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2016 Will Finally Make It Possible To Love Your Work

POST WRITTEN BY
Noah Wasmer
This article is more than 8 years old.

This might sound a little crazy, but when people ask me what I think 2016 holds for business mobility, it’s this: 2016 will finally make it possible to love your work.

Loving work is a radical concept—especially since only 13% of the world’s workers feel engaged at work. But we’ve entered a dramatically new era, where Americans alone collectively check their mobile devices 8 billion times per day. In the consumer world, we have an abundance of apps that make our personal lives easier, like Mint for intelligent insights into our finances, Waze for avoiding traffic delays and Nest for digitizing our homes. Yet as our personal lives become smarter and more delightful because of technology’s intelligent value, our work lives are becoming more and more … painful. And that’s because work technology in its current state is unlovable.

When I look at the average technology experience for today’s workers, roadblocks loom around every corner: legacy devices with legacy operating systems (OS), painful security hurdles, old-school internal applications and the list goes on and on. Ultimately, these hurdles compound to make the modern work “experience” too frustrating for the average worker to overcome, much less enjoy. But I believe we are finally on the precipice of a significant transformation in how business itself is done and, perhaps more importantly, how workers experience “work.”

The catalyst for this transformation occurred only months ago, as iOS, Android, OS X and Windows 10 delivered both great usability and dramatic security improvements that benefit both the enterprise and the end-user. With these OS innovations serving as the catalysts, four huge mobility trends will converge in 2016 to create an elegant, intelligent business mobility ecosystem that facilitates “work” in a new, delightful and mobile way.

Four Predictions that Will Fundamentally Transform the Experience of “Work” in 2016

  1. Workers will become two times as productive in half the time.

Today, only 6 percent of the apps workers need to do their jobs are available on mobile. Ninety-four percent of apps are only available on desktops and laptops. In a world of literally billions of mobile apps, how crazy is that? That’s why I believe we haven’t even begun to understand or define what productivity means. In 2016, an incremental set of business apps will change the very definition of productivity—and make work a fun experience.

With a new app ecosystem built specifically for a use case or job function, IT will deliver purpose-built mobility solutions that transform productivity. And by eliminating roadblocks and automating painful processes, worker productivity will explode. Doctors, pilots, shopkeepers, farmers, teachers, knowledge and assembly line workers—the list goes on and on and on—will have the solutions they need to cut the waste, do more of what they love and begin loving their work.

  1. Removing roadblocks will deliver delightful user experiences.

We’ve all said it before: “I need my computer to do that.” In 2016, that statement will fade into the past. More work apps will be delivered in a device agnostic way. By developing business apps in a consistent, open and secure way—a worthy task that began with the ACE community—accessing work data, technology and processes anywhere, anytime, will finally become a reality. ACE and emerging technology innovations get users working faster by eliminating roadblocks like VPN and passwords to

deliver a more delightful user experience. The result will be a new world of work that dramatically simplifies processes and makes work an engaging, exciting part of our lives.

  1. Single purpose apps will radically change user workflows.

A major barrier of loving work is the red tape the average worker encounters every day: “I can’t start this yet, because I need approval.” “How many hours did I work on the ACME account this week?” “Who did I have lunch with three Tuesdays ago?” In 2016, organizations have the opportunity to leverage business mobility to eliminate bureaucratic business processes. And this can be done with single purpose or micro-task apps designed to automate and simplify a company’s most common processes. Often, these apps are now being developed by the various lines of business to improve their business unit’s productivity.

One of my favorite examples of small apps making a major difference comes from one of our customers, a leading multinational firm with consultants all over the world. Every week, their employees spent hours tracking, logging and auditing the exact increments of time spent working on client projects. By developing a simple micro-task app that transformed hours of time into a handful of clicks, those lost hours of productivity dropped to mere moments and billable hours multiplied.

  1. Chief Information Officers will begin evolving into Chief Insights Officers.

Tech is getting inherently smarter. Over the next three years, big data will finally evolve into strategic insights. Who owns the intelligence gathered through technology? The CIO and IT. With intelligence delivered through mobility, CIOs become less break/fix and more about providing the purpose-built solutions and intelligent insights that accelerate business transformation and growth. These insights have the potential to increase worker productivity, lower talent turnover and operational costs, drive sales, empower innovation and delight customers all while making shareholders happier.

Wouldn’t you rather be delivering massive value to your business and delighting your users?

A New Hope

The technology exists today that makes this radical new era of work possible. The huge barrier is us.

If IT is empowered to see work differently, to re-imagine what’s possible, we can empower workers to experience their jobs in a whole new way. By imagining and doing what was once the impossible, 2016 will be the year companies focus on delighting customers and helping people all over the world love their work.

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