The nature of work continues to evolve. Advances in mobile technologies and devices have ushered in a new world of workplace flexibility, enabling more and more workers to do their jobs from anywhere, at any time of day.
This ability to work remotely is now not just considered a nice to have for employees, or a special condition for some people in work – it’s a way of working that suits the needs of employees of all kinds.
Flexible Work
These days, flexible working arrangements are now a common feature among Australia’s best companies to work for according to LinkedIn. And research conducted by recruitment firm Hays last year, suggests 73% of Australian workers would like a job offering flexible work practices.
In fact, leading organisations such as Telstra, Westpac, ANZ and PricewaterhouseCoopers have become flexible by default. This means employees in most roles are trusted to manage their hours. Managers measure performance based on outcomes not the time their team members spend at their desks.
HSBC’s productivity study of 2017 clearly showed the huge importance workers place on flexible hours and work-life balance. The research into the views of UK workers and business leaders revealed that nine-out-of-ten workers believe flexible working motivates them to be more productive at work.
While the move to flexible working has been an organic response to new ways of doing business, from 1 December last year, flexible work was introduced as a model term in all Modern Awards. This means employers in more industries must take flexibility requests seriously and try to come to a genuine agreement with their employees.
But flexibility isn’t just a one-way street benefiting employees. And enterprise mobility is about much more than just giving workers access to their email on a mobile phone. It’s about increasing productivity and providing access to real-time information to enable better decision-making.
Remote workers
Even back in 2016 when Vodafone conducted a global survey about flexible working, companies that had implemented flexibility reported some notable benefits. According to the data:
- 61% had increased company profits
- 83% had improved productivity, and
- 76% had improved staff morale.
But, for all its benefits, managing it can get complicated. On the one hand, you need to ensure the right people have secure access to the right data at the right time from any location. On the other, you need to enable people to work effectively and provide transparency and clarity over who is working where at all times.
End users don’t always know which IT resources they require. Nor is it cost effective, or efficient to give every employee access to whatever technology he or she wants. Therefore, IT needs to understand employees’ needs and provide them with the right tools for the job – and in doing so, retaining control of IT resources to optimise governance, security and return on investment.
End-user personas
To get it right, companies need to have the right technology in place underpinned by robust IT systems – and an important part of this process is the creation of mobile end-user personas.
Mobile end-user personas provide a proven framework for improving IT service. By understanding different use cases, and identifying the correct security-based protocols, you can group like users together into clearly defined personas and enable each end user with the right technology for that persona.
Minimising variations to your mobile device set up, persona profiles help you avoid the trap of provisioning mobile devices in a one-size fits all fashion, or on a one employee at a time basis. This means you can ensure IT delivers the hardware, software and data business users need, and nothing more. End-user personas let you achieve an effective balance between end-user enablement and IT control.
Adopt end-user personas in your business
Learn how you can use end-user personas to deliver the right devices, applications, data and IT support to the right people at the right time.
To find out more download our white paper about how end-user personas make managing enterprise mobility easier.
