Today's post is submitted by Joyce Maroney, executive director of the Workforce Institute at Kronos.

Often we don't notice how well something is designed until poor design gets in our way.  The beautiful light fixture that requires an MIT degree to change the light bulbs. That hard plastic clamshell packaging that can send you to the emergency room if you're not careful removing it.  Or the website that makes it so hard to find what you are looking for that you give up altogether.

Global research we conducted earlier this year indicated that 48% of employees wish that their workplace technology was as accessible and easy to use as their personal technology.  That it isn't can be due to a number of factors.  If organizations rely on obsolescent processes or technologies, their employees are going to spend more time on low value administrative tasks than they should have to.  Most of those employees are carrying a smartphone that allows them to call a ride, order groceries, deposit a check, or watch a movie with just a couple of keystrokes.  Many workplace applications suffer by comparison.

Let's assume that your organization has efficient processes, applications that meet your needs, and the desire to give your workers more self service capabilities via their mobile devices.  One of the key technology terms you need to familiarize yourself with is responsive design.  What this means is that the web interface for your applications is designed to automatically resize itself for the device a user is accessing it from.  This is critical if you expect your workers to use their mobile devices for those self service transactions.

My Kronos colleague Keen Hahn, with the collaboration of several of our Workforce Institute board members, authored a white paper that explores responsive design and its impact on employee experience.  Fear not, this is written for we civilians, not for web developers.

Click here to access the white paper The Rise of the Responsive
Employee Experience.

 

 

 

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