Efficiency in the work environment: Why is the near future (is, after all) exciting?

Workplace Efficiency

In recent years, our work environment has been filled with technological tools that were supposed to improve our efficiency and allow us to focus on creating value and impact. (essential factors for developing motivation)

In practice, this is not the case. In a survey we run in the CS community, we found that employees use an average of five different tech tools in their work environment. But, while the tools were supposed to help us be more efficient, the reality is still far from that. 😵

 The most common feedback was that the tools generate more work and do not enable them to do their job better. It creates frustration and burnout. Why? 

1️⃣- Employees feel overwhelmed by the number of tasks and processes. Only 40% of them feel they can handle the amount of work. (sense of competence) They stated that most tools trigger more processes, changing the organizational culture, documenting records manually, and investing in repetitive tasks and monitoring them (up to an hour a day) instead of creating an impact and increasing business value. (only 50% of working time is spent on creating value)

2️⃣- Employees feel learning and drawing conclusions is challenging because the data is scattered, hard to digest, and needs a broad and intelligent context. 

3️⃣- The tech structure in the work environment and the hybrid work model make it challenging to collaborate with different functions while they rely on the same functions to do their work. 

What would employees want in a perfect world?

✅ Zero time on administration/repetitive tasks.

✅ Consuming information in one place and reducing the number of changes.

✅ Receiving data with context, easy to digest, which produces proactivity with minimal effort.

✅ Collaboration with other functions without leaving the personal work environment.

Why am I still optimistic?

In the last few weeks, I have had dozens of conversations with industry leaders in the Bizops/Revops space. Companies understand that providing employees with great tools is insufficient to generate efficiency. Instead, there is a need to create a cohesive technological ecosystem that will not change the workplace culture repeatedly.

Instead of implementing separate tools, we need to create an integrated ecosystem that connects the various tools to work together smoothly without taking the employees out of their natural work environment with the help of advanced technology. (AI) The will and the technology are already entirely there, but the tools and the methodology are still under construction.

The adoption of these technologies is happening at a crazy pace but in a decentralized way. Some of us already use Chat GPT and various other tools released daily, but there is not necessarily a connecting framework between them. According to Gartner’s Hype Cycle on the Digital Work Environment (August 22), the focus on a smart work environment is currently at its peak.

In practice, it sounds like the need is for an intelligent platform that is easily integrated into our work environment, identifies repetitive elements, offers relevant information with a personalized context (meetings/tasks/stakeholders), and works for us within our natural work environment, proactively. (From meeting preparations and summaries to completing admin tasks and synchronizing with all stakeholders)

A few years ago, this would have sounded like science fiction, but now it is a necessary evolution in the near term. 

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