Xerxes Cooper is the general manager of global technology services at IBM Canada.
Canada’s war for top talent is intensifying. Record-low unemployment rates mean that businesses are in a fierce competition for highly skilled human resources, and technological shifts across almost all industries have created a skills gap.
Twenty years ago, tech companies across North America were wooing people with the promise of beach volleyball courts, foosball tables, relaxed dress codes and fancy offices with espresso machines. Today, companies are offering everything from unlimited vacation to catered lunches and pet insurance to attract millennial talent.
However, perks no longer wield the power they once did, and job satisfaction is driven more by investment in workplace basics. A 2019 study by Future Workplace revealed that basics such as air quality, office temperature and natural light were more important to employees than amenities like on-site gyms or free snacks.
Focusing on the employee experience
Finding high-performing employees is a significant feat, but once you have hired them, how do you retain them while continuously engaging them?
A recent IBM study defines the employee experience as “a set of perceptions that employees have about their experiences at work in response to their interactions with the organization.” These feelings are directly linked to their performance and whether they decide to stay.
Technology plays a critical role in employees’ daily interactions with their employers. In a 2018 survey by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, 58 per cent of respondents said an organization’s technology factors into their decision as to whether to accept a job, and 51 per cent said that outdated and inadequate office technology affects whether they want to stay.
Can winning the battle for good employees be that simple?
It would be very difficult to find someone who doesn’t have cutting-edge technology at their fingertips outside of work – fast fibre internet, voice-activated assistants, smart appliances, plus seamless access to contacts, messages, photos, music and movies across any device. Our employees are living in the future like the Jetsons. Unfortunately, each day many commuters seem to travel back in time to work like the Flintstones instead.
Employees no longer look at technology as a work tool; technology is embedded into the work experience itself, and new technology has actually become a motivator for good employees.
The IT ‘pyramid of pain’
To identify the top tech frustrations at work, IBM surveyed 350,000 of its employees, then ranked and classified all the ways technology can leave them unhappy, demoralized or paralyzed at work. IBM chief information officer Fletcher Previn mapped the complaints against 5,000 IT services and sorted them into an “IT pyramid of pain,” which can help organizations look at technology from a user perspective to identify where to focus resources and investment.
The pyramid is made up of four levels:
Technical underpinning: Elements of the workplace that underlie everything else and affect usage when they perform poorly or have outages (for example, functioning laptops, core networking and WiFi services).
End-to-end processes: Conceptual spaces that are made up of related tasks and tools (e-mail and calendaring, or password management).
Applications: Tools that must be used to complete tasks (setting up a new laptop or mobile device).
Tasks: Specific tasks the employee needs to achieve (buying an accessory, booking travel or having a video conference).
The crucial level of the pyramid is its base – the technical underpinning. Using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, the needs lower down on the pyramid (much like food, water and shelter) must be met before needs higher up on the pyramid can be addressed. It could be tempting to focus time and money at the top of the pyramid, with the latest apps and collaboration tools, but if the foundation is weak then it will be a significant risk to try and perform larger, more complex transformative work on top of it.
The most effective step in improving the employee experience is for leaders to focus more on making the simple stuff work. If the basics run smoothly, employees not only can do their work more efficiently, but they are more likely to believe that the company is well run.
Mr. Previn has remarked that when he speaks with other CIOs, nobody talks about fixing the help desk, but he underscores the importance of focusing on the base of the pyramid. “If the company comes up short on these quality-of-life issues, it undermines confidence,” he says.
Managing for the pyramid of pain means more than simply allocating more money to the survival level. It requires organizational change and focusing (or refocusing) on the importance of the fundamentals that speak to the basic needs of satisfied employees.
No foosball required.
This column is part of Globe Careers’ Leadership Lab series, where executives and experts share their views and advice about leadership and management. Follow us at @Globe_Careers. Find all Leadership Lab stories at tgam.ca/leadershiplab.
Stay ahead in your career. We have a weekly Careers newsletter to give you guidance and tips on career management, leadership, business education and more. Sign up today.