Infosys: Diverse, digital workplaces are more profitable
They can drive $282 billion in profit.
Why You Should Care
Successful organizations are diverse, have a culture of learning and leverage top-notch digital tools.
This leads to $282 billion in new profit and $1.4 trillion in new revenue.
Find out the business case from Infosys.
Diverse workplaces are better for business; different perspectives and ideas provide opportunities to generate new business growth.
Research by Infosys found that businesses that expand and diversifying talent pools correlates with revenue and profit growth (2.4 percentage points and 3.9 percentage points respectively).
Infosys’s Future of Work 2023 report, which surveyed 2,500 senior executives from 12 countries, found that using external skills marketplaces, as well as links with universities and community colleges, could drive $503 billion in revenue and $145 billion in pre-tax profit across large organizations.
But the revenue and profit benefits are even higher when these diverse workforces operate in a flexible, digital working environment. The profit growth was 7.7 percentage points, and revenue increased 6.7 percentage points, according to Infosys.
Central to these revenue and profit uplifts around flexible work is that hybrid and remote work is good for retention (65% of respondents noted this). Infosys found that companies with high retention between 2020 and 2022 saw 20% more revenue and profit growth over the past two years.
Flexible work wasn’t the only source of high retention – investing in reskilling also had a positive impact on attrition.
Infosys ultimately found that better skills development, improved digital tools and more diverse talent pools could lead to a whopping $1.4 trillion in new revenue and $282 billion in new profit.
The future of work needs better tech
Yes, automation and modernizing technology could lead to $123 billion in profit in the next two years – and it is good news that firms are prioritizing workplace automation over the next two years – but those financial benefits will only be reaped if the changes actually make the workplace better for workers.
Infosys, Future of Work 2023 report.
The workplaces of the future must be human-centric; employees expect technology to make their working lives easier, not harder.
Infosys’s report found that employees are frustrated by video calls and virtual collaboration platform.
This was a surprising finding; Infosys’s executive vice-president and head of digital experience Rajesh Varrier tells UNLEASH: “While video calls, virtual collaboration platforms and email came out as the most popular technologies for employees now, when we looked at their intention for the future, email remained popular, but video calls and virtual collaboration tools declined in expected use.
“Respondents cited more interest in the future of conversational or chat-based tools.”
Varrier adds believes the reason why employees are less keen on virtual collaboration and video tools is that they hinder productivity, and they require “significant personal focus to use effectively. They can be more complex to learn and, in the case of video calls, can be linked to conference call fatigue or link to personal anxiety.”
In comparison, “chat based tools…are simpler to use and not resource intensive”. “To that end, companies will need to think smartly about how they enhance their virtual and digital rollouts to best support this shift in digital tool preference.”
In this context (and with such significant profit and revenue growth at stake) organizations and HR leaders would be wise to look more closely at augmented reality, virtual reality and metaverse workplace tech.
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