Repetitive, mindless tasks and busywork make employees feel stressed, unfulfilled, and overwhelmed. Optimized organizations focus on removing these inefficiencies through workflow automation, which produces better employee experiences and improves retention.
Our survey revealed that three out of four organizations find it challenging to retain talented employees. This isn’t surprising considering the impact of the Great Resignation and how competitive the job market is. But we found that the more digitally mature an organization is, the fewer challenges it has keeping employees on board. Only 25% of Optimized organizations report it’s very challenging to retain employees, compared to 26% of Refined, 33% of Invested, and 46% of Limited.
In fact, 33% of Optimized organizations report it’s not challenging at all to retain employees. We also found that employees at Optimized organizations are generally happier, less stressed, and more productive.
What contributes to Optimized organizations' ability to not only retain employees, but keep them happier? A lot plays into this, from their culture and management practices to benefits and workday operations. Our research shows that one strategy at play is regularly tracking inefficiencies and improving processes. Optimized organizations focus on identifying and eliminating inefficiencies at a much higher rate than organizations with lower digital maturity.
80% of Optimized organizations report tracking manual processes that need to be automated. This percentage trends downward across lower stages of digital maturity, dropping all the way to 22% for the Limited group. 75% of Optimized and Refined organizations track which workflows need to be updated, compared to only 56% of Invested and 27% of Limited.
This lack of information on which workflows and processes need to be updated and automated leads to massive inefficiencies within less digitally mature organizations. And, not surprisingly, inefficient tasks dampen the employee experience. We found that a large majority of employees in the lower stages of maturity—around 75% of the Limited and Invested groups—report that inefficient workflows and processes negatively impact their workday.
Optimized organizations not only track data on workflow inefficiencies, but they take action. In fact, 49% report their workday isn’t impacted by inefficient workflows. We found that the further along an organization is in its digital maturity, the more likely it is to use workflow automation to improve employees’ jobs.
Thanks to these efforts, employees at Optimized organizations spend less time on inefficient tasks. Only 34% of employees at Optimized organizations spend two or more hours each day on inefficient tasks, compared to 50% of Limited. Just think about that—if the average annual wage in the U.S. is $53,383*, one employee wasting two hours per day on inefficient tasks costs your organization about $13,345 a year. For an organization of 100 employees, that adds up to more than $1.3 million.
*According to the U.S. Social Security Administration
When we asked survey respondents about their least favorite process at work, paper emerged as a popular theme. Here are a few samples of those responses:
