Empowered employees are the heart of digital transformation

As employees become more empowered, they become more productive. Employees, in this case, are empowered when their firms make apps available and highly accessible which allows them to be involved in the company’s digital transformation journey.

This was announced by, Daniel Ndirangu, Senior Systems Engineer, VMWARE, during the CIO East Africa Fintech Summit being held at the Villa Rosa Kempinski Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya.

“Companies that give their employees ready, anytime and anywhere access to the apps they need, are nearly 3 times as likely to be rated leaders in digital transformation,” said Ndirangu.

According to Ndirangu empowered employees are better for the business as they:

Spend nearly 20% less time on manual processes
experience 16 % in their collaboration and speed of decision making

“Companies are going through a digital transformation, and a big part of digital transformation is how you transform your workforce—the biggest asset most companies have,” says Shankar Iyer, senior vice president and general manager of VMware End-User Computing (EUC).

As leader of VMware’s EUC solutions, Iyer talks to many business and IT leaders about what’s top of mind. Among top priorities, like adapting to customers and moving to the cloud, is improving employee experience.

“As most organizations go through a digital transformation, employee experience has become the focus of delivery,” he says. Here are three good reasons why.

Getting the Right Talent Means Getting the Right Technologies

Companies desperately need the right people with the right skills to support their digital transformation and growth. Tech-savvy workers desperately want better tools and digital experiences to support their work needs. So technology plays an important role in how well a company can compete for new job candidates.

“The digital experiences provided to employees increasingly shape how they view the company,” Iyer says. “So the employee’s experience—from recruitment to retirement—is a boardroom-level conversation at every company.”

And potential employees aren’t only looking at what technologies a company offers on the job. They’re also forming an opinion of the company’s digital experience from the first point of contact. Recruiting and onboarding processes reflect a company’s culture—whether it’s flexible and user-friendly or not—as much as day-to-day work tools and processes.

Putting Customers First Means Putting Employees First

Companies often talk about taking a customer-centric approach to digital transformation. In most organizations, employees directly deliver customer experiences. So by transforming employee experiences, companies can also transform customer experiences.

“For example, banks are creating the ‘branch of the future’ and are providing employees with tablets. This gets employees out from behind the desk and enables them to provide more interactive, personalized experiences for customers,” Iyer says.

“It’s similar in other industries. Hospitals that streamline workflows allow doctors to spend more time with patients, and retailers that give sales associates mobile point-of-sale devices provide shoppers with faster and more personalized attention on the shop floor.”

Growing Revenue Means Growing Engagement

The primary goal of any digital transformation is driving top- and bottom-line growth with new business models and processes. At the heart of all that are people.

“Employee engagement is paramount,” Iyer says. “There’s a significant correlation between engaged, happy employees and how productive they are at work, as well as how successful the companies are. Employee engagement impacts a lot of business drivers, from productivity per head to new revenue to employee retention.”

Most employees spend at least some of their workday with technology. Companies can make that time much more engaging for employees by making it quick and easy to complete tasks in real time. For example, employees can access all of their work resources, applications and workflows via their own personalized digital workspace across any device or location in real time.