Group 3 Presentation

IMT Business School

YOU CAN WRITE A SUBTITLE HERE

V2A Digital Intelligence

Presented by :

Aba Mahaman Abdallah Gtari Amine Leal Sanchez Dennis Le Rest Téo

Digital and technological changes in the workplace: experience of workers

Background and objectives of the study

1.1. Background

With the arriving of the 4th industrial revolution, named “Digital revolution”, physical and digital worlds are getting merged, businesses and daily living are evolving very fast, generating difficulties and stress in some aspects, but also creating new industries and opportunities. To take advantage of those opportunities (and in some cases even to survive into a progressively more connected and complex market), companies have to respond to the new market conditions in a proper way, at the right time. All business processes then must adapt, managers have to act rapidly and workforce is now demanded to be flexible, to follow the peace of such a rapid movement. Even better, while adapting to the digital economy, companies can capitalize all these new ways to make businesses. For example, by adopting new ways to advertise and delivery through social media, which (in most of the cases) is more efficient, cheaper, and allows the company to save important data about their customers.

1.2. Objectives of the study

Then, as companies are made by a complex combination of processes, changing one process can imply the transformation in more than one process, or even across all the company. And, as processes are, at least in some part, planned and developed by people, what at the end has to change, is the way that people do their work. Therefore, “succeeding in the digital economy requires new ways of working” (as mentioned in the paper “The digital workplace is key to digital innovation”). Understanding that digitalization it is not just a matter of IT departments, it is important then to determine if companies and their workforce at all levels are prepared to face the process of digital transformation, and then to take advantage of all the opportunities it comes with. That is precisely the purpose of this study, to ask directly to current working people, from their point of view, how they are living this process, its main advantages and disadvantages, how do they think it will impact their current job, and then to conclude if, in general terms, workforce is prepared to face this transformation. Finally, based on the analysis of the interviews and the material developed during the class, to bring up some recommendations that allow companies to take advantage of the benefits of digitalization.

Method used to conduct the study

Esto es un párrafo de texto listo para escribir un contenido genial

Esto es un párrafo de texto listo para escribir un contenido genial

Esto es un párrafo de texto listo para escribir un contenido genial

Esto es un párrafo de texto listo para escribir un contenido genial

During the interview we had to collect information on these 3 subjects: the worst experience of the interviewee at work with digital, the best experience of the interviewee at work with digital, and the future and the expectations of the interviewee regarding the place of digital in his/her work practice. If the interviewee didn’t spontaneously address these topics during the interview, at the end of the interview, the interviewer did directly ask a question about the themes that were not covered. After the interview, we had to complete a document on the socio-demographic data of the interviewee, the data on the employer of the interviewee and the answers of the interviewees to the 3 main themes that we were going to analyze later.36

2.1. Data collection

To find results to answer this research, we needed to collect and analyse data. To collect the data, each research member had to interview 3 workers (35 interviews in total) aged over 35 and excluded students (including apprentices), job seekers, retirees and self-employed, to make sure that these people are well integrated into the world of work and concerned by the study. The interview was semi-structured, that means that we oriented the interviewees around the defined themes but we let them express themselves freely for them to give informations that we wouldn’t necessary have thought to ask, moreover this will allow to obtain the most precise representation the interviewee has about the theme without his opinion and judgment being influenced by the interviewer and his questions. The interview was to last between 20 and 30 minutes and was recorded and then transcribed for better analysis later. Each interview began with this question, which was the only directive part: “Could you explain to me what digital intelligence is for you and what role it plays in your working practices today?”.

Then to analyse the answers collected through all these interviews, a document has been created gathering the answers of the people interviewed on the 3 main themes and the information on the whole population interviewed. We can see that the population interviewed are mostly people between 35 and 45 years old and it’s balanced between men and women, moreover they come from all over the world even if the majority of the respondents are French but it will allow us to have the vision of people abroad and not having results influenced by the local culture. The study concerns all levels of seniority but mainly master's graduates or undergraduates. We see that all the hierarchical level are concerned both the bottom and the top of the hierarchy, which will make it possible to judge the results on all levels.

2.2. Data analysis

Finally, we see that most of the sectors are represented except the education one, and both small and large companies with few and many employees. To analyse every answer, we decided to divide the questions for each member of the group who then had the role of summarizing the answers for the question assigned to him. Then we could more easily analyse the overall opinions of the interviewees to draw conclusions on what is the general mindset of the people on the technological changes in the workplace.

2.2. Data analysis

Presentation of results

3.1. Best experience:

INTRODUCTION HERE

All interviewees had at least one positive opinion to give on digital at work, it was mainly oriented on the fact that digital allows them to be faster, indeed 38% said that their best experience at work with the digital is that it brings an earning of time, either because digital help them to work faster and be more productive, either because it make them waste less time with time-consuming tasks that are done automatically, it served to reduce the arduousness of their work with the use of digital tools. But this gain of time and efficiency is linked to other aspects that the digital improved, per example 28% of the respondents said that what they appreciated the most in the digitalisation at work is that it’s more precise and they have a better control than before, with the creation of the database particularly, there is more facility to access to information (information about the client, financial information, production, failure, non-compliance, loss, stock, …) that could be longer to find before, and also the fact that there is less documents and that they are dematerialized is easier for them. Another improvement which is linked to the productivity gain that the interviewees reported is the new practices and programs that has been created which facilitate the work, indeed 28% said that these digital tools allow them to be more efficient, to do less mistakes and then to be more confident and less stressed while they are working. Moreover after the pandemic a lot of people appreciated the advantages discovered with telework, 19% of the responses was compliments about the teleworking, the fact that they could continue to work during the quarantine, the ability to work and do meeting with people around the world without having to move, to reduces the number of (international) trips for work and having more time at home for the parents that have children, and also the connection and facilities to contact co-workers to get information. Finally few people (9%) thought about the customer part and noticed the improvement of the customer experience and satisfaction brought by the digital.

3.1. Best experience:

3.2. Worst experience:

Based on the answers to this question, we categorized all those difficulties in 7 groups and analyse the 3 most important, which represent about the 70% of the total answers. From the 35 total answers, the most common difficulties when working with digital are related with the malfunctioning of connection, equipments and software with a 30%. This aspect generates troubles to develop meetings, presentations and daily tasks in a proper manner and in the right time. The consequences of this issues can represent different ranges of risks to the company, from frustration in people for having to work extra time, to the loss of contracts for not presenting proposals on time. The 2 next biggests sources of frustration, with 19% each one, are those related with the lack of social contact and change resistance. Regarding the social perspective, there are aspects people miss like the personnel contact with their colleagues, and the facility to speak face to face with customers. Here arises interesting conclusions about some of the troubles faced with their “customers” because it includes not just those from a business relationship, but also other kind of clients like students and their lack of enthusiasm with online lessons, or medical patients and the importance to give them some sensitive diagnosis and discuss possible treatments in person. We catalogued as “change resistance” those complaints related with the interviewees personal perspective about the change process. For example, a couple of interviewed directors had identified that some people refuses to participate in digital transformation processes because they still think it will conclude with their job’s loss. Other interviewees complain about the digitalization demands constant capacitation in how to use certain tools, or the increasing expectations from their leaders about them having to develop better and quicker results now that they have “better tools”, and some even mentioned the excessive digitalization derives in a loss of creativity.

3.2. Worst experience:

3.3. Future & expectations:

The future seems bright for the majority of the people that were interviewed, stating that digitalisation is bringing more efficiency, precision and improving process times. As for the expectations, a lot of people stated that they needed deeper and more accurate trainings in order to achieve the full potential of rising technologies while introducing more specific field technologies ( Medicine, law…) which could facilitate everyday tasks, reduce process times and break some technical barriers we couldn’t do without the help of technology until now. It’s also important to state that the majority of the interviewees expect better data privacy and protection. Some answers were specifically interesting as they projected to a farther future with cryptocurrency replacing our actual money system or even incorporating the metaverse in the workplace. On the other hand, some people are skeptical on the impact of digital transformation, stating arguments such as robots replacing humans in everyday tasks due to a better performance and shorter process and execution time but also the fact that there’s a lack of training that follows the flow in which technology advances, so they fear they wouldn’t have the specific skills to keep up with the flow.

Recommendations, limitations and perspectives

The fact that all the people interviewed gave a good opinion on an aspect that digital has improved in their work shows that people are open to the technical changes, but each with more or less strong limits.

4.1. Limitations and perspectives The fact that all the people interviewed gave a good opinion on an aspect that digital has improved in their work shows that people are open to the technical changes, but each with more or less strong limits. According to the various interviews conducted, we were able to identify several limitations concerning digital in the workplace. We can identify the following: - There is a real contrast, given the differences in age and the difference in career time. Indeed, younger people manage to adapt better to the digital; - There is also a great contrast to so-called service jobs, where real contact is often not necessary, and so-called technical jobs such as medicine, engineering and others; -With the digital, people except to be able to work from the place they have chosen; -Workers working in direct contact find that this impacts their ability to successfully complete certain negotiations; -The contact of the teams in order to create a team synergy and to increase the performance by the complicity which is created there.

Testimonies

“ My thing for communication is not great, like mailing or any other tool is worse than calling or simply have a meeting face to face. Because many things got lost in the middle, it's mostly about talking to the people and the workers in order to make the work be the best And you don’t lose anything in the digital world if you speak to the person face to face directly, I get that. ”

“ I do not think it has, only good result it has, it does not have a negative because you have the immediacy of information at all times. A negative fact is only when I run out of battery from the device and I do not have direct information about the customers, about the way I have to handle them.It had a direct impact on the quality of my work. I will be able to hold the battery with a power bank or I could have the information handwritten but it helps me much better to have it digitally. ”

“ I will say, more about the fact that sometimes there are tools that do not seem very intuitive to me since it is the human being who puts them in place. The logic of some does not make the logic of others. So, sometimes there are tools that from my point of view, are not very intuitive so it's not easy to identify them right away. That's the first problem I encounter, you waste times more time identifying them than moving on to another task. The updates too, although it is good, because it allows to counter the viruses and other but in fact with each fis there is update, each time, you also have to at your level to readapt so it is a little tiring. ”

“ I wouldn't say it's a bad experience, but I would say the fundamental problem with incorporating digital intelligence into the field is adaptation. Because today, the world is becoming more and more digital. And it's up to us to adapt to that. Many of us today left law school, a very long time ago, there was no end to the digital was not what it is today. So we have to do what we call self-taught. We have to adapt and learn from ourselves and that's really something you learn day by day. And as I say, the world is becoming more and more digital.”

As seen in the paper “The Digital Workplace is Key to Digital Innovation” (June 2017 (16:2) | MIS Quarterly Executive), for having an effective workplace, companies should focus both: employee connectedness and responsive leadership. Based on that premise and on the analysis from the interviews, we recommend that: - The first step before beginning any transformation process would be to plannify, identifying all involved parts and the implications in time and possible additional tasks they will have to do at the beginning and the continuity plan, meaning the capacitation they will need after the launching of the corresponding digital tool/process; - A communication channel should exist where people can freely manifest their frustrations and expectations; - There must be an easy way to find help in case any hardware or software is not working properly. Constant communication about how to use certain tools, especially those related with online meetings, must be published and sent by email or internal social media; - A dedicated channel for solving IT issues can be developed for specific areas in specific periods like financial closing or sales proposals preparation for example; - For those that are suffering a lack of control, they could use some of the Computational leadership science (CLS) tools to analyze information about people, relationships and performance. These tools could be used to delegate activities depending on the interests and abilities of each employee, and monitoring tasks in real time. (“How data can make better managers” Harvard Business School Publishing. 2000)

4.2. Recommendations and perspectives

Thank you!