#Workplace Archives - Page 2 of 2

Remote workforces kept productive by IT support automation

Posted on 06/03/202015/06/2021 by Tushar

Enterprise clients have looked to automate IT support for several years. With millions of employees across the globe now working from home, support needs have increased dramatically, with many unprepared enterprises suffering from long service desk wait times and unhappy employees.

Many companies may have already been on a gradual pace to exploit digital solutions and enhance service desk operations, but automating IT support is now a greater priority. Companies can’t afford downtime or the lost productivity caused by inefficient support systems, especially when remote workers need more support now than ever before.

Digital technologies offer companies innovative and cost-effective ways to manage increased support loads in the immediate term, and free up valuable time and resources over the long-term. The latter benefit is critical, as enterprises increasingly look to their support systems to resolve more sophisticated and complex issues. Instead of derailing them, new automated support systems can empower workers by freeing them up to focus more on high-value work.

Businesses can start their journey toward digital support by using chatbots to manage common support tasks such as resetting passwords, answering ‘how to’ questions, and processing new laptop requests. Once basic support functions are under digital management, companies can then transition to layering in technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence and analytics among others.

An IT support automation ecosystem built on these capabilities can enable even greater positive outcomes – like intelligently (and invisibly) discovering and resolving issues before they have an opportunity to disrupt employees. In one recent example, Anteelo deployed digital support agents to help manage a spike of questions coming in from remote workers. The digital agents seamlessly handled a 20% spike in volume, eliminated wait times, and drove positive employee experiences.

Innovative IT support

IT support automation helps companies become more proactive in serving their employees better with more innovative support experiences. Here are three examples:

Remote access

In a remote workforce, employees will undoubtedly face issues with new tools they need to use or with connections to the corporate network. An automated system that notifies employees via email or text about detected problems and personalized instructions on how to fix them is a new way to care for the remote worker. If an employee still has trouble, an on-demand virtual chat or voice assistant can easily walk them through the fix or, better yet, execute it for them.

Proactive response

The ability to proactively monitor and resolve the employee’s endpoint — to ensure security compliance, set up effective collaboration, and maintain high-performance levels for key applications and networking – has emerged as a significant driver of success when managing the remote workplace.

For example, with more reliance on the home internet as the path into private work networks, there’s a greater opportunity for bad actors to attack. A proactive support system can continuously monitor for threat events and automatically ensure all employee endpoints are security compliant.

Leveraging proactive analytics capabilities, IT support can set up monitoring parameters to match their enterprise needs, identify when events are triggered, and take action to resolve. This digital support system could then execute automated fixes or send friendly messages to the employee with instructions on how to fix an issue. These things can go a long way toward eliminating support disruptions and leave the employee with a sense of being cared for – the best kind of support.

More value beyond IT

Companies are also having employees leverage automated assistance outside of IT support functions. These capabilities could be leveraged in HR, for example, to help employees correctly and promptly fill out time sheets or remind them to select a beneficiary for corporate benefits after a major life event like getting married or having a baby.

Remote support can also help organizations automate business tasks. This could include checking on sales performance, getting recent market research reports sent to any device or booking meetings through a voice-controlled device at home.

More engaged employees

With the power to provide amazing experiences, automated IT support can drive new levels of employee productivity and engagement, which are outcomes any enterprise should embrace.

Learning complexities: Best practices of work in the future

Posted on 04/03/202015/06/2021 by Tushar

Today’s high performing organizations know that the world of learning has undergone tremendous change, and they need to put employees at the center. Employees require a lifetime of continuous learning to keep pace with change.
An innovative approach to learning can help tackle the workforce skills gap, retain talent, increase performance and improve productivity.

Organizations need to create a learning culture and environment that welcomes knowledge seeking and employee self-improvement. The next generation of learning technology expands access, personalizes experiences, offers actionable insight and helps track how learning affects business outcomes.

Learning leaders must work together and share the same vision to successfully engage and prepare their employees for the future of work. Here are five best practices we view as critical for successfully overcoming the challenges and complexity within learning today:

Take advantage of new learning platforms. Standardizing on a single LMS is not the only option to address learning complexity. Having multiple systems is fine, even preferable, provided they can be accessed through a single platform. What’s important is to implement a multi-platform, agile methodology where the learner’s experience is the focus.

Meet learners where they are at. Employees do not have as much time as they would like for formal learning, informal “in-the-flow” work learning is necessary for training and development.

Embrace evolving workforce demographics. To address learning diversity, investing in next-generation learning technology and fresh approaches includes mobile learning tools and personalize learning paths needed to improve performance and retain talent.

Up-skill for the future of work. Closing the skills gap requires prioritizing learning development programs that empower employees to seek new skills that meet evolving business needs.

Ensure employees remain relevant in the digital workplace. Employees need to build comprehensive skill sets that are applicable to a variety of roles that will eventually be in high demand with the adoption of automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

In today’s changing world of work, employees need access to anytime, anywhere learning that’s relevant and meaningful to their development. An active learning community encourages employees to become insight experts and share actionable knowledge that enhances organizational intelligence.

It is time to pursue an innovative approach to learning and to take full advantage of next generation learning technology that prepares employees for change, aligns with business goals and connects a global workforce to deliver performance that accelerates growth.

Dimensions of change in the digital workplace

Posted on 26/02/202015/06/2021 by Tushar

Upgrade workplace technology: check. Modernize infrastructure: check. Adjust to new workforce: check. Overcome resistance to new ways of working: check. Adjusting to digital transformation’s impact on the workplace and workers is, well, a lot of work. A lot of change. And it’s essential to understand that workplace transformation will only deliver expected business benefits when organizations develop effective ways to cope with change along many dimensions. These include:

Workforce. For the last few years, we have focused on the generational shift taking place as millennials become the bulk of the workforce. However, there is a second shift that will impact how we operate. Organizations are adopting more gig workers for specific tasks or projects, which puts pressure on IT to streamline gig workers’ experience and optimize processes to maximize gig workers’ productivity. Capitalizing on automation, intelligence, and integration to optimize business flows and processes will become fundamental to IT operations.

Human resources. This blended workforce, and the recognition that organizations are already adopting a task or gig-like approach internally, impacts the way we run our Human Resources processes. The line manager might continue as a custodian, but the management chain becomes flatter, tied to activities and projects. The old reporting model breaks by having so many stakeholders and managers. We need to automate and collate information for the relevant project and stakeholder, distill it succinctly, and publish it to those who are invested, as well as archive it as input to the performance review process.

Project management. That information will enable project managers and stakeholders to better manage the individual and the team, optimizing for performance and cost. As they see near-real-time information about productivity and performance (on their specific project), they can flex, coach, and change the team as needed. It is a much more hands-on world, although some of the tasks can be automated. Project resource managers can learn from just-in-time manufacturing techniques, bringing in the right folks at the time they are needed.

Relevant information. In this environment, relevant information — not more information — is the key. Luckily, the platforms citizen developers are experimenting with also provide some of the components needed. They can capture tasks done, documents touched and discussions held, giving us a raw feed of activity. Post-process this information, in the context of each stakeholder, can be used to produce concise, relevant reports grounded in system data, not flawed memories.

Embrace employee-driven innovation. Organizations must become better at matching the pace of change, using techniques like employee-driven innovation to quickly identify new workplace trends and opportunities. Formalizing informal support networks can help manage change more effectively and capture the benefits of disruption. And when companies understand how productivity and morale are boosted by ongoing workplace investments, the cost of change is less daunting and easier to justify.

Connection and collaboration. Companies must continue to develop policies that give workers flexibility in the devices they chose to use. How people connect and collaborate is changing as well; companies will need to foster collaboration on, and set policies for, social media in the enterprise.

Automation. Software agents, bots and intelligent machines will make tasks easier. Companies will need to consider how these new devices and applications can learn and apply user preferences, and how they can use real-time information in context to automate more tasks and decisions.

Enterprises can truly change the way employees work by providing a flexible, expansive workplace with the right technologies and policies. Those who come to grips with the new definition of the workplace and its enabling technologies will be the digital leaders of tomorrow.

Business continuity with a remote workforce-Checklist

Posted on 06/02/202015/06/2021 by Tushar

Whether dealing with the current coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis or anticipating a future natural disaster, organizations need to prepare for emergencies that require employees to suddenly switch from a corporate environment to a home office. Even once the crisis arrives, organizations might have to drastically adjust their plans to address the scale required. Continuity plans must encompass not only the technology required to keep the business up and running but also the human aspect — making sure employees are well-trained and prepared to work remotely. As the size of the remote workforce suddenly increases, here is a checklist for IT leaders to consider when tackling the technology piece of the puzzle:

Network capacity planning: Conduct a capacity analysis to determine whether internet bandwidth is sufficient to handle the increased WAN traffic that occurs when large numbers of employees access the network. Additional items on the capacity planning checklist include firewalls, VPNs, and other remote access-related technologies that might be overwhelmed by the increased volume of traffic coming from outside of corporate headquarters.

Security monitoring: Intensify activities designed to detect and prevent attacks. Hackers are likely to take this opportunity to increase malicious activities. “Secure the Human” training can be delivered remotely to ensure that employees remember the organization’s security practices.

Identity and access management: Beef up identity and access management for remote workers through methods such as multifactor authentication.

Data protection: Ensure that security is extended and corporate data is encrypted to prevent the unintentional or malicious exposure of sensitive data.

VPNs: Make sure that VPN agents are installed on every device that connects to the corporate network to provide secure remote access.
Devices: Prepare for a shortage of devices to support the growing number of remote workers. Have a contingency purchase plan as well as a template for quickly configuring the device and loading the appropriate software.
Bring your own device (BYOD): Consider BYOD as supply chains are strained and the ability to get the needed hardware to employees becomes increasingly difficult. Using a cloud-based portal, employees can self-register their devices and download VPNs and other security tools, with the ability to segregate corporate data from personal information.

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI): Consider deploying a thin client architecture for remote workers as another option. However, upfront planning is required to make sure the thin clients are available and that the back-end server infrastructure is in place to support the thin client model.

Collaboration: Provide strong communication and collaboration capabilities to help keep employees productive and engaged. Organizations may want to look at videoconferencing tools to compensate for the lack of face time to help employees feel more connected. Collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Office 365 with Teams activated and G Suite, as well as videoconferencing services such as Zoom, are providing new ways of working, connecting and collaborating. Training employees on how to conduct work in these virtual spaces is critical.

Omnichannel support: Be prepared for a significant volume increase for IT support. Some employees may have been abruptly moved to a remote access environment, while others may now find themselves with new devices, software or tools they have never used before. And as a remote working model typically provides increases in flexibility, spikes in support needs may not follow the traditional patterns of regular business hours. The IT department needs to be prepared to offer omnichannel and remote support, including video options for face-to-face communications. Of course, service desk employees may themselves be working remotely, so pay special attention to make sure they have the capacity and the tools to respond to service desk issues from their home offices. Proactive and predictive analytics tools, combined with an easy-to-use support portal, can drastically reduce the calls to a strained service desk for rudimentary problems.

As we all know, even the best-laid plans don’t always work perfectly. In the midst of a global crisis, organizations might find that their business continuity plans haven’t accounted for an unprecedented level of scale, urgency, capacity and employee needs. In these instances, organizations should stay in close contact with their preferred vendors. There is no need to go it alone when expert help and support are available.

Unexpected challenges can cause maximum disruption to people’s lives and to business. The way in which we mitigate risks to ease the strain on businesses and their employees will ensure an organization’s ability to continue into the future.

Tag: #Workplace

Remote workforces kept productive by IT support automation