eg2013 annual final

7/30/2019 Eg2013 Annual Final

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1

EXECUTIVE GUIDANCE FOR 2013

Breakthrough Performancein the New Work EnvironmentIdentiying and Enabling the New High Perormer


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1

Companies Get More rom Employees

Trends in Key Productivity Measures, 1993 to Present2

Indexed to 1993

Revenue per FTE

2.0

0.6

1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

CAGR = 3.23%

CAGR = 0.16%

CAGR = (0.61%)

1 Based on median gures.

2 Data includes 8,625 companies rom 93 countries with annual revenue greater than US$500 million.

Driving corporate growth in a low-growth environment is a consistent theme

in boardrooms today. As CEB research shows, many companies are (or

should be) pursuing Intelligent Growthsimultaneous growth in top-line

revenue and bottom-line protability. Companies that successully managethe costgrowth trade-o signicantly outperorm their peers and reward

shareholders. Unortunately, achieving Intelligent Growth is hard and getting

harderonly 3 out o 10 companies in the S&P 500 have been able to grow and

keep costs at bay since the global nancial crisis.

For many rms, managing the costgrowth trade-o comes down to increasing

workorce productivity. To date, business perormance gains have come rom

better labor eciency, and companies have been getting more and more romtheir investment in employees. Since 1993, revenue per ull-time equivalent

(FTE) has grown at a 3.23% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) compared

to no growth in revenue per cost o goods sold (COGS; CAGR = 0.16%) and a

0.61% in revenue per invested capital.1

Revenue per COGS Revenue per Invested Cap

Source: Compustat; CEB, CEB Finance Leadership Council.


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2

Needing Even More from Employees

Simply put, the corporate bottom line depends on getting more eciency out

o the workorceand signs suggest companies will continue to need more

rom employees going orward. Companies are clearly striving or protable

growth. The majority o executives surveyed by CEB believe their revenues

will increase in the coming year (59%), but they also anticipate continued

pressure to lower costs (67%). Protable growth will continue to put pressure

on employees to be more ecientonly 32% o executives plan to increase

head count despite optimism around revenue growth.

Source: CEB, Business Barometer Quarterly Report; CEB, CEB Finance Leadership Council.

The Challenge: Growth Without Sta Investments

Percentage o Executive Expectations

Q3 2012

Increase Stay the Same Decrease

Expected Revenue Cost Pressures Head Count

26%

15%

59%

16%

17%

67%

35%

33%

32%


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3

Moreover, ambitious protable growth goals at many rms have executives

demanding a discontinuous jump in workorce perormance and

productivity. On average, global executives believe they will need a 20%

improvement in perormance over and above current levels in order to meet

their business objectives.

Executives Need More rom Employees to Meet Current Goals

Percentage o Improvement Needed to Achieve Business Goals

n = 2,046.

Source: CEB, CLC Human Resources High Perormance Survey.

On average, global executivesbelieve they will need a 20%

improvement in performance

over and above current levels.

0% 110% 1120% 2130% More Than30%

5%

39%

27%

15%14%


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4

Employees Are Working Harder and Longer

Percentage o Employees Who Have Experienced an Increase in

Workload in the Past Three Years

n = 23,339.

Are Productivity Expectations

Unrealistic?

Achieving a dramatic jump in workorce productivity may be harder than

business leaders anticipate. CEB has been tracking employee eort and

perormance levels since 1998, and the labor productivity gains realized over

the past two decades may well be reaching their limit. The discretionary eort

employees put into their work rebounded ater the global nancial crisis but

has remained relatively fat over the past year and a hal.3

Employees surveyed by CEB report that their jobs are getting harder, with

more than two-thirds reporting more complexity and 80% seeing their

workloads increase. Rapid shits in the global economy and availability o

technology and inormation have resulted in dramatic changes to corporate

organizational structures and the way work is done. Most observers agree

that work has become much more global and more dependent on inormation

and technology and requires more collaboration across a geographically

dispersed workorce. Increasingly complex work is taking its toll: more than

one-hal o surveyed employees indicate the stress o their jobs is on the rise.

80% 78%

56%

YourWorkload

Your TeamsWorkload

Hours Workedper Week


3 CEB, CLC Human Resources, Quarterly Global Workorce Insight Report, Q3 2012.


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5

Employees Struggle to Handle the Stress o Their Jobs

Percentage o Employees Agreeing with the Statement,

I Cannot Handle the Stress o My Job or Much Longer

n = 23,339.


55%

Agree

45%

Neutral

or Disagree


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6

Most Executives Think Employees Could Substantially Improve

Percentage o Executives

n = 641.

Herein lies the problem: employee trends suggest employees are reaching

a limit to their workload, but executives need a 20% lit in workorce

productivity. Many business leaders believe employees can be more

productive. On average, executives think that only about 29% o their

employees are operating at peak productivity. Moreover, or every executive

that believes his or her sta is ully productive, seven believe their sta could

substantially improve.

SubstantialRoom to Improve

Substantial Room to

Improve = 1 to 33%

o workorce perorming

at highest possible level

Moderate Room to

Improve = 34 to 66% o

workorce perorming at

highest possible level

Little to No Room to

Improve = 67 to 100% o

workorce perorming at

highest possible level

ModerateRoom to Improve

Little to NoRoom to Improve

68%

20%

12%

Source: CEB, 2012 CEB Senior Executive Survey.

Note: HR executives answered or the entire workorce, while other executives answered or theirunction or department.


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8

Understand the New Work

Environment and Its Implications

It is a well-known act that the economy and underlying work environment

are changing. The press and business literature are replete with mega trends

and micro trends all believed to be driving more fuidity and complexity in

the business environment. The global economy is less stable, technology is

evolving at breakneck pace, and inormation and communication channels

have become ubiquitous. But which o these trends really matter, and what

are the important subsequent changes within corporations?

Through a survey o more than 1,500 senior executives, CEB identied

10 important trends that all into three broad, but distinct, categories:

Frequent organizational change

More interdependent work

An increase in knowledge work

These trends meaningully impact how work is structured, managed, andconducted, and they reveal new realities in the workplace that undamentally

change how work gets done and what drives employee perormance.


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9

KNOWLEDGE WORK

31%

18%

16%

14%

27%

21%

15%

27%

17%

15%

Frequent Change, More Interdependence, and Knowledge Work Dene

the New Work Environment

Percentage o Executives Indicating Trend in Their Top Three4

n = 1,630.

Cross-Function or Departmental Work Groups

Matrixed Reporting Relationships

More Frequent Organizational Change

Greater Financial Uncertainty

Geographically Dispersed Workorce

Organizational Downsizing

Team-Based Work

New Inormation Technology

More Nonroutine Work

Greater Inormation Availability

INTERDEPENDENT WORK

Source: CEB, 2012 CEB Senior Executive Survey.

4 HR executives answered or the entire workorce, while other executives answered or their unction

CHANGE (ECONOMIC AND ORGANIZATIONAL)

or department.


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10

A persistent and common aspect o the new work environment is requent,

signicant organizational change, both broadly dened (e.g., strategic

objectives, markets) and narrowly dened (e.g., work teams, reporting

relationships). Shiting economic power, regulatory uncertainty, and rapid

technological changes cause requent adjustment in business objectives and

strategies and lead to real changes in organizational structures, reporting

relationships, and work teams and processes. Over the past three years,

63% o employees report experiencing requent changes in organizational

objectives. Structural changes in the work environment are just as common

and persistent. In 2009, 81% o employees experienced a signicant

organizational change, and every year since, more than 50% o employees

have reported signicant changes.

In a high-change environment, established work processes become less

relevant and valuable as objectives and organizations change. Moreover,

process and structure changes disrupt, or even disband, long-standing

employee networks. CEB analysis estimates that a high-change environment

can reduce overall employee perormance by as much as 10%.5

Frequent Organizational Change

Is the New Normal

Implication:Change and ambiguity will derail productivity unless

managers help employees better anticipate, contextualize, prioritize, and

respond to requent change at all levelsultimately making them more

agile and accepting o change.

5 CEB, Communications Executive Council Agility Survey 2011.


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11

81%

56%53%

56%

High-Level Objectives Are Changing Frequently

Amount o Change in Organizational Objectives in the Past Three

Years, by Percentage o Employees

n = 23,339.

3%

Decreased

34%

Stayed the Same 63%

Increased


Most Employees Experience Persistent Change

Percentage o Organizations That Experienced Signicant Changes

in the Previous 12 Months

2009 2010 2011 2012

Source: CEB, CLC Human Resources Quarterly Global Labor Market Survey.


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12

As organizations have become more matrixed, employees across theorganization share ormal responsibilities, authority, and accountability or

more work outcomes. While inormal working relationships and networks have

always been important, getting work done today requires more collaboration

among a broader and more diverse set o people who are perorming new

tasks and working across more geographic locations. Collaborating today is

harder than it was yesterday:

Sixty-seven percent o employees report an increase in work requiring

active collaboration.

One-hal o all employees indicate a signicant increase in stakeholders

needed to make a decision.

Fity-seven percent report an increase in the number o coworkers they

work with in other geographic locations.

Sixty percent o employees report working with 10 or more people on a

day-to-day basis (and one-hal o these employees report needing to work

with more than 20).6

Sixty-ve percent o employees indicate they must manage external

stakeholders (i.e., outside their company) to perorm their work.7

The new work environment requires collaboration, yet the pace o workplace

change complicates working with and through others. As previously noted,

organizational changes disrupt employee networks and work processes, making

connections hard to build and even harder to maintain. Employees must navigate

across dierent structures, cultures, and processes to perorm, but they struggle

to understand whom to work with and how to work with them.

Work Is More Interdependent

Implication: Collaboration will not occur unless organizations enable

and encourage broader employee networksconnecting employees as

needed and providing clear direction, aligned incentives, integrated

workfow, and better technology.

6, 7 CEB, CLC Human Resources High Perormance Survey.


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14

The introduction o big data to the workplace has coincided with

exponential growth in computing power, prolieration o business

applications, more process automation, and increased outsourcing o routine

work. As a result, most work processes are highly automated, and work in

general has become more data and inormation intensive, less routine, and

more exceptions based. Working with data and inormation has become

core to most employees jobs, with 76% o employees reporting a signicant

increase in time spent working with data and inormation. While denitions

vary, more and more employees are knowledge workersanyone who

collects, manages, uses, analyzes, and makes decisions using inormation as

a primary part o his or her day-to-day job. Almost three out o our executives

report that more than one-hal o their sta are now knowledge workers.8

Unortunately, not all employees have achieved prociency in being able

to nd inormation, analyze it, and use sound business judgment to make

decisions. CEBs Insight IQ index measures an employees decision-

making maturity. Employees with the highest Insight IQthose with the

ability to eectively analyze inormation to make sound decisionsare called

Inormed Skeptics. On average, less than 40% o employees are Inormed

Skeptics.9 The best decision makers are ound at the executive level, and the

number o employees with the right balance o skills declines rapidly at lower

levels in the organization.

Almost Everyone Is a Knowledge

Worker

Implication: Since knowledge work requires both ready access to the

right inormation and eective decision making with that inormation,

organizations need to ensure that employees have the right skills and

abilities to use advanced inormation technology eectively in their jobs.

9 CEB, Inormation Technology Insight IQ Diagnostic.

8

CEB, CLC Human Resources High Perormance Survey.


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15

Employees Are Doing More Knowledge Work

Change in Time Spent Finding and Reviewing Data and Inormation in

the Past Three Years, by Percentage o Employees

n = 23,339.

Source: CEB, Inormation Technology Insight IQ Diagnostic.

Good Decision Makers Are Rare Lower in the Organization

Percentage o Inormed Skeptics (Mature Decision Makers), by Level

n = 4,941 knowledge workers.

Executive Leadership

Senior Managers

Mid-Level Managers

Individual Contributors

18%

Stayed the Same

6%

Decreased

76%

Increased

69%

50%

41%

32%



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16

The work environment has changed dramatically, and work is now

done through a web o collaborating knowledge workers. Employees

in this environment have more ambiguous objectives, and their work is

interconnected with a growing, more dispersed network. Employees are

making more business decisions much lower in the organization. They need

more high-quality inormation and tools to make those decisions. But most o

all, they need the experience and skills to apply sound judgment in decision

making. Bottom lineorganizations will need a dierent kind o employee,

one that is immune to the paralyzing complexities o change, willing to

collaborate with a broad range o individuals, and able to apply judgment in

an increasingly knowledge-based role.


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17

Who are the high-perorming employees in this new work environment?

What skills and behaviors will dierentiate the most productive employees?

Most managers and perormance management models assume that strong

business acumen, task and process mastery, and technical know-how explain

the majority o an employees job perormance. Unortunately, the prevalence

o outdated assumptions about the most valuable skills and abilities leads

to the misidentication (or under-identication) o the organizations next

generation o high perormers. Using existing methods, organizations will

likely ail to identiy 65% o their new high perormers.10

Building the next generation o employees requires ocusing on a new set

o skills. CEB analyzed the drivers o perormance or more than 23,000

managers and employees across more than 40 organizations globally and

ound the 10 employee competencies that dierentiate those best able to

perorm in the new work environment:

1. Prioritization

2. Teamwork

3. Organizational awareness

4. Problem solving

5. Sel-awareness

6. Proactivity

7. Infuence

8. Decision making

9. Learning agility

10. Technical expertise

Identify and Build New Skills

10 CEB, CLC Human Resources High Perormance Survey.


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18

Based on these dierentiating competencies, the new high perormer

is someone who can:

Adapt to ChangeHigh perormers use their knowledge o the

organization and their role to quickly adjust to work environment

changes. Adaptive employees are also proactive; they are not paralyzed

by change, and they are willing to take action and move projects and

priorities orward.

Work CollaborativelyHigh perormers are good collaborators,

working well with and through others. They have the teamwork skills

necessary to work with a wide range o people across the organization.

They use their technical expertise to infuence stakeholders and

contribute to collaborative projects.

Apply JudgmentHigh perormers use strong analytic skills to

prioritize their work, assess problems, and make decisions. They rely on

their expertise, experience, and knowledge o the organization to apply

judgment to their decisions and in their work.


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The New High Perormer Adapts to Change, Works Collaboratively,

and Applies Judgment

Top 10 Out o 32 Competencies Driving Employee Perormance

n = 23,339.

Organizational Awareness

Teamwork

Proactivity

Technical Expertise

Problem Solving

Sel-Awareness

Inuence

Learning Agility

Prioritization

Decision Making

Adapt to

Change

Work

Collaboratively

Apply

Judgment


11%

9%

9%

7%

12%

9%

7%

13%

11%

9%


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20

New High-Perormer Skill Sets Are Rare

Presence o Key Competencies, by Industry Sector Globally

Percentage of Population

Unortunately, employees with the right combination o skillsthose who

adapt to change, work collaboratively, and apply judgmentare relatively

rare. SHL, a global leader in talent measurement and a CEB subsidiary,

tracks a global benchmark constructed rom competencies core to the newhigh-perormer prole. On average, about 5% o assessed employees have

a strong combination o the core skills and competencies essential to high

perormance in the new work environment; in addition, some industries

have more new high perormers than others. While technology (6.4%) and

proessional services (6.2%) sectors have relatively more capable employees

than the travel and leisure (4.1%), oil and gas (4.2%), engineering (4.2%), and

utilities (4.3%) sectors, the new high perormer is in a clear minority.

Source: SHL, The SHL Talent Report: Big Data Insight and Analysis o the Global Workorce.

1Technology

6.4%

2Proessional

Services

6.2%

3Food, Beverage,

and Tobacco

5.9%

5Consumer

Goods (Heavy

Goods)

5.8%

8Public

Sector

5.4%

9Consumer

Goods

(Personal and

Leisure)

5.3%

10Business

Services

4.9%

11Health Care

4.8%

12Banking

4.6%

12Telecoms

4.6%

14Utilities

4.3%

15Engineering

4.2%

15Oil and Gas

4.2%

17Travel

and Leisure4.1%

6Mining

5.6%

3Retail

5.9%

6Insurance

and Financial

Services

5.6%


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How can organizations quickly develop the new skills required or high

perormance? It is too easy (and incorrect) to assume that current employees

are incapable o developing the new competencies required. While hiring

new sta with stronger aptitude in the new core skills will help over time,there is no substitute or experience. The competencies essential to strong

perormance in the new work environment are best developed through

on-the-job experience with a single company over time. As an employee

gains organizational experience, his or her ability to adapt to change, work

collaboratively, and apply judgment in his or her job rises steadily.

Perormance Improves with Experience

Maximum Impact on Perormance o Tenure at Organization

n = 23,339.

8%

4%

0%

0 5 20 251510

Tenure in Years


As employees gain experienceeven early

in their careerthey are:

More likely to serve as a critical resource

to others and

More likely to contribute to new ideas

for products or services.


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Leadership teams can no longer rely on old management assumptions and

paradigms. Generating the next level o breakthrough perormance and

productivity will require building essential skills, better managing new

work processes, and nding ways to enable higher productivity. To do this,

executives should do the ollowing:

1. Accelerate Skill Development Through Guided Stretch Roles

2. Adjust Employee Roles to the Demand and Supply Sides

of Collaboration

3. Reorient Managers to Guide and Empower Knowledge

Workers

4. Target Technology Investments to the Evolving Needs

of Knowledge Work and Collaborative Teams

Adjust Management Approaches

and Target Technology Investments


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Use connectors to transer network building and collaboration

skills. Identiy your best collaborators and use them to teach others

how to network, build relationships, infuence decisions, and manage

collaborative projects. Your best connectors should also document key

relationships and help transer network knowledge rom project to

project.

Use Inormed Skeptics to teach how to apply judgment in work.Identiy employees with the strongest decision-making skillsthose who

bring a critical eye to analytic tasks, analyze data, use their intuition,

and apply judgment. Use these Inormed Skeptics to model the correct

approaches to decision making on the job. Task them specically with

coaching less capable team members and rotate them across key projects.

Manage both learning and work activities on key projects. Learning

needs to be intentional and built into projects. Managers, mentors, and

coaches must emphasize learning alongside the projects core activities.

Hold managers accountable or ensuring that the ollowing steps are

taken: 1) identiy learning opportunities and goals beore a project begins,

2) assess learning during a project, and 3) refect on skill development

and next steps at the projects completion.


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27

Redening employee roles and managing them toward greater enterprise

contribution leads to stronger business perormance. CEBs analysis shows

that those organizations able to move beyond maximizing individual

perormance to achieve higher levels o enterprise contribution signicantly

outperorm their peers. Firms that were able to move more employees to high

levels o enterprise perormance realized a 10% improvement in protability,

compared to a 5% improvement or those who emphasized and achieved highlevels o individual perormance alone.

Managing to Enterprise Contribution Increases Perormance

Percentile Change in Prot, by Percentage o Enterprise Contributors

in Business Unit

n = 23,339.

Note: CEB used a two-stage least squares regression to estimate the causal relationship betweenbusiness unit prot change and percentage o employees achieving individual task and network

outcomes. The efects are modeled using a variety o multivariate regressions with appropriatecontrol variables.


Percentage o Employees

15th

10th

5th

0

0% 25% 100%75%50%

High Enterprise Contribution

(High Individual Task and

Network Performance)

High Individual Task

Performance Alone


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Unortunately, 64% o employees do not eel their current role truly refects

how they do, or should, work with others to get their jobs done.12 To improve

their employees enterprise contribution, managers need to embrace

collaboration as a key element o the new work environment and take specic

steps to help employees be more productive in new, expanded roles:

Add the Three Cs o strong enterprise contribution to employee

roles. Focus employees on the importance o sub-roles that are key to

driving network perormance by setting expectations that each employee

must act as a:

ConnectorEectively enranchising essential coworkers, peers,

and others in ormal and inormal collaboration projects, specically

including others who are jointly responsible and accountable or

work outcomes and those who should be consulted and inormed.

ContributorWillingly providing input and support to the work o

others, both ormally and inormally, as required.

ConsumerActively seeking out ideas and input rom others in

the organization and incorporating them into ormal and inormal

collaboration projects as required to get work done.

Manage collaboration over discrete work tasks. Unortunately, only

40% (two in ve) o employees report their manager is able to connectthem eectively with their coworkers.13 As a result, many employees

are uncertain about whom to work with and how to do it eectively.

Managers must actively encourage their employees to collaborate more

eectivelyproviding support rom connectors, coaches, and peers.

12, 13 CEB, CLC Human Resources High Perormance Survey.


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Invest time in building complementary teams, and keep the ones

that work. On a limited number o high-impact or critical projects,

take the added step o ormally creating the initial working teams.

Evaluate the core sta available or key projects on extended teams, and

create connections that complement strengths and weaknesses. Avoid

disrupting eective teams, ensure team stability, and keep key elements

o collaborative teams intact rom project to project.

Emphasize network management alongside knowledge

management. In addition to documenting key work processes and

activities, executives should map and document key relationships within

and between working teams. Actively refecting on and documenting

connections essential to collaborative projects will help in transerring

network knowledge over time.

Encourage and enable collaboration with external partners.

With more outsourcing, critical supplier relationships, and strategic

partnerships, it is more important than ever to establish strong working

relationships with sta in external organizations. Create opportunities

or joint work, and encourage inormal communication between sta and

vendors, partners, proessional associations, and alumni networks. Use

simple rules to guide these interactions and to protect strategic projects

and proprietary inormation.


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While leaders can take specic steps to shit roles and expectations to improve

collaboration, they must also help employees perorm better at undamentally

dierent work. The challenge o managing in the new work environment is

compounded by the act that work is less supervised and, by extension, more

autonomous; there are ewer managers to do the managing since the average

span o control has grown rom 6 to 12 direct reports between 2002 and 2012.14

How can senior leaders and managers at all levels modiy their traditional

approaches to management to overcome this challenge? Even in a more

collaborative work environment, hierarchical, manager-led control serves

as a valuable check and, more importantly, a ocused means o directing

work to the best organizational outcomes. Work is undamentally more

complex and will remain so going orward. A managers role is not to ght

the trend by trying to simpliy complex work or jobs but rather to remove the

complications arising in a less routine, more ambiguous, and collaborativework environment.

3Reorient Managers to Guide and

Empower Knowledge Workers

Help Employees Do Complex JobsDontSimpliy Them

Maximum Impact on Employee Perormance, by Type o Manager

Strategy

n = 23,339.


1%

11%

Managers Help EmployeesSimpliy Their Roles

< 1%

Managers Help EmployeesNavigate Complex Roles

14 CEB, CLC Learning and Development High Perormance Survey, 2012; CEB, CLC 2002 PerormanceManagement Survey; CEB, CLC 2008 Organizational Redesign Survey.


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Organizations eective at achieving higher perormance and more enterprise

contribution rom their employees expect their management teams to do the

ollowing:

Focusand communicateon big-picture objectives over process.

A consistent understanding o organizational objectives is essential

to employee ocus and perormance in a high-change environment.Regularly restate and conrm organizational objectives to provide

a strategic context or employees work and decision making.

Empowerand embracedecisions deeper in the organization.

Employees need greater autonomy to make decisions and manage their

work activities. Embrace this shit in decision making and enable it by

setting clearer objectives, providing access to more inormation, and

supporting more agile resourcing or key projects.

Connect employees to inormation sources rather than provide

the inormation. Managers should provide direction to and establish

context or critical inormation rather than mediate its fow to

employees. Resetting connections can be as simple as creating links

between employees and key stakeholders or as complex as changing

reporting and permission rights on key sources.

Pursue managed collaboration over broad idea generation.

Too oten, collaboration is an unettered exercise in idea exchange ueled

by online crowdsourcing and social media platorms. While the easy fow

o inormation and ideas is important, ocus on limiting the number o

approved projects and attaching them to enterprise-level goals with clear

objectives, timelines, and expectations.


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4Target Technology Investments to

the Evolving Needs of Knowledge

Work and Collaborative TeamsMaintaining and improving productivity levels will require organizations

to retool the work environment to better support collaborative, knowledge-

intensive work. While corporate IT organizations have done a very good job

providing oundational, enterprise-level solutions to support standard work

processes and needs, senior leaders should reevaluate their technology needs

to ensure current platorms are accelerating perormance, not hindering it.

While 99% o employees use some orm o technology on the job,15 less

than 40% eel they have the technology needed to be productive. As work

has become less routine and more exceptions based, standard enterprise

solutions are simply not as eective. End-user surveys show that employees

want easy-to-use technology that will help them collaborate, make decisions,

and get their work done. Unless organizations can better link technology

to the work needs o employees, inadequate or misapplied technology will

likely be a major barrier to knowledge worker productivity, not to mentionbottom-line protability.

Employees Lack Sufcient Technology to Work Eectively

Percentage o Respondents, by Level o Enablement on CEBs

Technology-Enabled Productivity Barometer

n = 983.

Source: CEB, CEB Technology-Enabled Productivity Survey.

15 CEB, Help Desk Benchmark Database, IT Perormance Benchmarking.

61%

Not Technology Enabled

39%

Technology Enabled


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Employees Want Easy-to-Use Technology to Get Work Done

Preerence Ranking o Technology Attributes at Work

n = 9,900 global employees.

Source: CEB, Inrastructure Executive Council Employee Technology Value Survey 2011.

Device and ApplicationsShould Be as Easy to Use and

Intuitive as Possible

Inormation Should Be Seamless,Meaning I Can Access and Use ItAcross Applications and Devices

Technical Support and TrainingShould Be Available by Request

with Minimal Delay

I Need to Be Able to CustomizeDevices and Applications to My

Individual Needs

Least Important Most Important

(7%) 38%

(9%) 16%

(9%) 16%

(20%) 5%

(33%) 7%

7%

9%

9%

20%

33%

I Need to Be Able to Accomplish

Both Personal and Work-RelatedTasks with the Same Devices and

Applications


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How can executives ensure employees have easy-to-use technology that will

help them make decisions, collaborate, and complete their work? Firms that

get more enterprise contribution rom their employees invest in improving

mobility, data usability, collaboration platorms, and customized applications

by doing the ollowing:

Build back rom employee needs, not just broad business needs.

Do not over-standardize technology and tools at the enterprise or

divisional level. Encourage corporate IT to move beyond legacy needs

assessment methods to processes that are more customer riendly, that

is, ocused on observing end users in specic workfows (e.g., work

groups and major collaboration projects) rather than broad business or

unctional groups.

Identiy and use prosumers to redefne technology needs.

Every group has its prosumers, the early adopters who discover, test,and adopt the most appropriate (i not always approved and supported)

technologies to do their work. Use your prosumers to help establish team

needs, identiy promising technologies, and drive utilization.

Encourage and embrace mobile technology trial and error.

Employees will use and adopt the technology they need to get their work

done. More than 60% o employees use their own mobile devices at

worknot or convenience, but because they are useul in getting work

done.16 A simple, but big, step in many organizations is to embrace the use

o personal devices by employees. Leaders should avoid zero tolerance,

overly restrictive, or one-device-ts-all policies or mobile devices and

customized applications.

16 CEB, Inrastructure Executive Council Employee Technology Value Survey 2011.


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Fix data accessibility and usability. While employees can access

data readily, too much data is unusable or too hard to nd; more than

50%o employees say inormation is in ormats they cannot use.17 As a

result, two-thirds o employees report spending time on unproductive

analyses.18 Business leaders and their IT organization need to conduct

regular assessments o the companys core data needs and assets

identiying causes o less usable data and creating a dened structure

or collecting, dening, prioritizing, storing, and disseminating better

inormation.

Create collaboration platorms to make immediate, in-the-moment

interactions easy. Unortunately, most collaboration platorms are

centered on document sharing and project management when they

should be supporting knowledge workallowing employees to work

together quickly, seamlessly, and on demand. Organizations need to

develop improved capabilities or broad idea sharing; concurrent, joint,and iterative work; and on-demand communication (including easy-to-

use, low-cost messaging, web conerencing, and video/voice systems).

Provide a wider array o analytic applications. New technologies

and devices (tablets, smartphones, etc.) allow employees to readily

access data in and outside the oce. The bigger challenge is providing

employees access to the analytical applications necessary to be

productive with enterprise inormation outside the oce; one in

three employees are using applications they have ound themselves.19

Managers should work with their IT group to identiy and innovate the

applications employees nd most useul or work outside the oce.

Avoid overly restrictive policies that limit the use o cloud-based apps or

over-prioritizing scalable applications that are less customized to specic

employee needs.

1719 CEB, Inormation Technology Insight IQ Diagnostic.


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Corporations today are ocused on growthnot at any cost but at less cost.

Achieving simultaneous growth in top-line revenue and bottom-line

protability has come, and likely will continue to come, through greater

workorce productivity. While organizations have achieved impressive

levels o workorce eciency in recent years, they require moreto stay

competitive and grow, CEOs and leadership teams look or breakthrough

perormance and productivity gains rom their employees. To achieve these

gains, organizations need to understand the dramatic shits underway in

the work environment and reocus on enabling higher levels o workorce

perormance.


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Todays work environment is in constant fux. Change is the new normal

or employeeschanges in target markets, products, business objectives,

organization structure, work location, work teams, job role, or manager

alignments have become common. In part as a response to a more fuid

business environment and a result o ubiquitous inormation and rapid

technological advances, the predominant work o employees has become

much more collaborative and knowledge based. While rms may be tempted

to hire an all-new employeebetter able to perorm in a collaborative,

knowledge-based work environmenttheir needs are much more immediate,

and the new skills required are best developed through on-the-job experience.

Improvingor simply maintainingworkorce productivity requires rms to

accept the work environment has changed, and their underlying approaches

to employee development, work roles, management, and technology must

also change.

Improving workorce perormance and sta productivity is a central ocus

o CEB and SHL. In 2013, we will continue to rene our understanding o

the changing work environment, evolving skills requirements, and talent

management challenges essential to improving employee perormance and

productivity. To learn more about how other organizations are improving

employee productivity, to participate in our work, or to network with your

peers, please visit us at www.executiveboard.com/executive-guidance.

Members can reach their Executive Advisor at 1-866-913-2632 or contact

CEB at [email protected].


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ABOUT CEB

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Company may be reproduced or resold without prior approval. For additional

copies o this publication, please contact The Corporate Executive Board

Company at +1-866-913-2632, or visit www.executiveboard.com.

CEB is the leading member-based advisory company. By combining the best

practices o thousands o member companies with our advanced research

methodologies and human capital analytics, we equip senior leaders and

their teams with insight and actionable solutions to transorm operations.

This distinctive approach, pioneered by CEB, enables executives to harness

peer perspectives and tap into breakthrough innovation without costly

consulting or reinvention. The CEB member network includes more than

16,000 executives and the majority o top companies globally. For more

inormation visit www.executiveboard.com.

2012 The Corporate Executive Board Company.

All Rights Reserved. CEB3113312SYQ4

eg2013 annual final

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