More than half of the global workforce now falls under the Millennial or Gen-Z age bracket.
Aside from the differences in age, these ‘always connected’ categories of workers often have differing workplace practices to their colleagues.
Well-versed in social media and the digital world, they are already fully aware of the benefits technology can have on their working day.
However, many departments in businesses are still slow to adopt key technologies into their working practices, creating silos, hindering efficiency and fuelling frustrations within the business.
Recent research revealed that teams lose the equivalent of two working days a week due to old-fashioned systems and outdated processes, leading to poor internal collaboration and reduced productivity.
For HR departments, this problem may not be noticed by the most senior of staff as it will often be the HR managers and junior staff that bear the brunt of any backlog or issues created as a result of human error or laborious admin systems.
As well as an increased workload, this can also have a knock-on impact on the morale of the office too, with those we surveyed stating that ‘inefficiency, excess administration and poor collaboration between departments’ will be their biggest challenge over the next 12-months.
Social media and the use of connected apps have fast become an excepted part of everyday life; however, similar data-driven applications that can help to speed up day-to-day tasks in the office and facilitate easier collaboration, are often still not being adopted by many businesses.
Working with management software that often has a familiar and easy-to-use interface, HR teams can now carry out everyday tasks such as booking holidays, logging absences and organising meetings quickly and easily, providing a relief from frustrations such as trawling spreadsheets or manually updating paper and digital files.
Ultimately, as we move towards an increasingly more connected world, the businesses that take the opportunity to adopt technology into their everyday working processes will surely reap the rewards.
With clear benefits across all departments, it will be key to staving off the competition in 2019.