TOP 3 workflow trends for hybrid teams in 2022
Updated: Sep 28, 2022
The future of work is hybrid. In fact, a Microsoft survey found that 66% of leaders are contemplating office space redesigning to accommodate a distributed workforce. But managing employees from different locations creates a severe need to replace inefficient manual processes with user-friendly digital workflow across the entire organization.
Currently, there is a massive war for talent going on. If your processes are mainly manual, making it difficult to get work done efficiently, and you're competing against another organization that enables people to work on their preferred devices … then you're probably going to lose that talent.
As workspaces continue to evolve, workflow needs to keep up so that team members can work on mission-critical tasks and organizations can stay relevant in increasingly volatile markets. The employee experience can be confusing and disjointed without a digital workflow that connects an organization. One of your departments might require employees to send an email to get a question answered, and another might depend on a help desk or spreadsheet.
These time-consuming and inefficient processes don't translate to a dispersed workforce. They carry out inconsistencies and don't allow easy insight into potential bottlenecks and risks. Manual processes also force your team members to focus on the wrong tasks. Plenty of trends are driving the shift to a digital workflow, and we have gathered the top 3:
Data analytics & employee insights are key for managers and leaders
Analytics and data are crucial to understanding end-user performance and which user communities are impacted. Understanding every level of your hybrid workflow and ecosystem provides layers of insights and intelligence that create innovation, cost management, team cohesion, and growth.
While more and more of the workforce wants to stay remote, it's crucial to know how employees work. The use of employee productivity tracking tools has been rising since 2020, and according to Gartner's analysis, 16% of employers are using more of these tools.
Expanding employees across a hybrid ecosystem strengthens the need for feedback, insight, and monitoring productivity and engagement. The use of data insight technology helps you understand workflows and how your teams are working. These technology investments are key in future decision-making for the continued evolution of an organization's culture and operations.
In today's hybrid working environment, availability and performance issues disrupt success. Observability solutions need to process, consume, and analyze logs, metrics, and traces to understand every aspect of an organization's processes.
Focus on employee well-being is a necessity for attracting & retaining talent
Employees engaged in their work understand clearly how their contributions fit into success, driven by communication from leaders that each individual's work matters. Leaders should also note that their employees' well-being and growth are mutually beneficial and worth investing in.
The phrase "The Great Resignation" quickly became a part of everyone's lexicon in 2021. It describes the mass fleeing of workers in pursuit of jobs better aligned with personal goals and beliefs and more flexible work options. One of the most astonishing statistics came in 2021 from a United States Job openings and labor turnover report, stating 4.4 million Americans voluntarily left their jobs in September alone.
Now, that statistic encompasses those who left and those who quit after accepting a job elsewhere with nothing else lined up. Regardless, it speaks to the volume of employees leaving positions that no longer fit their expectations or needs.
The pandemic ushered in and amplified a hyper-productivity-fueled pandemic of burnout, leading employees in all industries to change their priorities from work to supporting their health and their families. As a result, new candidates and current talent have begun pushing companies to recognize and accommodate this shift.
With more and more remote employees, company culture lies less with an organization's ability to care for employees' lives outside of the office than with on-site benefits, such as the quintessential ping-pong tables and sponsored happy hours.
It's anticipated this year will see more iterations of new candidates and current talent choosing whether or not to onboard or stay based on how an organization values its employees. Leaders have started to react, incorporating employee well-being into their strategies more than ever.
Improving Employee Experience (EX)
Organizations are seeking solutions for embracing this "new normal," considering the above trends. A hybrid-work model that keeps employees connected and engaged will require organizations to lean into technology and workflow, which improves the employee experience.
It's essential to use a set of functionality pillars:
· Connections – Communications and Culture
· Insights – Well-being and productivity
· Topics – Expertise and people
· Learning – Growth and skills
Many businesses, especially smaller ones, need to increase their IT investment when moving toward a hybrid workflow. IT has been growing with each push toward digitization, but hybrid work still requires a high increase in IT resources. In a traditional office with on-premises servers, there would be at least one person providing IT support for employees. This person could walk around the office to address concerns directly while monitoring internal processes. This process might be challenging in a closed system, but it would be possible. But, in a hybrid setting, this approach is not possible. Hardware and software are not centralized anymore, yet business productivity should be maintained.
IT teams have found themselves stressed because of increased expectations of improving and maintaining a hybrid workflow IT infrastructure. Data processing, account management, communication systems, and data storage are all core functions that run directly through the IT department or at least enlist its support.
As understaffed IT groups struggle to keep up with demand, companies may find themselves at a higher risk of data breaches or other malicious actions. IT and security concerns are increasingly one and the same in a hybrid work model. By keeping these themes top of mind, you can develop key strategies to optimize your hybrid workspace and overcome IT challenges to ensure success now and well into the future.
Build strong and connected hybrid teams, boost engagement, support healthy hybrid culture and workflow, reduce spamming on communication channels, create an inclusive environment and improve communication for your hybrid teams with the Culturate platform. Sign up for a free demo here.
Perficient: Hybrid work trends 2022
WhatTheyThink: Adapting to a Hybrid Workflow: An Essential Checklist