Time for HUMAN experiences in the digital workplace

The fast forward innovative digital economy is driving an incredibly quick and disruptive transformation of our business lives, of the way we work, the way we share information, the way we collaborate, etc...

Reading this morning a great article on the rise of AI in 2016, fascinating topic, amazing technology, no problem for me except that...

I wonder when our friends from Silicon Valley and elsewhere start to bring the HUMAN back into the game? Innovations are useless if they keep people away from the story.

I observe leaders, managers, employees, sales, retailers, everyday in my work and I have never seen such a gap between technological progress and what we, normal people, actual understand, use, practice, and integrate at work.

Yes, innovation, digital solutions, disruptive technologies are great. At People & Performance we we were at the forefront of developing mobile digital learning supports years ago. We all use online mobile solutions to collaborate and share information daily.

BCG gives us some inputs on the "rising speed of innovation".

But the gap grows larger everyday, and we don't make the effort to accompany the vast majority of our employees in this new digital, transparent, mobile and virtual world. This lack of education, of information, of coaching support everyday generates huge costs for companies.

Indeed, most of the people don't know how to use the systems their companies provide to them. And when systems, softwares, devices, are not properly and completely used, they are mostly useless and a cost center with poor added value.

Last week, we had a concrete examples at a Pharma  company where Medical Scientific Liaison were following a behavioral training to uncover Health Care Professional needs and present scientific solutions to help building therapeutic strategies. All of those 100 senior professionals were either Medical Doctors or Pharmacists, very well educated people, and got their iPads for more than 18 months already. Their company gave them a couple of small "user workshops" during the first months and also provided them with 2 applications to "make their life simpler".

Well, it was surprising to see how poor 90% of them were in managing their iDevice to enhance the information they would bring to their customers. In fact, the technology became an obstacle to their job and, month after month, it was their n°1 complain to management and HR.

When sharing our feedback to the company management and HR teams, we found out that almost none of the executives had followed the "iPad User Workshop", that none of them actually ever used the Apps designed for their field people and that, for budget reasons, they decided to remove all training and coaching support for their teams to make better use of this technology. The CEO comment was incredible: "Come on, they all have an iPad home, their kids can use it so they should know how to use an iPad".

My purpose here is to point out to your attention dear leaders that it is your responsibility to make sure that your teams actually follow the wave (rather a Tsunami) of digital transformation that invades our daily work life. Those new solutions, systems, devices are just great and their potential is amazing but has long as we leave our people on the side of the road, we generate frustration and slow down the transformation. This kills our bottom line day after day!

My advice for 2016:

• Start January with a digital user satisfaction survey. Ask your people, all of them, how they feel about the systems, the softwares, the tools and devices that your company provides and ask them to use in their daily job. Ask them about how well they use these? How their boss is using these? How their team is using these? What do they need to get the best out of these?
• Identify gaps at people, team, department, division, business unit and corporate levels. And, putting the results of this survey on the Executive Board table, workout a critical plan to support the whole organization to use better, understand better, manage better, all those solutions within one semester.
• Yes, it will take budget, yes it will take headcount, yes it will require courage and focus. But yes, it will help your people, and bottom line your organization to dramatically improve work efficiency and performance.

Let's make 2016 the year of Digital Engagement!