Last year, the “overwhelmed employee” came to the forefront of business challenges for executives and managers. This development was driven largely by complex processes and information overload caused by an always connected, 24/7 work environment. Employees are over-stressed and over-worked, resulting in widespread inefficiencies and lack of employee engagement. Now, organizations must embark on a mission to revolutionize the work environment with solutions that increase simplicity and scalability.
Gartner’s 2015 Human Capital Trends research reveals that as awareness of the “overwhelmed employee” evolution grows, organizations are making long-term commitments to simplify their systems and processes. In fact, 70% of organizations declared that the need to simplify work was important, or very important, in 2015. While only 10% of organizations have major programs in place to accomplish this, about 44% are currently working on establishing those programs. The pioneers of this movement have already taken action to help employees focus better and become more productive by reducing email volume, eliminating unnecessary meetings, and encouraging a “do less better” strategy.
Critical strategies for shaping this simplified new work environment include: design thinking, work redesign, and technology replacement. We are seeing a movement toward a minimalistic work environment that harnesses the power of fully unified solutions and automated processes to create a simple and scalable environment for years to come. Organizations are no longer seeking pieced-together, end-to-end processes that dot every “i” and cross every “t”. The focus is now on simple, engaging solutions that are easy to adopt. These types of systems enable growth, and scale seamlessly with the organization.
Some suggest that HR should be the one take on the role of “simplicity architect,” working to improve efficiency by putting processes in place that cultivate a more relaxed environment with streamlined work and decreased administrative burdens. HR is certainly a fitting place to begin organizational simplification, as this department is one of the most frequently plagued by manual, time-consuming processes including:
- Performance management practices that consume weeks of “time capital”
- Complex compliance programs that fail to create a culture of compliance
- Elaborate and error-prone practices for managing employee learning
The HR department should seize the opportunity to take ownership of these initiatives as part of their transformation from an administrative hub to a team of innovative consultants to senior leadership. To begin, they can help curb processes that drain “time capital” and overwhelm employees. Then, they can utilize design thinking and technology replacement to implement holistic solutions that produce positive business outcomes. HR has the power to help companies simplify and scale by acting as a role model to reinventing the work place.
This DATIS Blog was written by MJ Craig, DATIS, on July 22, 2015 and may not be re-posted without permission.