Empower your employees to go further

Training is your skeleton key to unlocking efficiencies through tech.

Empower your
employees to unlock
tech's full potential

“Good technology, well used, creates efficiencies. It can remove those mundane routine tasks which chew up 20% of your time and allow you to focus on your core job. But also, from a wellbeing point, it gives people their time back.”
Will Richards, Workplace Deployment Director, ISS Facility Services UK

Technology is a force to be reckoned with in the hands of an empowered employee. Tech and employee skills are intertwined, each one less effective without the other.

To get the most out of your legacy technology, you need your employees to be using the tech as efficiently as possible.

50% of leaders believe less than half of their team members are currently using unified communications and collaboration tools
to their full extent.

To what extent, if at all, do you believe your teams use the full capabilities that unified communications and collaboration tools provide?

At larger organisations we
see a more efficient use of communication tools.

22% of respondents from companies with 500+ employees say between three quarters
to all of their employees are
using these tools to their
full capabilities.

11% of public sector respondents believed their employees were using less than a quarter of
the full capabilities of their
unified communication and
collaboration tools.

“You need to simplify your environment. It’s about making sure there’s a convergence of technology, a unified comms channel, to ensure you get a more uniform approach from staff.”
Paul Treacy, Principal ICT Infrastructure and Operations Consultant, Cabinet Office

This inefficiency can often be down to an abundance of collaboration tools – Slack, Teams, Whatsapp, all competing with one another and dividing employee attention. The solution is to switch to a unified communications tool which not only streamlines processes but reduces pressure on your employees.

But it can also be down to a lack of training. The saying goes ‘a poor workman blames their tools’. But what if the workman in question hasn’t been taught how to use those tools properly?

Train to close the efficiency gap

When we asked respondents what their biggest internal challenges were in 2023, employee attraction and retention and employee productivity were among the most prominent. The public sector was more likely than the private sector to report employee attraction and retention as the internal challenge they’re most concerned about for 2023 (19% vs. 17%).

This is likely due to needing to compete with the pull of private sector salaries during a difficult time for government organisations.

“There's a brain drain and a real concern about staff retention and staff wellbeing. We’ve got people saying, well, “I'm going to have to change roles and go to the private sector”. That's the biggest concern that faces us as a technical team.”
Paul Treacy, Principal ICT Infrastructure and Operations Consultant, Cabinet Office

What internal challenges are you most concerned about for 2023, if any?

Meanwhile digital skills are still an issue for some organisations.

18% of respondents told us that employee resistance to technology or limited digital skills within their organisation holds back their efficiency. This rises to 31% when we look at policing, where new technology can often come with a lack of training due to budgetary difficulties. As employee experience becomes more and more important, training must come first and foremost.

Indeed the digital skills gap sits at the very heart of the ongoing
battle for talent. Skilled workers are in exceptionally high demand,
and for good reason.

While rising costs have risen to the forefront of organisations’ concerns, the battle for talent isn’t going away. Investing in your people is a sure-fire way to help tackle operational efficiencies and therefore costs.

After all, employees actively seek out training in their workplaces. 42% of employees would be more likely to stay in their current job if their employers provided more regular, intensive training on the use of digital technology, according to our battle for talent research.

Training won’t just help you get the most out of your existing tech investments. it will also attract and retain top talent – talent that
will be adept at getting the most out of technology.

“Collaboration is all about making sure all your different applications work together. Most of the time people haven’t yet got the skillset to do this properly. And many can be overwhelmed with the amount of tools available. If you don’t have the clear direction on how each process works, then you become less productive, not more productive.” Joe Di Fede, IT Director, ESG Limited

Does your organisation offer regular technology training to its employees?

Regularly
Rarely
Not at all

Focus on recruitment and retention

Rising costs are not exclusive from spending time and energy on employee attraction and retention. UK decision makers deprioritising these crucial focuses will miss out on the opportunity to bring down their operational costs.

Yet employee experience is still languishing low down the priority list for decision makers. 22% selected employee experience as a focus for the year ahead.

Recruitment also seems to have become less of a focus. 10% said it was the external challenge they’re most concerned about for 2023.

Which of the following operational focuses are the most important for the year ahead, if any?

At a time when costs are tight not just for organisations but for individuals, a focus on employee experience is a must-have. Empowering employees to work how and where they need to cannot be underestimated. We’ve seen extremely positive progress in this, yet there is still work to be done.

11% of respondents still have limited accessibility to remote work capabilities – more than three years on since this shift began. This figure rises to 24% in professional services, directly affecting employees who want or need to hybrid work.

While the hybrid working conversation has become less prominent in the media, it is now a core component of any organisation which wishes to create an empowering and productive workplace for its people.

“Retaining and attracting talent is certainly a challenge. At times, you’re having to maintain a service and develop new services at the same time as refreshing perhaps 25-30% of your workforce, who are doing work on assets everyone is relying on 24/7.”
Andrew Hunt, Director of ESG & Innovation, M Group Services

Has the focus on employee experience at your orginisation negatively shifted in the face of
2023's headwinds?

Key takeaways:

Train your employees in using existing and new technology – there’s an efficiency gap when it comes to tech tools, and training is the bridge your organisation needs.
Maintain focus on employee experience in the face of 2023’s economic headwinds, your people are your greatest asset for driving efficiency.