Businesses must take advantage of mobile technology to maintain high morale and a productive workforce, a new study indicates.
As changes in work patterns mean more staff working out of the office, employers must adapt by altering the ways in which businesses communicate internally, the survey by Cambridge Judge Business School and Nokia found.
Out of the employees surveyed, 86% said that interaction between themselves and other helps spark new ideas, 82% said that people in other work locations support them in their work, and 74% said they would not be able to do their job if they couldn’t work with people outside of their team.
The findings suggest why mobile technologies are viewed as crucial in the workplace, with over 90% of owners and managers saying that technology was important in enabling these collaborations.
In fact, over half of owners and managers said technology was critical to collaboration and three quarters claimed that technology made collaborative decisions easier to make.
Furthermore, over three quarters responded that having the right mobile applications and devices improved their company’s morale.
According to Ben Hardy, lecturer at Judge Business School, the study shows that, “companies should not blindly invest in whatever technology comes along and hope that it will work, but closely ally their technology strategy to their people strategy to ensure that maximum value is extracted from targeted IT investment”.
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2006
