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Jeremy Fennema – Tech Innovation Alchemist
Business leaders see the consumerization of IT – including greater employee input in IT provision, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives and workplace flexibility – as a way to generate additional employee productivity and loyalty.
So says a joint study from Dell and Intel.
But here’s the rub: Companies are still trying to get a handle on how to support digitally savvy workers who don’t run on typical 9 to 5 schedules. With productivity as an incentive, forward-thinking companies are exploring all the options. What role can business centers play in this revolution?
“The way we work and live around the world is changing rapidly,” says Stephen O’Donnell, CEO of Chalet Tech. “For most knowledge workers, there is no such thing as 9 to 5 anymore, and time zone differences matter less than ever before. We are living in a time of 24/7 connectivity, where boundaries between work and play are less marked.”
According to the Dell-Intel survey, there is a growing awareness in the business community that companies can benefit from increased workforce productivity by allowing employees to have some level of choice in what technology they use and the degree of mobility they have.
What’s more, business leaders accept that the arrival of tablets, smartphones and cloud computing creates the need for companies to challenge themselves to be more mobile-led. Many experts believe that the convergence of applications across devices will foster an even more mobile dependent workforce in the future, meaning that businesses wanting to be more productive must first address legacy concerns in order to be mobile-ready.
“With today’s increasingly tech-savvy workforce and outcome-driven employees, companies have everything to gain from fully embracing the IT consumerization and mobility trend that is redefining the workplace,” says Adriana Karaboutis, CIO of Dell. “Companies are realizing that by enabling employees to work from a location of their choice using their preferred technology, they are taking one of the single most important steps in motivating business productivity.”
Why can’t that location be your business center? Mobile workers will work from many places. They’ll work from airports. They’ll work from coffee shops. They’ll work from home. But they can also work from your business center if you make it a friendly place for productivity-minded mobile workers.
