Meanwhile, you can minimize IT’s involvement by choosing tools that are easy to implement and don’t require much effort to maintain. For example, your new technology should integrate seamlessly with your existing IT infrastructure and processes. This will not only reduce the burden on your IT team, but also reduce disruptions to how people like to work.
You should also allow employees to keep using their preferred tools or give them ones that are similar. The more familiar employees are with their tools, the less likely they will call your help desk for support.
1. Provide employees with anywhere, on-demand access to files
Today’s employees need information mobility. If they can’t seamlessly move information between devices and applications, they will go around IT to get the tools that they need to work efficiently. According to research, 98 percent of enterprise cloud services are shadow IT.
Enterprise Content and Document Management Giving employees on-demand access to information – from any device or location – is vital to improving their productivity. Enterprise content and document management solutions make it easy for employees to find what they need, when they need it.
For example, if information is buried in filing cabinets or offsite storage facilities, it’s useless until someone can retrieve it. Even if you have digital information, you may still struggle to manage it. For example, you may keep data in siloed applications that employees can’t access from their mobile devices. Enterprise content and document management digitizes your records and stores them in one central, secure data repository. This allows employees to quickly find information – whether they are using their office desktop or a mobile device.
Digitizing your paper documents also allows you to get rid of clunky filing cabinets and expensive, off-site storage. It can significantly reduce your operating costs, while saving you real estate that you can better utilize to grow your business.
Digital Rights Management Employees often put sensitive data in personal clouds that don’t meet your company’s security standards. Digital rights management (DRM) allows you to apply authentication and access controls around your files, so you can keep your data secure no matter where it resides.
With DRM, you can protect your data as it travels across devices and clouds. Your DRM solution should keep your security policies in place – even after files leave your network. That way, you can prevent unauthorized users from viewing or sharing your organization’s sensitive content. Your solution should also give you real-time reporting on who accesses your data and alert you if someone tries to break one of your policies.
Ideally, your DRM tool won’t impact your user interface. Employees shouldn’t realize that you’ve put new security systems in place until they try to perform an action that they don’t have the authority to perform.
Business Process Automation Once you have digitized your documents and data, you are in a place where you can make your information work for you.
Business process automation (BPA) integrates all of your people, technology, and processes. This drives efficiencies, provides you with greater transparency, and facilitates compliance for repeatable processes.
With BPA, you can streamline your workflows to reduce bottlenecks and make your entire organization more efficient. This minimizes errors and repetitive tasks – allowing you to be more agile and achieve your business goals faster.
BPA may require your IT team to spend time on implementation and testing. However, once you are up and running, BPA will reduce the burden on IT. Most BPA processes are user friendly. You can also set up self-service, online help for employees who have questions.
2. Make Meetings More Productive
According to a study by Regus Canada, 47 percent of Canadian employees work outside of their primary office for half of the week or more. Of these employees, 54 percent said that they work remotely to remain productive while travelling to and from meetings.
To help your remote employees succeed, you must make it easy for them to access files and collaborate with others. Here are four technologies that improve collaboration between both on-site and remote employees:
Video conferencing Today’s video conferencing solutions make it easy for you to hold productive meetings from any location. They improve your communications, so you can make decisions faster, go to market sooner, and reduce your travel expenses. For example, you can schedule a quick video chat with a colleague – saving you the back and forth of email. You can also join larger meetings and collaborate in person. During meetings, remote participants will see both the presentation and the live feed of everyone in the room without needing to jump between screens.
Look for a video conferencing solution that doesn’t require complicated architecture or a complete overhaul of your existing technologies. This will help you immediately boost employee productivity – without placing an additional burden on your IT team.
Interactive Flat Panel Displays (IFPDs) Whiteboards have come a long way and are no longer glorified chalkboards. Today’s digital, interactive whiteboards or Interactive Flat Panel Displays (IFPD’s) encourage hands-on collaboration between your on-site and remote employees.
For example, participants can write directly on the screen, save their notes, and share them with others. Interactive whiteboards also include video conferencing tools that allow presenters and attendees to join your sessions remotely.
3. Automate Your Meeting Room Scheduling
The “simple” task of booking a meeting room can become an ordeal when you rely on manual processes and siloed systems. For example, an employee may put a meeting in their calendar but fail to note the booking in a central database. Then, someone else can double-book the space. People may also reserve rooms that they have no intention of using.
Smart technology can simplify your meeting-room booking processes and give you real-time visibility into how people are using your office and conference room space.
When you automate your meeting-room scheduling you can:
Almost 40 percent of booked meeting rooms aren’t used.10