Technology Adoption in the Era of Unified Workplaces

There was a time when office hours were from 9am to 5pm and work began only after reaching the workstation. That’s not how it’s done anymore. Always-on connectivity has empowered us to complete tasks and collaborate with colleagues anytime and from anywhere.

This trend has been driven by rapid technological advancements and the growing digital native population among the Indian workforce. In fact, the millennial or Gen Y population in India is expected to constitute 50% of the workforce by 2020 and reach 75% by 2025, according to figures published by Boston Consulting Group.

Integrated Workplaces: A Natural Evolution

With the percentage of digital natives (Gen Y and Gen Z) in the workforce rising, the integrated workplace is a natural evolution. Seamless collaboration not only improves the employee experience, but it has also become the lifeblood of business processes.

Organizations that don’t recognize this are at risk of falling behind. When different departments operate in silos, coordinating and collaborating becomes more cumbersome, hampering productivity. Moreover, these processes create and store information in different systems, rather than a common, constantly updated dashboard of data. The absence of a unified analytical perspective compromises the quality of decision-making. This is the reason that the C-suite of most Fortune 500 considers collaboration as a top priority.

Tech in the Era of Unified Workplaces

Our lives are nothing but a “mass of habits,” said renowned 19th-century philosopher and psychologist, William James. This hasn’t changed. The only thing that’s changed is our habits, led by fast-paced technological advancements. Despite our dependence on technology, not every solution is successfully deployed and leveraged. Business leaders spend fortunes expecting to deploy game-changing technology, while all these do is lead to greater employee frustration and low adoption.

The answer is quite simple and obvious. Technologies that fit into people’s daily work habits will thrive, with others will struggle to survive. Let’s take email for instance. It’s an integral part of our daily work habit. Most executives begin their day by checking their email and continue to do so intermittently through the day, even while travelling or after returning home. So, technologies that integrate with Outlook and Gmail provide a better user experience. This increases tech adoption.

Moreover, the implementation of such technologies is simpler, as companies don’t have to train employees from the ground up. Same is the case with technologies that send mobile notifications, since checking the smartphone has become an important part of our daily habit.

While the workday has stretched to cover almost the entire day and multitasking has become the new normal, employees want technology that can simplify their lives and not add yet another item to their list of to-dos.

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