Emerging countries appear to be far more open to the changes being driven by continued migration of consumer-inspired technologies and attitudes into the workplace than their developed counterparts, said a report.

Organisations in China (59 per cent), Brazil (50 per cent) and Mexico (57 per cent) are well ahead of UK (27 per cent), France (28 per cent) and the US (29 per cent) in offering workers technology choice, according to the findings from Phase 2 of an Evolving Workforce Research Programme conducted by Dell and Intel.

Employees in Mexico (83 per cent) and Brazil (76 per cent) are far more positive about the changes in business practices being driven by technology and the Internet compared with Britons (43 per cent) and Americans (46 per cent), the report said.

More than four in 10 workers today have the ability to influence the choice of technology provided by their employer, the findings showed.

This is more prevalent in the private sector (45 per cent) than in the public sector (32 per cent). Six out of every 10 employees around the world would enjoy work more if able to choose their own technologies. Interoperability is rapidly becoming the norm, with 59 per cent of employees able to share data between all of their devices.

More than 80 per cent of employees accept technology’s contribution to problem-solving, although there is a significant disparity in attitudes across verticals, with 87 per cent of engineering and media professionals extolling the problem solving capabilities of technology versus 67 per cent in emergency services and armed forces.

Compared with the desire for flexible working hours (61 per cent), the ability to work remotely is seen as less important, with 45 per cent of those surveyed agreeing that it can boost productivity, said the report.

More than 60 per cent of employees want to be measured by the quality of work they deliver rather than time spent in the office.

This is perhaps partly driven by the less-clearly delineated working day experienced by most workers – less than two-thirds of employees feel they can get their work done in a traditional 9-to-5 schedule, the report said.

“As technologies continue to evolve and individuals become more sophisticated in their usage, so too will their desire to transfer these experiences to the workplace to be more productive and effective,” said Paul Bell, president, Public Large Enterprise, Dell.

“The results of this research demonstrate the growing correlation between quality and choice of technology access within the workplace and employee satisfaction, productivity and innovation. Smart organizations can no longer ignore the consumerization of IT phenomenon and should be aware of the forthcoming changes and assess how best to adapt IT to meet growing employee demands.”

“As IT consumerization continues to take hold in the corporate world, the number and types of devices IT is being asked to provide and support is exploding,” said Dave Buchholz, principal engineer, Client Research & Pathfinding, Intel IT.

“By giving employees the opportunity to choose the device they are most comfortable with using, based on the service and environment, IT can power a new-wave of employees that are highly productive and have the power to drive innovation and collaboration within their organizations,” he added. – TradeArabia News Service