Dive Brief:
- Organizations designing flexible work models prioritize cutting costs, improving IT support and purchasing technology to support remote workers, according to a Forrester report commissioned by software company LogMeIn. The report, released Wednesday, surveyed 582 remote work decision-makers and 427 non-HR employees.
- Nearly nine in 10 employees with high levels of workplace satisfaction find technology works equally well for remote and in-office workers. Just 57% of low-satisfaction workers believe the playing field is leveled.
- Leaders often fail at customizing tech tool decisions, according to the report. Less than one-third decision-makers say their company's work model matches employee technology options according to different work styles.
Dive Insight:
There's an efficiency upside awaiting companies with robust hybrid work tooling, but a mismatch between employee expectations and the tools that lay before them can wreck the opportunity.
Workplace technology, designed to seamlessly connect organizations and drive processes forward, fails to live up to the promise of efficiency for one-third of workers, according to data from Eagle Hill Consulting. Four in 10 workers said workplace tech tools either do nothing to make them feel happy in their job or make their tasks harder.
Lack of communication between leadership and the workforce could cause the tech tool mismatch. Eighty-nine percent of high satisfaction employees say their company asks them about their technology experience and takes action to make it better. By contrast, 71% of low-satisfaction employees say the same.
Most businesses employing remote work tools were deployed as a response to the pandemic, according to the Forrester/LogMeIn report.
"The organizations faced a sudden and unprecedented number of remote workers to support, and decision-makers needed to adapt extremely quickly," the report finds. "However, many of these technology decisions may not have been the best long-term choices, and they may cause problems down the road."
A degradation of company culture is a feared long-term outcome for business leaders, as company operations more and more take place in the tools underpinning operations.
"Technology, now more than ever, needs to be closer to aligned to your company culture," said Ellen Thorne, VP of global human resources for CloudBees, in an email. "Creating the right technology blend to accommodate for in-person and remote, while creating a similar experience for both, is key. If you couple that with company culture, it is a much more intentional strategy than in years past."
