4. The effects of technology in the workplace.

There’s a lot of talk about the need for creativity in the workplace. And none of it has anything to do with the type of artwork you choose to hang on your walls. Instead these conversations center on the fact that organizations that encourage their employees to think creatively at work enjoy a distinct advantage over their competitors. In fact, creativity in the workplace isn’t just a “nice to have” it’s a “must have” if a company wants to be competitive.

In April and May of 2018, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, polled 7,000 employees across 15 countries to study the impact of technology in the workplace.

The study, called, Digital Revolutionaries Unlock the Potential of the Digital Workplace revealed both business and human benefits of more digitally driven workplaces.

In this study, they identified two distinct groups within today’s workforce:

The Digital Revolutionaries — employees that work in companies where new workplace technologies are in widespread use

The Digital Laggards — employees who work in less-engaged workplaces that risk falling behind

They discovered that in addition to efficiency and productivity created by a digital workplace, the group identified as the Digital Revolutionaries also experienced significant personal satisfaction and well-being advantages.

Seventy-four percent said their job satisfaction is good or very good, while 70% reported their work-life balance to be good. Revolutionaries were also 59% more likely than the Laggards to say that they were learning new skills in the workplace, 61% more likely to say that they effectively accomplished multiple tasks during the day, and 65% more likely to believe their role is strategic to their organization.

Seventy-five percent of the Revolutionaries also reported positive well-being in the workplace, compared to 50% of the Laggards. A similar proportion (73%) praised
their company’s employee culture, with only 39% of the Laggards reporting the same.
According to this study, Revolutionaries were also more positive about their work environment and organization.

75% were happy about their company work culture and 67% were happy about the level of creativity.

However, technology in the workplace can be a doubleedged sword. While it’s usually associated with gains in productivity, technology can also cause employee
distress.

Using data from two surveys of U.S. workers, Noelle Chesley, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, found that increased technology use is linked to higher levels of worker distress, especially when it allows work to extend into an employee’s personal life.

Work-related stress is created by a constantly increasing work pace, work interruptions, and the expectation to handle multiple tasks at once.

According to a survey done in 2008 by Pew Networked Workers, about a third of employees reported that technology use is a factor in creating a more stressful
work experience.

The data also documented that technology is enabling work to seep into an employee’s personal time.

Employees feel the need to respond to their work email and phone messages after hours, on weekends, when they are sick,on vacation, or even while running errands.

A factor helping fuel employee distress.

A 2014 Deloitte survey also points out that this trend of employees feeling overwhelmed is a direct result of the always-connected lifestyle and information overload of
our high-tech business environment.

In earlier generations, you could leave the office at 5:00 p.m. and not have to think about it again until the next morning. With today’s advances in technology, people are no longer able to leave their work at the office.

 

The Connection Between Well-Being and Creativity

Expert from Kimball White Paper “The Connection Between Well-Being and Creativity” published on 11/8/2018