3 Ways Businesses Can Improve Productivity for the Hybrid Workforce

With hybrid work becoming mainstream, improving the digital employee experience and keeping your workforce productive and engaged and your information secure are key to building a more resilient business. Here are three ways businesses can improve productivity for the hybrid workforce, writes Clifford Cantrell, vice president of customer success, Sinequa.

In the post-pandemic future of work, nine out of ten organizations will be combining remote and on-site working, according to a new McKinsey survey of 100 executives across industries and geographies. Remote work has created new job opportunities for some, offered more family time, and provided options for whether or when to commute. But there are also challenges ahead. Teams have become more siloed this year, and digital exhaustion is a real and unsustainable threat. As an expansive study from Microsoft recently put itOpens a new window , “the next great disruption is hybrid work.”  

“The question now facing many organizations is not how to manage a remote workforce, but how to manage a more complex, hybrid workforce,” said Elisabeth Joyce, vice president of advisory in the Gartner HR practice, in a news release. Gartner reports that 82% of business leaders intend to allow employees to work remotely at least some of the time. 

 With hybrid work becoming mainstream, improving the digital employee experience and keeping your workforce productive, engaged and secure are key to building a more resilient business. 

Learn More: 3 Actions Leaders Should Take To Build a More Productive Workforce

So, what can business leaders do?

1.Cultivate an Innovative Digital Working Environment

If there has ever been a time to invest in the digital working environment, it is now. Implementing up-to-date systems and modern applications that foster productivity and collaboration will be sure to boost business performance in the long run. Digital technologies have proven their value for businesses time and time again and are now widely recognized for their ability to accelerate innovation – a key factor of competitive advantage.

The rapid uptake of enterprise technology due to COVID-19 has set the pace for digital transformation in the enterprise, and there is an abundance of technology to take advantage of. There have been some key learnings from the pandemic in this regard, such as the demand for communication apps like Slack, collaboration tools like Trello, and video conferencing software like Zoom, which have been crucial in retaining employee engagement, satisfaction and collaboration.

However, implementing too many solutions can also be problematic. Finding the perfect balance takes time but cultivating a digital working environment for employees to work flexibly will be indispensable in the future.

2. Integrate Information Management Solutions

Recent research from Microsoft, Boston Consulting Group and KRC shows that although in some cases productivity has increased while working from home, one factor that has been severely affected by the pandemic is innovation. 

Innovation is fuelled by information, and so employers must strive to empower their team with the right tools so that internal data is organized and aggregated in a central repository, allowing it to be at the disposal of anyone that needs it. 

A recent Forrester survey found that between 60% and 73% of all data within corporations is never analyzed for insights or larger trends. Other studies reveal that employees spend 1.8 hours every day searching and gathering information – that’s time and money wasted. Information management solutions could be one answer to this problem, offering a streamlined and efficient tool for organizing and managing data, thus supporting businesses with the ambition of becoming data-driven while reducing employee time spent searching for information. By maximizing the potential of their workforce and allowing employees to give more uninterrupted focus to their work, organizations will benefit from both saved time and money. 

Learn More: Collaboration is Key to Improving Efficiency in Your Organization

3. Support Your Team

It is crucial that employees feel supported and valued for those businesses looking to create a constructive digital working environment. Maintaining a high level of job satisfaction and employee engagement is fundamental to maintaining productivity and innovation. Organizations with high employee engagement can reap the benefits of many performance enhancing outcomes, such as increased profitability of 21%.

Business leaders must be prepared to make the necessary investments to support their employees as required, whether that be through digital tools, training, or even personal development activities. Investing in your employees will allow each member of your team to perform at their best, producing quality output and ultimately improving business performance.

Final Thoughts

The digital hybrid workplace is here to stay. There may be swings of the pendulum back to more site-based work, but it’s clear that employees will be working and collaborating through digital tools for the duration. As all of your competitors move in this same direction, the pressure will mount to get better at digital employee experience by investing in digital workplace technology.