Have you ever noticed sullen-looking statues in museums or parks hunched over pressing their heads to their hands as if deep in thought or perhaps, deep in despair? If you’re a business leader, think of them as a metaphor for your employees trying to navigate the nuances of using overly complex technology. New research shows that a whopping nine in 10 employees are frustrated by their workplace technology – and almost half (49%) are considering changing jobs.

In the same way customers have run out of patience with poor experiences, so have your employees. A new report from Freshworks, “The State of Workplace Technology”, surveyed almost 9,000 employees globally. The study found that post-pandemic employee patience is running thin with expectations now higher than ever – especially when it comes to ease of use.

Employees are still facing widespread letdowns from the workplace technology they use daily. In fact, 48% of employees say it’s negatively impacting their mental health and 49% cite it as triggering stress. Worse still, more than half (57%) of unsatisfied employees say their current software actually makes them less productive.

The double disruption of a growing global talent shortage and increasing economic uncertainty makes this a critical board-level issue because it directly impacts the big three touchstones of human capital – productivity, happiness and retention.

Five Frustrations Identified
The research identified five main complaints from employees around their frustration with workplace technology. These include slow speeds (51%), slow response times from IT (34%), lack of collaboration between departments (30%), missing features and important capabilities (28%), and lack of automation (25%).

The dissatisfaction isn’t exactly a surprise to employers. Seventy-six percent acknowledge that employees will consider looking for a new employer if their current job does not provide access to the tools, technology or information they need to do their jobs well.

You’d think that the logical solution would be to invest in better workplace technology. However, it’s not as if companies haven’t been opening up their wallets. In fact, the global shift to hybrid work saw the biggest surge in technology investment history. According to KPMG, during the pandemic, businesses spent the equivalent of $15 billion extra a week on technology. As the global crisis hit and we all retreated to working from home, the world’s IT leaders spent more than their annual budget rise in just three months.

So what’s the problem? For the most part, it’s platform inertia. Companies have been buying more of the status quo, rather than buying better. In other words, simply adding more functionality to necessary systems that employees already find frustrating is never going to solve the problem.

Twenty years ago, the cloud promised that business software would be easier, faster and cheaper than its on-premise predecessors. While it succeeded in being cheaper, it’s fallen short on being faster and easier. Steadily over time, most of the mainstream cloud software tools today have become bloated, expensive, siloed, slow, and, quite frankly, a struggle.

Software just hasn’t kept pace with rising employee expectations. And to be fair, historically, that was never the primary mission for software vendors. The priorities were always focused on the needs of the IT buyers rather than those of the users. And when employers do try to get employees to embrace new technology and tools, the research revealed that two-thirds say they’re hard to use and have a high learning curve.

Fixing the Problem
There’s an obvious solution here. Our everyday workplace technology should be as easy to use as the technology in our personal lives. Overstuffed, overpriced enterprise CRM systems, for example, are often so big they’re a struggle to use. They’re an obstacle to employees inhibiting productivity and dampening the overall employee experience.

Business software should empower people, not frustrate them. For many of us, the software we use at work creates more pain than peace of mind. There is a middle ground between delivering powerful, sophisticated outcomes and modern, easy, scalable software that’s purpose built to empower the employees who use it.

Technology has become the great equalizer. We have reached the workplace technology tipping point. Empowering the people who power your business is the overriding objective with any new software investment.  Somewhere between the wake of the pandemic, and the Great Resignation, a line has been drawn in the sand. Employees are insisting employers start levelling up when it comes to the tech they use for work. If your business hasn’t already done so, I’d strongly urge you to take a closer look at the impact your workplace technology is having on staff well-being, happiness and productivity.

“State of Workplace Technology”