As companies embrace digital technologies to stay relevant and expand markets, nearly three out of every four IT employees surveyed find their jobs turning more complex, according to a global study by Pegasystems.
The pandemic has accentuated the complexity as teams remain dispersed due to hybrid work, making information and work flow management all the more challenging.
About 4,000 IT employees were surveyed for the ‘Workforce Trends Report 2022 — Demystifying complexity in the modern workforce’.
Employees at all levels report feeling overloaded with information, systems, and processes, making it difficult to adapt to new challenges and meet customers’ growing needs.
“Job complexity is increasing at a rapid pace. One out of three workers say their organisation moves too slowly to react to business changes,” the survey says.
Hybrid work
Hybrid work, which allowed people to work partly from home and office, is making business more complex, about one-third of employees feel.
“Hybrid and remote workers are grappling the most with setting work and personal boundaries. Workers are struggling with too many systems,” the report says.
Information overload
Several employees feel that managing the information overload and navigating internal processes have become more complicated today compared with three years ago.
About 90 per cent of respondents identified ‘managing information overload’ as a contributor to day-to-day complexity.
“The volume of available data has outpaced our ability to process and utilise it in a useful manner. This digital overload results in lost revenue through lower productivity and is damaging to employee satisfaction,” the study finds.
Similarly, the challenge of navigating internal processes and bureaucracy are the second most identified contributor to daily complexity.
What’s the solution?
The respondents felt that the best way to address the complexity is to break down technological silos. About 43 per cent of the respondents blamed the “presence of too many systems” for the complexity in their organisation.
Impact of pandemic
About 56 per cent felt that the pandemic will make business more complex in the long run. One in three employees thinks hybrid work arrangements make business more complex.
Nearly one in three employees (32 per cent) thinks the pandemic makes it more difficult to hire the right people, while 61 per cent says the company cannot attract those with the needed tech skills to do the job properly.
“With the pandemic triggering rapid change, many employees want their organisation to adapt even faster,” it observes.
“With business complexity on the rise, organisational leaders need to rethink their digital transformation strategies,” Tom Libretto, Chief Marketing Officer of Pega, says.
“Too many businesses applied quick fixes in the early days of the pandemic that were siloed in nature and simply didn’t go far enough,” he said.
Published on
June 07, 2022
