Too much tech may be stunting productivity

As the labor force continues to work remotely, the tech meant to help workers maximize their productivity is doing quite the opposite.

Balancing multiple tech tools and resources can be confusing as well as time consuming for employees, prompting employers to reconsider their current operating system. Thirty-five percent of marketing leaders are overhauling the technology tools they offer and 60% expect to make moderate to severe cuts to their budgets in 2021, according to a survey conducted by Gartner.

In an effort to smooth over pain points for employees, companies implemented different pieces of tech to address individual issues. The result is an oversaturation of tools targeting very niche tasks, according to Terry Simpson, senior solutions engineer at Nintenx, a management and workflow automation firm.

“With COVID and working from home, users are completely reliant on technology in order to get their work done,” he says. “So any inefficiencies rise to the top and are problematic.”

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Additionally, many of these tools are no longer useful. Organizations utilize only 58% of the capabilities offered by these programs — a level that has remained flat since 2019, according to the survey.

Employers should consolidate multiple tools into a single platform to save money and boost employee productivity, Simpson says. The less time spent wrangling their tech, the more time employees will have for focused work.

“It's very easy as an individual to sit at my desk and be busy,” Simpson says. “But it's more difficult to be productive because I have lots of systems to use and update.”

HR and payroll are the most in-need of consolidation when it comes to the systems they use for day-to-day tasks. One area that has seen the benefits of simplifying is recruiting — Indeed recently launched Indeed Hiring Platform, which allows employers to screen candidates and interview them directly through the platform, eliminating administrative tasks like reading resumes and scheduling interviews.

“It's more about those systems working together,” Simpson says. “Automating an entire process let’s you focus on the process, not an individual system.”