UNLEASHcast: HR tech and transformation focus #4

Listen above or read an excerpt from the transcript beneath, which has been edited for clarity. We join the conversation as the chaps discuss some damning stats that underline the need for a good tech stack…

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Jon Kennard: …it’s a pretty good sample size too of 600 respondents, from C-Level to IT execs, employees, a variety of industries, it’s a good solid snapshot of what’s going on, I think. And further down the piece, it says that approximately one hour per week per employee is lost. Doesn’t sound like a lot. But clearly, you’re in an organization of 5000 plus employees, multiply that over many weeks in the year, that’s a lot. So…

Dan Richardson: …it’s like, what does the teacher say when you turn up late to class, and they go, well, if you’re five minutes late for this class, and we do this class how many times a week… but it is very true, I think, for example, if you have lost an hour a week, that really does add up for these big enterprises. And even the SMEs.

If you’re 30 people you have lost 30 hours a week, it’s still almost effectively a whole working week for someone.

So I think it’s really a good case for people actually wanting to be productive. And that’s the first thing that we always overlook. And then they also want to be happy with the tools they have at their disposal. And that they work effectively, because it’s not only typical crashes, it’s bigger than that. It’s, ‘oh, well, Photoshop, doesn’t work properly, it stutters and it freezes’…even that which you wouldn’t consider downtime, it’s still taking longer than it should. And it’s making people ineffective. And then the extra layer on that is – maybe this is maybe too much of a psychological deep dive – but if you’re there with your rubbish old laptop, and you’re thinking, oh, am I valued inside my organization? And you’re staring at a screen that isn’t work, and I think maybe you are more likely to say, oh, maybe I should see what’s on LinkedIn Jobs, or take that message from the recruiter.

So, I think it’s one of those that it’s a build up of issues and they’re exacerbated now by working from home. Touch wood. I know that’s different for everyone. I say work from home. Some people are doing 50:50, right?

JK: Undeniably, everyone, to degrees, more or less so, is using technology more in their work life and and their workflow. So you want to get it right. So it’s a warning call to organizations who aren’t nailing it really. And the ones that are going to rise the top won’t do just because of this, but it’s an essential part of being a functioning business in 2022, I think.

DR: Yeah, I think we say this a lot. But listening to employees and giving them what you can and meeting them at least half way, is a huge factor in retention. It has to be.

JK: We’re going to stick with technology, and we’re going to talk about Okta. So another great piece, and this, again, is about tech tools, but more so about how we use tech tools. And the fact that, well, the headline says that the use of tech tools has changed permanently. According to Okta, the horrifying – am I allowed to say horrifying? – stat that I pulled out from the first three or four paragraphs of this piece is that companies with 2000 or more employees use 187 different apps in their work. Is that right?

DR: That’s right. My initial reaction, when I think about that, is there’s got to be a way to cut that down. There’s got to be an all-in-one solution somewhere…

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