Transforming Our Digital Workforce: Personalise The Workforce Experience

Digital transformation, which is already altering how and where work is done, is what motivates the innovative and strategic use of technologies. IT teams are preparing to meet the newest generations’ aspirations for excellent, seamless collaboration and communication. Workforce transformation is the process of strengthening workforce capabilities, resources, and abilities to keep up with continuing changes in an organization’s business plan. Digital transformation includes the transformation of the workforce.

Therefore, it is sufficient to say that a people-centric approach to technology acquisition is a crucial talent to have in any firm. In this article, I emphasise the need of procuring IT tools with a people-centric mindset.

Workforce transformation means different things to different people. There is a school of thought that looks at it as business plus strategy, in which you analyse needs and take several steps to qualify your business outcomes. The Workforce Transformation use case I’m referring to in this article is strictly technical and product-specific. Simply put, what kind of device should my workforce have to maximise productivity?

In this figure, I highlight additional technical aspects required for a successful workforce transformation strategy. We can go over this in detail in subsequent articles. But first, let’s discuss how to select the best devices for maximum productivity.

Workforce Personas must be defined first. There are two approaches for defining personas – either by roles or work styles as shown in the figures below.

Regardless of how the persona structure and layers are organised (e.g. work-style model vs. role-based model), the four major attributes that are most commonly leveraged in these workforce personas are:

1. Functional job role (typically grouped at a macro level such as Knowledge Worker or Developer)
2. Organisation (business unit, department, operating company or whichever level is highest and most indicative of the worker’s needs)
3. Location (Theater, region, country, etc.)
4. Work style (remote, corridor warrior, etc.)

Personas and worker sentiment analysis techniques help you understand and empathise with your workforce’s needs based on how they actually work and set the foundation for further optimisation. Performing annual IT surveys on how your organisation is doing is no longer sufficient for today’s ever-changing workforce. It’s important to measure worker sentiment on a much greater frequency and with more specificity.

Here are examples of some top-level enterprise personas and their descriptions:

• Desk-centric workers expect devices that are tailored to their needs and the way they work. Their workspace is not a cubicle; rather, it is a multi-tasking, productivity-boosting, idea factory, complete with multiple monitors. They boost their productivity by utilising collaboration and conferencing tools.
• Corridor Warriors are constantly on the move and spend a lot of time in meetings. These employees want to connect to the wireless network quickly and reliably so they can access files, share, and collaborate. They must be able to keep their application sessions open while moving from office to meeting.
• Remote workers spend the majority of their time away from the office, often working from home. They must connect and collaborate with coworkers, access and share files, and participate in web meetings.
• On-The-Go- Professionals work quickly and require access to people, programmes, and data from anywhere because they can work from anywhere, at any time.
• Creatives spend their day working on non-stop, CPU– intensive tasks such as graphics manipulation, editing, and effects. They want monitors that are big, brilliant, production-calibre displays that live up to the art they create.
• Field Workers are frequently required to run specialised and compute-intensive applications. They require devices and peripherals that can withstand real-world hazards such as extreme temperatures, shock from sudden movements, and network access via a variety of mobile networks, including wide-area cellular technology like 4G/5G.

As a result, each Persona has a different need and thus requires different products/specifications to complete their tasks.

In my next article, I will provide examples of systems recommended for each persona from leading OEM vendors in our region. But since I have a few more words to spare, let me tackle the Intel processor issue. Let’s figure out what level of CPU performance is right for you.

The capabilities of the processor and chipset are frequently defined by the CPU generation (i.e. 11th Gen, or 12th Gen). Generally, the higher the number, the more feature-rich the CPU, with higher core and thread counts, clock speeds, and cache sizes.

These performance tiers can help you find the right combination of features.

• Intel® Core™ i3, for entry-level performance
• Intel® Core™ i5, for mid-level performance
• Intel® Core™ i7, for high-level performance
• Intel® Core™ i9, for the highest-level performance

Begin by selecting the Intel® CoreTM processor segment that best meets your requirements, look for additional features that are important to you, such as the ability to overclock. Check out this guide to Intel® CPU names (https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/gaming/resources/gaming-processor-names.html), which highlights the numerous options available.

One of the current PC hardware market’s strengths is the large selection of options that allows you to find exactly what you’re looking for within your requirements and budget. Because of the variety of CPUs available, there is a suitable processor for any system, regardless of how it will be used.

Point to note though, The current 12^th gen Pentium Processor is more powerful than the 6^th Gen Core I3 processor. If your workloads worked well on a 6^th gen Core I3, you will get better performance with a 12^th gen Pentium processor. Visit ark.intel.com and compare the processor performance. Imagine how much you can save on a PC if your workloads would do fine on a 12^th gen Pentium processor.

Written by Ken Kagota, Managing Director, Keka Precise Technologies