Microapps and the Value to the Employee Experience CEO Insights 02-4-2020 By Jim Steinlage President & Chief Executive Officer Table of Contents Technology Today Unify Experiences, Boost Productivity Delivering an Intelligent Employee Experience Technology Today Technology is often viewed as a way to enable and facilitate information and resources. Ultimately, technology must be used to guide employees and help them focus on the tasks at hand. It would seem reasonable to assume technology would simplify the workday and free people from overloaded inboxes, constant notifications, fragmentation, and multiple applications that require simultaneous task switching, eating up more than 75% of employees time and effort. A well-designed digital workspace should deliver a unified, secure, and intelligent work platform that automates time consuming activities and frees employees to do their best while pushing a higher rate of productivity. Transforming employee experiences with intelligent and integrated workspace solutions will be a key focus as organizations look for ways to reduce repetitive tasks and make the workplace more user friendly. A digital workspace should prioritize, organize, guide, and automate work in an intelligent way so each worker can use their individual talents to focus on what they do best. Changing work styles in what is now a more complex daily technology environment makes it increasingly necessary to get work done in an effective but simpler way. Instead of losing over one third of workers’ productivity to things like application switching and push notifications, employees should be empowered with tools like microapps that simplify workflows and enhance user efficiency and engagement. Unify Experiences, Boost Productivity As technology has rapidly progressed, it’s been a catch-22. Technology has made so much possible in the workplace but the workday remains longer and busier than ever. Even worse, what should be a force for productivity has had the opposite effect. Despite great technological advances, productivity continues to decline in the U.S. Employees want to be more productive, and they need help from IT & HR. Relief is here from backend services to front-end UI, microapps will allow your organization to build an abundance of functional solutions. These microapps solutions are integrated to build full-scale, user-friendly systems for your workforce. Microapps allow workers to go beyond tech for traditional tech’s sake. They remove common productivity barriers and help workers more quickly process day-to-day tasks. Some areas microapps help boost productivity: Making employees more effective Mitigating security risks Speeding up development cycles Mini processes that offer an in-and-out experience for accomplishing specific tasks, microapps use AI-driven intelligent search to ease the navigation of massive and complex user interfaces. Some other helpful automation features where the process can be simplified and benefit end user experience: Access and analyze real-time insights; usage and adoption Automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks Design personalized workflows for each employee Simplify mundane tasks through single-purpose steps Additional advantage is enterprise-grade security that help address compliance. Another great benefit are options that allow users to access applications from the device and platform of their choice. Allowing or restricting access based on an employee’s role, department, location, security level, and more are features you should expect. Delivering an Intelligent Employee Experience Microapps have the power to transform your digital workspace into one where employees perform their best possible work. Research in Randstad’s study, Workplace 2025: The Post-Digital Frontier shows three significant statistics: 80% of workers report they join a company because it uses the most up-to-date tools. Seventy-two percent say a reputation as a leader in digitization is a factor. Approximately 40% of employees said they left a company because it didn’t offer state-of-the-art digital tools. Over half (58%) said they had no choice but to work elsewhere to gain digital skills. When employees were asked what fulfills their basic work needs, technology topped the list, with choice of device being mentioned by a whopping 75%. A digital workspace using simple microapps can increase organizational agility and give employees the satisfying career they’re looking for. These are very meaningful objectives and offer another reason why HR & IT need to be in constant collaboration. The result of a well thought out and design digital workspace is increased engagement, improved retention rates, and greater productivity that allows employees and your organization to thrive.