Many of us would describe ourselves as digitally connected to our personal lives. We know what our friends are up to (and what they had for lunch) in near real time. Often the books we read, music we listen to, products we buy and even relationships we enter into are fed to us from the cloud, based on our habits and preferences. As a culture, for better or worse, we are becoming “plugged into” or connected to our own lives.
Yet as employees, many of us can’t say the same about our workplaces. Without question, organizations are improving when it comes to accommodating a virtual workforce, as most have accepted the idea that employees can work efficiently from anywhere. However, the impetus for employees working from home or a remote office is often rooted in company-centric benefits like cost savings, productivity gains, or access to global talent.
To support these virtual factions of workers, HR is compelled to provide ways for remote employees to connect with headquarters. What’s often still missing is giving thought to connecting employees with one another. The notion that “face time” equals being “plugged in” at work is still prevalent, but cloud technology is changing that. And let’s face it: even those who work in a physical office daily would probably claim that their manager and co-workers don’t know exactly what they’re working on, past/current project contributions, newly acquired skills, or career interests. Likewise, most employees would tell you they aren’t really sure how their day-to-day activities are contributing to the organization’s mission or business goals. Being connected isn’t necessarily a matter of proximity.
Why is the lack of employee connection a concern? Without question, HR has learned during the past decade that employee engagement is a key source of competitive advantage, driving high levels of customer satisfaction, knowledge sharing, business agility and bottom line profitability. As the workforce becomes more dispersed, the need to provide systems to encourage and facilitate true collaboration and connection becomes critical for HR and the business. Here, cloud technology has the potential to bring a consumer-grade experience to the business.
And while the cloud offers transformational technology to incite change, there are other drivers of this revolution, altering the world right before our eyes. Here are a few key factors to consider.
Finally, we live in a world today where truly for the first time, business leaders are not afraid of technology. It wasn’t even a decade ago that the majority of business leaders, if not in the IT department, would run the other direction when technology came up. We have officially reached an era where the understanding of technology, and its impact, is not solely the function of a department called “IT,” but rather Information Technology has become a part of each and every one of our responsibilities.
HR knows better than anyone how workers want to work, how they think and communicate, and the outcomes the business is trying to achieve. In this new era of the cloud computing when all we need to access these collaborative new technologies is a device we can purchase at a convenience store, and can begin to use without training of any kind, boundaries are eliminated and possibilities become endless. If HR and business leaders resist this kind of thinking, the disadvantage they will find themselves at is much greater than that of legacy technology holding them back. Ignoring the cloud will truly will limit the organization’s survival in this new world, in a very short period of time.
Now is the time for HR to get the everyone in the organization plugged into the cloud.
Source : http://www.forbes.com written by Eric Savitz. He can connect at @savitz
Source : http://www.forbes.com written by Eric Savitz. He can connect at @savitz