People are an organization’s biggest assets. As such, the more productivity an organization can manage to derive out of its workforce, the better would be the commercial returns that the organization will stand to obtain. Let us see the three crucial aspects – technology, training and development, and analytics which are critical in empowering employees to perform. A combination of the three can enable an organization to extract optimized performances from its workforce.

 

Introduction

The business world thrives on innovation and disruption which often is majorly driven by technology; however, we today stand at unique crossroads. There is a never-seen-before dependence today on technology developed to suit business requirements, and this technology is getting increasingly smarter. And while we are in the middle of the Industry 4.0 era, where automation is the mantra that is heard the loudest in corporate spheres, the importance of human assets in driving the realization of organizational goals remains unparalleled. The key towards ensuring optimal maximization of business performance thus lies in empowering your human assets. The performance of the workforce in the modern business organization has come to rely on three crucial aspects:

1. Technology
2. Training and Development
3. Analytics

Here, we look at the role of each of these aspects individually in driving employee performance.

 

Role of Technology

One of the major reasons behind employee demotivation and workplace boredom is having to perform monotonous tasks for large intervals. While most employees would wish they did not have to perform such tasks beyond a point, business requirements compel them to continue doing so at the cost of their efficiency and quality of work. Another major issue that can act as an impediment towards maximizing productivity at the workplace is the lack of effective work organization. And technology holds the promise in tackling both two issues.

First, the use of well-devised technology platforms such as an ERP or CRM system can help employees keep a track of the different tasks that they have to manage accordingly and maintain individual workloads more effectively. Additionally, the integration of AI-enabled features within such systems can help in eliminating manual effort in performing repetitive tasks. Thus, employees’ time is freed up for handling tasks that require an exercise of a higher level of intelligent discretion. What this will also ensure is employees’ motivation to keep looking for opportunities in process improvement and task automation, spawning a culture of continuous improvement. you will have not only happier and more motivated employees through this, but they would also be able to generate more business outcomes per hour, leading to an aggregate increase in company turnover.

 

Training and Development

While technology, as well as regulatory framework in certain industry sectors, continue to evolve, the former at a particularly accelerating pace, businesses need to constantly adapt themselves to the changing market environment to ensure competitiveness as well as compliance. Of course, one way to go about is to keep recruiting personnel as and when a skill gap is identified. However, ideally, fresh recruitment should mostly be seen as a last resort, and companies should focus a lot more on training their existing human resources.

There are several benefits in investing in the skill up-gradation of the existing employees, a few of which are enumerated as follows:

  • Your existing employees have a high level of familiarity with the work that happens within your organization. As a result, they would find it easier to implement the newly acquired skills in their work.
  • Employees who have been with you would be steeped in the corporate culture of your business, so there would not be any cultural alignments that need to be worked upon.
  • By investing time and resources in upskilling your employees, you ensure a feeling of being valued as well as a sense of job security. Both these aspects are critical in boosting employee motivation, and consequently, performance.
  • Increasing the size of your workforce means adding to recurring costs on your P&L, which means lesser profitability.

 

Role of Analytics

The adoption of analytics can prove to be decisive in imparting a competitive edge to your organization. However, there is a catch here. An organization can only build effective analytics capabilities if it has focused on the previously mentioned two aspects i.e. technology and training. This is because for analyzing large data volumes, your employees need access to fast computation technology and more importantly, the skills to decipher what techniques to use for such analysis.

By using an analytics-driven functioning style, an organization can ensure that every task that is performed in the organization is aligned towards achieving business objectives. Analytics enables employees to make smarter judgments and work in a more informed manner. Moreover, analytics-based insights will also feed into the AI-enabled systems that you might develop for automation, which would enable an intelligent execution of automated tasks.

 

Conclusion

As seen above, the three factors – technology, training and development, and analytics have a mutually reinforcing effect when it comes to empowering employees. Not only do they enhance the ease of work delivery and the accuracy of decisions, but they also ensure higher employee motivation levels. Combined, this has the effect of boosting workforce productivity and happiness. Consequently, the organization can be expected to retain the best of its human capital and leverage it to derive positive results both in terms of commercial returns and brand image.