What is Digital Friction, and What to Do About It?
No one wants to work harder than they have to. Digital transformation is one way businesses can make employees’ lives easier. Yet simply increasing the amount of technology isn’t the answer. Digital friction can actually make the workday more challenging. Read on to learn more about digital friction, its demotivating force, and how to avoid it.rnrnDigital friction describes added challenges employees face trying to work with business technology. As businesses add more digital tools, teams must adapt to a more complex ecosystem, but problems can arise:rn
- rn
- Technology isn’t integrated, so there are now more steps to follow. rn
- Workflows grow more complicated, as there are several digital solutions to navigate. rn
- Employees are overwhelmed with notifications tracking, managing, and monitoring digital workflows. rn
- New approaches create or duplicate manual processes. rn
- Employees become overloaded with information thanks to the many new collaborative, digital tools. rn
Sources of digital friction
rnWhen you install new tech, you intend to save time, reduce effort, and improve productivity, but the best intentions don’t avoid digital friction. If you’re going to install digital technologies be wary of these problems:rn- rn
- Poor understanding of workflow. If you don’t understand what is happening now, you can’t effectively install digital processes. rn
- Inconsistent workflows. When employees approach processes differently, there will be friction on new, digital solutions. rn
- Poor-quality data. Digital technology relies on data. A major source of digital friction is low-quality data. Employees spend too much time locating, validating, and formatting data to see benefits. rn
- Lack of understanding of a solution’s impact. Investing in tech for the sake of “going digital” is not setting employees up for success. You need to know what the technology can do and how it will impact employees’ daily work. rn