech changes are increasingly originating from beyond the walls of the C-suite. According to a recent survey conducted by Nintex, 80% of managers said their organization had formally adopted a new tool or technology specifically because a Gen Z employee proposed or requested it.
The tech expectations that employees have outside of the workforce have powered the adoption of consumer technology within the workforce. In their lives as consumers, employees expect their technology to be highly collaborative, accessible, inclusive and speedy. They now have the same expectations for their workplace tech experience.
In response, digitally mature workplaces are formally sanctioning consumer-oriented cloud applications for use within the business. The result is a workplace that functions more intuitively, efficiently and flexibly — and thereby leaves workers happier and more productive.
Tips For Enterprises To Support This Evolution
If your enterprise has any doubts about whether a consumer-driven approach to IT is a "lean forward" or "lean back" moment, you should consider consulting Gen Z, arguably your most influential class of workers. According to the Nintex survey, 79% of Gen Z workers said they'll use the most efficient app in their working life to get the job done — whether or not IT has vetted it.
In my opinion, this finding solidifies that we're at an inflection point in terms of workplace technology. Now more than ever, I believe it's time for enterprises to adopt a consumer-driven approach to workplace technology. Here are some steps I'd recommend:
• Foster an improvement culture. I believe you'll want to create an environment where employees feel their preferences matter. For most companies, building a genuine culture of continuous improvement will require evaluating and improving existing methods of managing feedback. Does your company have the structure and processes in place to solicit, engage with and act upon process-based employee feedback? If not, that's where to start.
• Don't get married to specific solutions. From a process management perspective, it can be tempting to consider a business problem "solved" once you've found the seemingly perfect tool. However, business issues change, and so, too, must the tools to address them. Yesterday's great app may not solve tomorrow's new problem. A consumer-forward approach to tech demands a more adaptive mindset.
• Level up process management. When you give employees more autonomy to introduce the tools they like to use, that often means a huge influx of new apps into your enterprise. Without effective process oversight, this app influx can quickly turn into unmanageable chaos. By introducing process management tools into the organization, enterprises can easily visualize the full picture of their business apps.
By effectively channeling employee tech expectations into enterprise change, organizations can take a critical leap forward in their digital workplace journey.
2019-10-09 12:15:13Z
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/10/09/how-to-support-the-evolution-of-consumer-tech-in-the-workplace/
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