#Workplace Archives

Improving meeting by integrating them & Collaboration Technology

Posted on 16/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Are your meetings like the weather? You know, everyone complains about them, but no one seems to be able to do anything about it. We’ve all endured long, boring meetings that feel endless. And we’ve all struggled through an exhausting, frantic week overfilled with back-to-back meetings. The higher your job title, the more time you likely spend in meetings. Some CEOs, for example, do little else.

Even worse, many meetings fail to achieve their goals. Nearly half the respondents to a recent survey of office workers called too many meetings their No. 1 time-waster. In another survey, respondents rated about 1 in 10 meetings as poor.

Despite these challenges, your organization can dramatically improve its meetings. The key, which I’ll explain in more detail below, is using collaboration products and services that are integrated. Rather than working individually, these integrated products and services can provide you with a true meeting solution that’s seamless from beginning to end.

Wrong-way down

If the solution is that simple, then why have past attempts to improve meetings failed so miserably? Two main reasons:

1. Process focus

Many past approaches at improving meetings focused too heavily on avoiding certain behaviors. For example, some business leaders forbade the use of PowerPoint. Others ruled that no meetings could run longer than 30 minutes. Still others — including celebrity execs Mark Cuban and Elon Musk — went as far as instituting policies of no meetings at all!

But few of us have the level of autonomy needed to completely forbid the use of PowerPoint or hour-long meetings. Even if we did, PowerPoint can be useful, and long meetings are sometimes necessary. As a result, these process approaches rarely work.

2. Standalone tech

Until recently, the marketplace was overwhelmed with far too many collaboration products. Most of these products were designed for standalone use, meaning they could not be easily integrated with other products. While some level of product integration was possible, that work had to be done by the user. Unfortunately, many users already had IT budgets and staff stretched thin, so they tended to put this integration work on the back burner, often permanently.

The integration solution

What’s new is the emergence of collaboration solutions that are truly integrated. Now you can deliver a seamless process from the minute a meeting is booked all the way to its post-meeting notes. Integration also means that all meeting participants can benefit from this seamless experience, regardless of their location and which devices (and operating systems) they use.

Here’s an example of how your meetings could be enhanced with an integrated solution:

Before the meeting: The meeting organizer tells their AI-powered voice assistant to review the participants’ smart calendars, select a date and time that works for all, review the meeting-room calendar to find an available room at a convenient location, and finally email invitations to all intended participants. Each participant can join via a common interface — and on any device from any location.
During the meeting: Meetings can be started automatically, either by recognizing the chairperson’s device or with a voice assistant. Remote workers participate via integrated video and chat solutions. The entire team collaborates using a smart whiteboard and document-sharing capabilities.
After the meeting: Videos, text-based notes, PowerPoint decks and other meeting materials are automatically shared with all participants, regardless of whether they use a PC, tablet or smartphone – and regardless of which operating system (Windows, iOS, Android, etc.) these devices run on.

In the near future, meetings could become even more productive with the help selected technologies now in the early stages of development. For example, AI transcribing services will provide written transcripts, accurately capturing and identifying the spoken contributions of all participants. Similarly, auto-summarization tools will automatically generate a short set of text notes after a meeting ends, informing participants of the project’s status, new tasks and more.

Get help here

While selecting an integrated meeting solution is easier than it’s ever been, that’s not to say it’s simple. Today’s solutions are not one-size-fits-all. You still need to consider your organization’s unique needs and requirements. Only then will you be able to select the best possible solution. A trusted partner like Anteelo can help you evaluate integrated meeting solutions and find the one that’s right for your needs.

Digital IT support gets smarter, transform employee experience

Posted on 15/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

When companies prioritize their digital transformation initiatives, modernizing IT support might not be at the top of the list. But there’s nothing that creates a bigger drain on employee productivity and ultimately impacts business outcomes more than a disruption in an employee’s critical work activities, compounded by an unsatisfactory interaction with IT support and service desks.

The traditional, non-standardized service desk is facing a variety of challenges. Digital solutions are increasing across the entire IT landscape, introducing extensive change and escalating requests for support. When service desks themselves move from manual to digital processes, they will need more skilled expertise (which many enterprises lack), along with a disciplined approach to understanding how to apply and introduce automation – tasks made more difficult by constrained budgets.

Meanwhile, the nature of workforce support is changing in today’s gig economy as companies rely more on contractors who expect an intuitive and agile experience when dealing with the service desk – and as expectations among all employees for superior customer service continue to rise. People want personalization. They want to connect on their own terms, whether that’s getting proactive guidance from a virtual agent, talking to a smart bot, choosing self-service from a system that anticipates their needs, connecting to a human agent, or receiving face-to-face support. And they want their problem resolved quickly and painlessly – ideally without even having to ask for help.

Forward-thinking companies are increasingly moving to digital service desks that take advantage of AI, machine learning and advanced data analytics to more efficiently and effectively respond to the expectations of today’s workers. Moving to a modern service desk also lays the groundwork for a future in which the service desk proactively detects and fixes problems before they occur, without the employee even knowing about it. And eventually, the service desk will become more like a personal digital assistant, anticipating employee actions and automating low-level functions through technologies like robotic process automation (RPA).

Of course, companies can’t accomplish these goals all at once. The preferred method of transforming the service desk is to take a phased approach that provides quick wins and builds a solid foundation for next steps.

Characteristics of a digital service desk

Here are the three phases of a good digital IT service desk journey:

Reactive: In this phase, companies take advantage of embedded analytics, AI and machine learning to provide a self-service experience that is intuitive and simple to use, while at the same time is contextually aware and adapts dynamically to the employee’s environment. On the backend, unified support is unified across IT, HR and facilities functions to provide an end-to-end channel that is engaging and fast. An always-on virtual agent or service bot offers an “on demand” dedicated support agent that can converse in natural language to help employees instantly. The agent is plugged into the company’s knowledge bases and ITSM system.
Proactive and predictive: Captured analytics from the employee device provides data that enables machine learning and AI tools to identify issues that are likely to crop up. The system then automatically takes action to resolve the issue. This smart support detects and proactively prevents disruptions before they occur, keeping employees productive and lightening the load on the service desk.
Digital assistant: The final step would be an advanced use of analytics, AI and RPA to understand an employee’s work routine and orchestrate actions on that employee’s behalf. Taking mundane tasks off an employee’s plate gives them more time to be amazing by focusing on what they do best to benefit the business.

There are many benefits associated with transforming the traditional service desk:

Providing exceptional customer service in a support desk context is a cornerstone to empowering workers, making employees feel more engaged and valued.
The use of automation, AI and self-service channels frees up support staff for higher level activities and helps the IT department control service desk costs.
Finally, business outcomes are improved because employees are operating at peak efficiency.

Digital support desks enable enterprises to deliver new levels of employee experience, optimize support and establish a competitive edge – everything today’s enterprises demand.

Prepare your workforce for the future- 4 steps

Posted on 14/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

What’s the best way to prepare for the workforce of the future? With news of Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and others investing billions in training, you’d be forgiven for thinking the answer is simply “reskilling the workforce.”

And yet, reskilling is only one part of the solution. Creating the workforce of tomorrow requires a holistic approach to learning that enables the continuous development of new skills, a higher level of engagement, and an agile and thoughtful response to ongoing change. This, in turn, requires putting learning at the very core of the entire organization.

Vanguard organizations are already preparing the workforce by making learning foundational. Your organization can begin to do the same by taking these four action steps:

1. Make learning opportunities available to everyone in your complex demographic landscape.

Today’s workplace demographics are complex, composed of multiple generations with varying experience levels, specialization, tenure and learning preferences. HR practitioners must now determine how to leverage people, process, and technology around this workforce.

Globalization also affects employee learning and development. Workforces in different countries may need instruction that is sensitive to varied cultural and language preferences; remote employees need access to mobile learning and development tools. Similarly, the rise of part-time and gig employees requires organizations to think beyond traditional, synchronous, and on-location training.

Action: Increase engagement and productivity—and facilitate a valuable sense of community and collaboration—by providing training and career development opportunities to the entire workforce, including in-house, remote, global, part-time, and even gig workers.

2. Democratize talent with teams.

Today, an organization’s ability to pivot in the marketplace depends on agility—and agility requires a workforce that is networked and collaborative, i.e., team-based. Teams, unlike the traditional (and rigid) corporate hierarchy of the past, can form, dissolve and morph as needed to meet new and changing business needs.

Team-based structures also more effectively harness the expertise and wisdom of all employees, at all levels. In a team-based structure, someone may have only one year of experience, but they may also have the right expertise to contribute to a team’s success or even lead a team. And that’s the big “Aha!” moment, realizing that anyone can step up to contribute or lead.

Action: Democratizing talent means giving all employees an opportunity to contribute, regardless of tenure, assuming they have evidence-based knowledge and insights to share. Don’t dismiss employees’ perspectives or ideas based on age, tenure or role.

3. Understand and enable “learning while working.”

How can workers continue to be relevant amid the increased use of AI, cognitive technologies and other disruptors to traditional workflows? By engaging in continuous learning. For organizations, this requires making learning available within the flow of work, moving development from the periphery of the employee experience—day-long courses, five-minute videos, synchronous and asynchronous e-learning—to its core. You deliver learning opportunities directly to employees and make them conveniently accessible at all times. The right technology can make learning a natural part of everyday tasks and eliminate the time employees are physically or cognitively separate from work.

Action: Use tools designed to make learning integral to everyday work life. Consider technologies that not only ensure content is relevant for each individual but also integrate learning opportunities directly into daily work tools, e.g., Microsoft Office, Slack, and Salesforce.

4. Apply programs, solutions, and technologies designed to optimize collaborative learning.

Collaborative learning, when done right, accelerates the collective intelligence of an organization—a potentially powerful competitive differentiator in an era of constant change. When people come together to solve a business problem, you gain greater organizational intellectual property and intelligence than if you were to ask each person to solve the problem individually. It’s the same with learning. When people learn together, they become collectively something greater by hearing and responding to each other’s insights and informed observations.

Action: Better manage and distribute informal knowledge and employee insights. Employ collaborative learning technologies to make individual experience, wisdom, and insight available to a large, distributed learning population.

The steps to reskill your workforce for the Age of Automation

Posted on 14/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

The age of automation is radically disrupting work as we know it. By 2022, seventy-five million jobs in 20 economies are expected to disappear, just as 133 million new jobs are created. And by 2030, McKinsey predicts that 375 million workers will need to find new work, as automation increasingly takes over traditionally human tasks.

Coping with this unprecedented change will require both a new way of working and what the World Economic Forum (WEF) and others are calling a “reskilling revolution.” WEF research suggests that, at minimum, 54% of all workers will need either reskilling or upskilling by 2022.

Fortunately, some organizations are already aware of this urgent need. Research by McKinsey discovered that 66% of surveyed executives saw “‘addressing potential skills gaps related to automation/digitization’ within their workforces as at least a ‘top-ten priority.’” A few organizations are even ahead of the reskilling curve, already making investments in programs designed to prepare workers for new roles:

JPMorgan Chase invested $350 million in a five-year global initiative called New Skills at Work. The investment will create new training programs, bolster collaboration and communication, enable research, and build upskilling opportunities.
Amazon’s Upskilling 2025 will reskill 100,000 workers by 2025. An investment of $700 million is earmarked for reskilling employees across all areas of the organization, including corporate, warehouse, retail, and transportation.
AT&T has invested one billion dollars in Future Ready, an internal program designed to reskill more than 100,000 workers.

The risk of not reskilling

JPMorgan Chase, Amazon, and AT&T know that keeping pace with the age of automation will require employees who are agile, flexible, and adept at learning. But what will happen to organizations that don’t address the need to reskill the workforce?

Organizations slow to adapt won’t fall behind overnight. They’ll fall behind slowly until it’s too late to catch up. The problem is, with the age of automation, that if you get behind on something this big—reskilling— you can’t double or triple your pace to keep up. People can’t adapt that fast. And organizations probably don’t have enough money to buy all the talent they need.

Five action steps to take now to address reskilling for the age of automation:

Identify the risk areas for automation. Certain areas will be obvious—rote processes, tasks that can be done faster and more efficiently via automation. Other areas won’t be as obvious: Experts predict that jobs such as insurance underwriting, pharmaceutical discovery, and long-haul trucking will be automated by 2030.
Identify what skills the company needs to succeed long term. Look at what the organization needs to continue existing work, as well as expand into new areas of work. What challenges are showing up in the marketplace and what key skills will help overcome those challenges?
Examine existing employee skills. Can employees transition to different areas of the organization or will they need to be completely reskilled? If they need to be reskilled, do they currently lack hard or soft skills? Can new skills be learned on the job or will employees need formal training, and if so, for how long?
Determine the right training for the right skill. While videos and microlearning are useful for just-in-time learning, effective reskilling in the age of automation will require far more than a library of courses. Technology and self-paced courses have a role to play, just not the starring one. A mix of learning modalities—instructor-led, microlearning, coaching mentoring—will provide employees with the best opportunity to learn and retain complex skills.
Communicate with everyone. Every employee at every level needs to understand how critical reskilling is to the future of the organization, and by extension, their own futures. Informing all stakeholders on a regular basis about the organization’s plans for the future can alleviate the fear of change and job loss, thus keeping employees motivated and engaged.

Wait and see? Or act now?

For organizations that want to remain competitive in the age of automation, a “wait and see” approach isn’t a viable option. It’s death by a thousand cuts for companies that don’t start to change now.

But getting started doesn’t require a major investment. I recommend organizations begin today by making small adjustments in the right direction—adjustments that over time add up to successful and sustainable change. Figure out the skills you are going to need. Communicate with everyone about upcoming changes. And use the right training for the right skill. Create small course corrections now so that your organization is on the right track and employees are more adaptable and engaged.

Digital transformation on the basis of risk: From hype to reality

Posted on 13/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

The digital movement is real. Consumers now possess more content at their fingertips than ever before, and it has impacted how we do business. Companies like Airbnb, Uber, and Waze have disrupted typical business models, forcing established players in different industries to find ways to stay relevant in the ever-emerging digital age. This post is not about that. Well, not in the strictest sense.

There are countless articles explaining the value of being digital. On the other hand, there are very few articles about how to get there. Let’s explore how to get there together, through an approach that I have named Risk-Based Transformation. RBT’s strength is that it puts technology, application, information, and business into one equation.

An approach that fits your specific needs

I’m relocating very soon, and with that comes the joys of a cross-country journey. Being the planning type, I started plotting my journey. I didn’t really know how to start, so I went to various websites to calculate drive times. I even found one that would give you a suggested route based on a number of inputs. These were great tools but they were not able to account for some of my real struggles, like how far is too far to drive with a 5- and 3-year-old.

Where are the best rest stops where we can “burn” energy — ones that have a playground or a place to run? (After being cooped up in a car for hours, getting exercise is important!) How about family- and pet-friendly places to visit along the way to break up the trip? What about the zig-zag visits we need to make to see family?

The list goes on. So while I was able to use these tools to create a route, it wasn’t one that really addressed any of the questions that were on my mind. Organizations of all sizes and across all industries are on this digital journey but often the map to get there is too broad, too generic, and doesn’t provide a clear path based on your unique needs.

A different approach is needed, one in which you can benefit from the experience of others, whilst taking the uniqueness of your business into account. Like planning a trip, it’s good to use outside views in particular to give that wider industry view; however, that’s only a piece of the puzzle. Each business has its own culture, struggles, and goals that bring a unique perspective.

RBT framework

To help with this process, I have created a framework for RBT. At a high level, RBT takes into account your current technology (infrastructure), application footprint, the value of the information, and risk to the business. From left to right, the least weight to the highest. This framework gives a sense as to where to start and where the smart spend is. See flow below:

Following this left to right, you can add or remove evaluation factors based on your needs. Each chevron has a particular view, in a vacuum if you will, so the technology is rated based only on itself. It will gain its context as you move through each chevron. This will give you a final score. The higher the score, the higher the risk to the business.

Depending on your circumstances, you can approach it David Letterman style and take your top 10 list of transformation candidates and run it through the next logic flow (watch for a future blog on how to determine treatment methodology). Or, as we did with a client recently, you can start with your top 50 applications. The point is to get to a place that enables you to start making informed next steps that meet your needs and budget to get the most “bang” for your investment.

The idea behind this framework is to use data in the right context to present an informed view. For example, you can build your questionnaires on SharePoint or Slack, or another collaboration platform that also allows the creation of dashboard views. You can build dashboards in Excel, Access, MySQL, or whatever technology you’re comfortable with in order to build an informed data-driven view, evaluating risk against transformation objectives. The key is that you need to assign values to questions in order to calculate consistent measurements across the board.

A living framework

Many years ago, when you plotted your cross-country drive on your map it was based on information from a fixed time. This was the best route when I drew the line on the map. Now, personal navigation devices hooked into real-time data change that course based on current conditions. In the same way, the RBT model is a living framework; it should have regular iterations in order to have course corrections as you go forward.

The intent of this framework and thinking is to build a context that makes sense for your needs, and then present data in a context that allows for better planning. That better planning should lead to a more efficient digital journey as we all continue to stay with, or ahead of, the curve.

If you have enjoyed this, look forward to my next post. There I will detail how the RBT framework is applied and the treatment buckets methodology.

Learn to deploy the game-changing Windows Virtual Desktop

Posted on 13/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

The recent surge in ransomware and data breach incidents illustrates the vulnerability of IT workplace environments and the huge impact that these attacks can have on the entire organization. In response, companies are increasingly looking to desktop virtualization as a way to run the desktop OS in a remote data center where it can be better protected against such attacks. Historically, the implementation, operation, and management of a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) have been complex, and when done incorrectly, can create risk. In a typical VDI deployment, a significant amount of infrastructure has to be managed and maintained, including the servers/virtual machines, load-balancers, networking systems, and endpoints. VDI is costly in terms of IT staff time, hardware, and software licensing. On top of that, companies need to make sure there are high-availability and disaster recovery systems in place so that end users are still able to work in case of a system outage. And unfortunately, in many cases, real-world deployments have failed to deliver the consistent performance that end-users require. But all that is about to change thanks to Microsoft’s announcement of Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD). This disruptive new service enables companies to run Windows-based VDI in the Microsoft Azure cloud, with multiple Windows 10 users active simultaneously on the same virtual machines, and with each user’s data isolated from every other user.

Why Windows Virtual Desktop is a game-changer

Windows Virtual Desktop provides significant benefits over on-premises and competing for cloud-based deployments:

1. Reduces cost: Compelling new licensing models reduce complexity and provide significant cost savings. For one thing, companies don’t need to maintain separate Windows Server licensing agreements. For another, WVD includes Windows 7 extended support — without requiring added end-of-life support payments — so companies dealing with legacy applications that only run on Windows 7 can still benefit from moving to cloud-based VDI as part of a broader digital transformation effort.

2. Provides safe, secure access in a simplified environment: A free control plane – the software that orchestrates the creation and management of desktop and app session hosts — authenticates users and determines where to direct their desktop connections. This means companies no longer must set up separate virtual machines for functions like web access, diagnostics, application gateways and request brokers.

3. Drives efficiency with integrated Microsoft components: WVD, co-resident with Office 365 and your OneDrive data in Azure, drives fast response time and efficiencies. Microsoft will continue to optimize performance, as they own all the components.

4. Facilitates workforce flexibility: From a business perspective, WVD opens up new employee use cases, securely and cost-effectively embracing the gig economy movement of using independent, short-term contractors, for example. With WVD, contractors can bring their own devices to the office and establish secure connections to the Azure cloud in order to access the applications and data they need to do their jobs.

How to optimize your WVD deployment

WVD is an important addition to an enterprise VDI ecosystem, a true game changer that can help companies cut the costs and complexity associated with desktop lifecycle management, as well as deliver rock-solid security.

However, enterprise VDI ecosystems frequently are complex because they contain some workloads that still need to stay on-prem for various security, privacy, regulatory, or availability reasons. A modern desktop and application virtualization solution will need to manage all these delivery systems together as a whole.

Here are three ways to get the most out of your enterprise Windows Virtual Desktop deployment:

Accelerate adoption: Start your deployment using your existing control plane to allow easy adoption and easy workload balancing with your current delivery infrastructure. While this approach comes at an additional cost, it facilitates rapid adoption. For simple out-of-the-box WVD support, Citrix Virtual App and Desktop Services is ready for WVD from day 1.
Track and manage the user experience: Add end-to-end user experience monitoring across all delivery systems — optimizing both the network and the endpoints which is particularly important when rich collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams is in use. And as these new delivery models are introduced, you can use these monitoring tools to compare and contrast cost alongside performance.
Review your endpoint strategy: Use the change to revisit endpoint management and leverage new advancements in hardware and software thin-client systems. Harden endpoints to reduce the attack vector and simplify management at the device level through a next-generation edge device OS. Leverage management systems to gain an insightful, end-to-end view from endpoint systems.

In short, WVD is a major disruptor in the desktop virtualization space and an important component to consider including in your digital workplace transformation journey.

WVD offers a secure and cost-effective cloud-based digital workplace solution. However, given the complexity of deployment, you might also want to consider partnering with an experienced managed service provider that delivers an end-to-end solution with WVD and the relevant components – and makes sure WVD meets your specific business, IT and employee needs.

Mobility integration and risk management challenge in healthcare

Posted on 13/09/202010/06/2021 by Tushar

Providing mobility to busy clinicians is increasingly recognized as an essential part of delivering care to patients. There are, however, issues regarding development, integration, and security that need to be overcome.

Consideration must be given to the user interface. If it isn’t intuitive and user-friendly, adoption will be lower, and an investment in a solution that is not adequately used is wasted. In addition to a focus on usability, the organization must prepare clinicians for any workflow changes mobility will bring about and provide the right support and training to ensure a high level of adoption.

It’s also important to consider integration with legacy systems. Developers will need to ensure that the solution works with the various healthcare systems of record employed by the organization. That raises some interesting questions about whether current systems need to be updated to integrate with the solution. Will the mobile solution allow for bi-directional flow of information? And if that’s made possible, what is the source of truth for information?

For example, while speaking to a patient’s spouse, a doctor might find out that the patient has an allergy to peanuts. But there’s no information in the system indicating any allergy. It should be possible to update the patient’s records in real-time so other clinicians can immediately see that information. Conversely, clinicians’ access should be limited to their function. For example, nurses should have the right to view and administer medication information but not to prescribe medication (other than those approved by their registration and qualification).

Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standards are driving a new level of data interoperability and aggregation, enabling records to be provided to mobile users in real-time. But, organizations will have to look at their underlying systems of record, not just mobility.

Risk management

As healthcare organizations prepare to embrace mobility, it will be important to ensure that corporate policy is addressed governing access to patient data — where, when, and by whom. The right governance structures need to be in place for implementation to ensure that organizations adhere to policies about how patient information is accessed and how records are tracked with mobility.

A breach of patient data would be a serious issue. One way to guard against that might be to implement secure sign-in options such as multifactor sign-in and biometric login. But that does require the device to support such functions as facial recognition software and/or fingerprint readers.

While organizations might worry about the loss or theft of a device, there are fairly simple ways to address this. For example, it’s possible to enable mobile access without storing data on the device. And even if data is on the device, it should be encrypted when stored, sent, or received to prevent interference or misuse. Device and application profiles can also enable data to be wiped from the device remotely or enable the device to be locked or formatted to prevent further use.

Preparing for mobility

Clinicians want mobility and while challenges exist, there are many ways to overcome them. Ultimately, mobility allows clinicians to access records and data in real-time and to send important patient information back into the systems of record in real-time.

Mobility has been successfully implemented in other industries and in some digitally advanced healthcare organizations. The objective should be to allow mobility to become commonplace to improve healthcare workflow and enhance patient care.

Mobility stack up-ROI weight against overall healthcare outcomes

Posted on 13/09/202010/06/2021 by Tushar

There is growing evidence that mobility brings significant benefits to clinicians. However, some of the common sticking points with any new technology are cost and choosing the right solution for the organization.

Let’s start by assessing the financial factors or return on investment (ROI) and what approach to mobile makes the most sense.

There’s a cost to making mobility a reality and healthcare organizations must weigh up whether the investment will yield the returns expected. However, the ROI on mobility should be looked at from higher level, one that affects the healthcare institution and even healthcare overall. One of the purposes of mobility is it improves data availability, which in turn should result in fewer unnecessary tests and treatments and less delay. If a hospital isn’t doing unnecessary tests, this not only reduces costs but potentially frees up beds sooner for the next patient. Mobility also enables workflow efficiencies and ensures more accurate information is available as and when required, improving clinical care and reducing readmissions.

It should also be remembered that most facilities have a budget for technology advancements, so rather than thinking about mobility as an additional cost, it should be considered as part of the overall package of advancing the organization’s technology capabilities.

What investment makes most sense?

If an investment is considered worthwhile, the next question is, what or which mobile solution should organizations invest in and how will this decision be made?

The investment decision will depend on the size of the organization and its needs. For example, a hospital will have a different mobile focus than a community organization. Decision-makers need to ask what will make the biggest difference to a mobile workforce and enable them to achieve better and more efficient workflow, 24/7. The advantage of mobile is it allows users to access information without being deskbound.

Before choosing the solution, it’s important to first identify the problems that need to be solved and pick a solution that best fits the users’ needs, within the confines of the organization’s budget. Thought should also be given to the longer-term needs of the organization, such as the expansion of telehealth services and hospital-in-the-home capabilities.

Does BYOD make sense?

There’s also the cost of the hardware to consider. Will the hospital or healthcare organization be supplying the device or will clinicians be encouraged to bring their own device (BYOD)? How will mobility work with the health facility’s current internet services? Are WiFi speeds and connectivity suitable for mobility?

It seems likely that this will become the preferred option for several reasons: Most clinicians have their own mobile devices and people typically are more comfortable using technologies they are familiar with. Furthermore, they typically upgrade more often than an organization might, and BYOD delivers a cost reduction to the organization.

While healthcare facilities may relinquish some security and control with BYOD, there are new alternatives and solutions. Devices are increasingly offering dual SIM compatibility and dual user profiles, which means clinicians can use a different SIM at work to the one they use privately. And the organization can implement greater controls over work-based SIMs/profiles. It’s also not difficult to block certain sites and applications when a device works off the organization’s WiFi. Mobile application management tools now have a host of features to support a BYOD model compared to the traditional mobile device management tools.

One concern might be that users won’t update their devices as often as is required for solution updates. This can easily be addressed with version control. Yes, that means those who aren’t willing to upgrade won’t have access, but data integrity should never be compromised. A flexible way to address the situation of users not wanting to use their own device or upgrade it as needed is to provide a bank of corporate facility devices that can be used on a day-to-day basis.

As with any new technology approach, there are always barriers, but in the long run the benefits to clinician efficiency and progressive care of patients is to enable mobility.

Dynamic nature of work- Digitally Transforming

Posted on 12/09/202010/06/2021 by Tushar

Long-anticipated, digital transformation is redefining jobs and roles. Digital technologies have transcended simple process acceleration and are deconstructing our old notions about work and the workplace.

Multiple gigs instead of one role

Mobile technologies in particular have catalyzed the development of the gig economy. What constitutes a job, who is an employee, and how work gets done is being completely reshuffled by the ability to work anytime, anywhere — because the digital workplace doesn’t recognize physical or occupational boundaries.

In this new gig model, one person is no longer constrained to one role. An employee can wear many hats and be involved in activities that span many roles; much of the work that gets done is accomplished by teams who switch roles and tasks seamlessly. Collaboration happens intuitively and digitally across corporate, physical and geographical boundaries. As workers exercise more independence and pick jobs they’re truly interested in, businesses can focus resources and investments and gain the flexibility to contract with specialists as needed.

Center of innovation and change

Here’s another difference: The workplace is becoming an important center of innovation and changes through vehicles like crowdsourcing and cross-corporation collaboration. Employees want companies to rethink how they manage and reward employees. Companies that understand the digital workplace have learned to embrace those employees who are interested in change and technology and to adopt them as beta customers to accelerate innovation. Early adopters can help companies spot new use cases, products and technologies that can have broad application in the enterprise.

Crowdsourced help

These trends and others have given IT organizations a lot to think about. IT can choose to stay the course with traditional policies and approaches, but this likely won’t end well. Today’s users won’t think twice about bypassing IT in favor of preferred devices and channels. Crowdsourced assistance is maturing and becoming more common. In the IT support space, for example, users are more likely to Google the answer to a problem — or contact a friend — than to wait for the company’s help desk to respond.

To prevent the inevitable friction between IT and users — and ultimately shadow IT, information silos, and productivity loss — IT should embrace crowdsourced help and introduce curation and knowledge management processes to ensure the correct answer is easy to find and productive help aligns with IT governance.

For example, gamification has been successfully used to reward good assistance and encourage participation from anyone with valuable experience. Whether in the form of badges, leaderboards, or points, employees are encouraged to help each other. An employee-run forum for technical support can award points to those employees who help others resolve their issues and close support tickets. Whether using points received for great help or awards based on the number of resolutions, a contributor can spend their reward in the company store.

Showing users their usage patterns can shape behaviors as well. A dashboard that details the number of Skype minutes a user consumed (encouraged) versus more expensive conference bridge minutes (discouraged) is a simple way to guide users toward the tools that are the most efficient and effective.

The workplace has changed, and with it, worker expectations. To get all the benefits from the new innovation-driven workplace, IT needs to offer employees the experience they expect or face the wrath of a digital mob.

User Adoption for a Chat Support Channel

Posted on 11/09/202010/06/2021 by Tushar

In general, chat adoption rates are still not as strong as clients would like. Those who simply built a chat option with the expectation that user would adopt it by themselves are seeing between 7% to 12% of their volume via chat.

Most of these organizations are doing nothing to promote chat as a support channel, assuming that users would gravitate to chat as many of them already have in their personal lives. That’s a mistake because, when it comes to social behavior adoption patterns, it is important to realize that users do not behave the same way in the workplace as in their private lives. User who would potentially prefer chatting will fall back to calling the service desk if that is what most of their coworkers do. After all, one of our strongest drivers as human beings is our desire to fit in amongst our group of peers. The weight that the old adage “When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do” has in our decision-making is often underestimated.

The key, then, to overcome adoption barriers, is to find ways to modify the behavior of a small percentage of the population – enough that the social trend starts to pull the rest toward the new desired behavior. (This is why group subscriptions to gyms are often more successful than individual promotions). Studies by Alex Pentland and the MIT MediaLab suggest that the frequency of contact and level of trust between the individuals is much more important than the pure number of people pushing the adoption of new behavior. One of their research studies found that user adoption of a new tool (a company social network in this case) was almost guaranteed if the user received at least three invitations from their trusted peers in a short period of time.

So, what does it take to specifically increase the chat channel adoption? Here are a few approaches:

Promote it. Remind users not only that the chat support channel exists, but that it’s good. (You should, of course, also make sure that it actually is a good service.)
Identify service advocates within the user community. Make them part of the promotion of the new channel and reward them for getting people to use the service. This can generate a domino effect, helping the social trend accelerate over time.
Make chat very accessible and easy to use. If picking up the phone on my desk is faster or easier, nothing will make me stop that behavior when I have an urgent issue. So, instead of giving chat the usual set of barriers — accessible only through a service portal that requires you to open a browser, find the URL, log in with credentials you may not remember, find the button on the page, provide basic info all before getting in a queue — why not allow direct access to support on a medium where users already chat, like Skype? This way, you tap into the built-in mental pattern that tools like Skype generate in our brains (I need to talk to someone, so I look for them in Skype, I chat with them).
Add innovative features that can make chat more appealing. For instance, AI virtual agents and automated translation would make service available 24×7 while improving quality, speed and accuracy.
Expose users to metrics on their personal contact behavior to incentivize the new behavior. For example, a campaign that makes them feel “out of touch” with the social norm can help. Instead of telling them “you should chat” or “chat is great,” it’s better to tell them “most users in your department chat with the service desk as the first channel” or “80% of your peers found chat more effective at resolving IT issues.”

With these recommendations, voluntary adoption of chat can increase from those averages around 10% to those around 20% or 25%. And as virtual assistant technology becomes more available, embedding a chat function within a Skype or Microsoft Teams environment becomes a more viable option. These virtual assistants contain a good library of responses built into an AI engine and will greatly enhance usability.

As things continue to evolve, many contact channel policies will change. We expect to see a day when all IT issues are first sent to the virtual agent before trying any other channel. Some companies may not even make other channels readily available to users. Instead, built-in integrations with a virtual assistant could enable users to request a chat with a live agent as a secondary option, or automatically log a ticket without human interaction. When paired with automated translation services, this will result in a smooth, seamless “chat-first” channel, and radically change how we think about global service desks in the future.

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