How to Measure Hybrid Productivity While Ensuring Employee Well-being

May 13, 2022

Remote work has evolved from a tech office perk to a necessity for many organisations. The COVID- 19 pandemic has permanently changed the expectations of how and where people work. Many organisations have already begun to shift to a hybrid or fully remote work model in response to these changes.

Adopting this new model has several advantages, including flexible work hours and a lack of commute. However, remote work has its challenges. A Buffer survey of remote workers found that loneliness is a common challenge experienced by remote workers. Another reported downside was the struggle to establish a healthy work-life balance, or ‘unplug’ at the end of the workday. And according to a Slack report, both experience and new remote workers are affected by a sense of isolation at work.

Organisations have focused wellness efforts on meditation and mental health to address these remote work challenges. Mindfulness applications like Headspace have seen a steady increase in corporate customers in recent years.

For prospective hires, professional development and coaching are both in the top 2 of benefits employees look for when choosing where to work. This is an indication that “today’s employees are looking for an employer who values their growth and development as well as their personal wellbeing”.

For organisations seeking to address the specific challenges faced by their remote workforce, data will continue to be a key asset. But changes in working patterns will change the way that it is accessed and used to create business value. Data therefore needs to be accessible from anywhere and in real-time. 85% of participants in Cisco’s survey of global organisations stated that cybersecurity is more important now than before the pandemic. Awareness around online privacy continues to grow, and data protection legislation has come into effect in countries across the globe. As such, cybersecurity, privacy and compliance and cloud-based access to data all become critical issues for remote teams working in a remote/hybrid environment.

Technology that both measures key factors affecting employees’ wellbeing and provides recommendations to help workers build better habits can be invaluable. Applications like Viva Insights, part of Microsoft’s new employee experience platform, can help leaders support remote workers and increase efficiency and flexibility throughout the organisation. Companies that adopt these technologies can remain on the cutting edge and take full advantage of all the benefits of remote and hybrid work.

Productivity Declined with Work from Home. It doesn’t have to

Sep 3, 2021

Productivity Declined with Work from Home. It doesn’t have to

Sep 03, 2021

A recent study [1] by the University of Chicago found that knowledge worker output remained constant with the shift to work from home (WFH). However it required an increase of 18% in average daily hours worked, a cost that was borne by the employees. It goes without saying that this added to stress and reduced wellbeing at what was already a difficult time. Focus time (i.e. the time when most work gets done) remained about the same. The extra time was all spent on communication and coordination.

The results reflect what many experienced at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic – extended workdays, more time spent in meetings and increased pressure. Some managers organised meetings because they didn’t trust their teams to work without being watched. Others provided less one-one coaching for their team members. Let’s consider a different scenario. In an office environment, when one is stuck or has a question one can simply lift one’s heads and ask aloud. Whoever is best placed to answer will do so immediately. This is especially important for new hires who don’t know the environment and have lots of questions. With WFH they now they felt isolated and unsupported.

People have worked in an office environment for decades and the approaches to being productive have been refined over the years and are well understood. We haven’t yet learnt how to optimally collaborate and communicate when not co-located. A prerequisite is, of course, that organisations provide employees with the digital tools they need to succeed. The good news is that these tools exist. As an example, let’s look at research [2] by Nemeretes published in April 2020 across 564 firms (12 countries, 5000+ average workers) who had adopted Team Collaboration applications such as Microsoft Teams or Webex Teams. Results indicated that nearly 40% had an average improvement in productivity of 24% and nearly a quarter reduced the need for meetings by an average of 30%.   

  Team Collaboration applications allow users to communicate and collaborate in their working context. This drives much of the improvement. In addition, let’s also revisit the scenario we used above. When stuck, a user can ask a question of their team directly in their messaging area. When someone starts to answer then everyone can see that they are typing. This is a digital equivalent of lifting one’s head and asking. The alternatives, such as email and phone, can’t adequately do this.

Team Collaboration also avoids long and unnecessary email trails, allows documents to be co-created, action items to be updated as soon as completed and much more. Gone are the days of needing to wait for a meeting to communicate changes in the status of a project or work item. In addition, asynchronous communication is valuable for remote work as it allows flexibility to work at different times.

There is a common consensus that hybrid work or flexible WFM working styles are here to stay and are the future of work. Team Collaboration applications have the potential to improve productivity in these scenarios. However, an increase in productivity doesn’t happen automatically. It requires proficiency in using the tools and adaption of processes to take advantage of the capability. Adoption and Change Management is the foundation for this and will accelerate the journey.

Outcome Engineering: The Key to Success

Feb 16, 2019

Organisations purchase and implement technology or cloud solutions on the assumption they will deliver a benefit. Much energy and effort is expended in getting the solution up and running. In contrast, the steps required to realise the business benefit were historically not given sufficient attention. In recent months we’ve seen organisations wanting to address this issue but not understanding how to go about it.

Crucially, business outcomes aren’t achieved automatically. A focused and systematic approach is required. Organisations must define the specific goals they hope to achieve and the activities required to achieve them. Our experience is that Outcomes Engineering is the best way of approaching this. What is Outcomes Engineering? It is defined as the ability to systematically deliver customer outcomes in the form of meaningful and measurable business impacts.[1]

The starting point is to capture the Business Outcomes the solution is expected to deliver. Why was the solution purchased? What will constitute success? There will almost certainly be a gap between where the organisation is at present, and the desired future state. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) articulate this gap and turn business goals into specific targets with realistic timelines. An example of a KPI is “reduce average time-to-repair by 20% within 3 months of go live”. Using this approach to defining outcomes makes them actionable and achievable.

Once the KPIs are captured then the gap between the organisation’s current state and the KPI is understood. The next step is to define the strategy to close the gap. This strategy may include executive sponsorship, change management, communications, learning, coaching, process definition and policy change dimensions.

Business outcomes are only achieved when the solution is widely and appropriately used. A key barrier may well be resistance to change. Organisations must therefore get buy-in from users to benefit from the solution. That is done by placing emphasis on solution adoption. This has a much higher chance of success if users fully understand the reason the organisation is changing and internalise the benefits for them personally. In addition, users must have confidence when using the solution.

Typically, Business Outcomes are not achieved overnight. It’s therefore important to measure progress toward reaching KPIs with metrics and analytics. Usage data gives the organisation a picture of how users are using the technology; can indicate when further change management or adoption remediation is required.

Technology can be a hefty investment, so it only makes sense that organisations want to see a return on that investment. Outcomes Engineering provides organisations with a disciplined and rigorous approach to getting measurable, and provable results. We expect that more organisations will embrace it in the next twelve months as they look to achieve their business outcomes.

[1] Video: “What is Outcome Engineering?” https://www.tsia.com/blog/video-outcome-engineering

Customer Success – the secret to achieving a Win-Win for Customer and Supplier

Jan 31, 2017

Customer Success – the secret to achieving a Win-Win for Customer and Supplier

We’ve all seen the situation. An organisation invests in expensive infrastructure, applications or cloud services. These remain underutilized and gather dust. This creates a lose-lose. The customer fails to realise the expected business value. The supplier fails to obtain any additional business. At renewal time the customer assumes that a different solution will make the difference and buys from a competitor. In doing so, another white elephant is created and the lose-lose cycle repeats itself. Customer Success Management is the key to achieving a different outcome. What is Customer Success? It is a fast emerging field responsible for managing the activities between a supplier and its customers to maximize the value customers derive from acquired solutions. In turn, the supplier obtains additional value from the customer. Achieving customer success requires the integration of multiple traditional disciplines, including marketing, on-boarding, learning, adoption and change management. It introduces new disciplines such as outcomes engineering. The crucial point is that the solution in of itself is insufficient to achieve success. Business outcomes are only achieved when the solution is widely adopted and used appropriately. Value is only realized when people use the solution to change the way they work. This does not happen automatically. Research shows that organisations can only expect a 15% adoption rate for collaboration when technical signoff is the key project goal. How is success achieved? Start with the outcomes the customer expects! This is the essence of outcomes engineering. How does the customer define success? How will it be measured? Then define what capability and practices are required to achieve it. Determine where the customer is today and define who has to do what to close the gaps? Assess what timeframes are feasible for each business outcome? Capture all relevant information in a success plan. When creating the success plan, consider each of the key disciplines and building blocks to achieve adoption and the desired business outcomes. Remember that value is only realized when people use the solution to change the way they work. Of paramount importance is to engage the users from their perspective. What is their role? What impact will the solution have on them? Gone are the days when organisations impose or “push” collaboration technologies onto employees and expect them to use them. In many cases, it is about enabling an environment of “pull” where employees opt in because they are shown how the technologies benefit them, make their lives simpler and enable them be more efficient. Measurement is, of course, crucial to achieving the successful business outcome. The customer’s definition of success is captured in the success plan, together with how it will be measured. There are likely to be several metrics using data from multiple sources. This data should be captured, processed and analyzed frequently when executing the success plan. Interventions are initiated and corrective action taken when results fall short of expectation. Customer Success delivers significant incremental value for both supplier and customer. Outcomes engineering provides a disciplined and focused approach to achieving customer success. Why wouldn’t anyone embrace it?

What does Salesforce have in common with a newspaper? Success Management of course!

Dec 12, 2016

What does Salesforce have in common with a newspaper? Success Management of course!

The discipline of Customer Success Management is critical for SaaS providers. It is a matter of survival. Without it they would go out of business. What is often overlooked is the significant and transformative value it can bring to other businesses.

One of the most interesting sessions at the recent Pulse Europe conference in London was by Shannon Hyson, Global Head of Customer Success at the Financial Times. The Financial Times recently became the first traditional newspaper to earn more revenues from digital than from print. It also earns more from content than from advertising. Print circulation fell from 500 000 in April 2001 to 200 000 in April 2016 but digital subscriptions went from negligible to nearly 600 000 in the same period. Clearly the Financial Times has transformed into a thriving digital content business. Their Success Managers work with existing and prospective customers to understand the value they get from their content access. They build and execute plans to enable customers to realise that value. In addition, they highlight additional opportunities and strive to build a long-term, mutually beneficial partnership. Customers can use the APIs to integrate content into their workflow. Organisations with enterprise-wide access are even allocated a dedicated Customer Success Manager!

Is it time to consider the impact that Success Management can have on your business?