Workplaces have been transformed by digital technologies, and there is no sign that these transformations are going to stop. Organisations must, however, look into the implications of IT overuse. Professor Monideepa Tarafdar, Lancaster University, joined KnowledgeBrief members at this month’s Innovation Day to explain how organisations can manage the ‘dark side’ of IT.
Today’s technologies present unparalleled opportunities to raise productivity. But the technology elements we embrace – portability, accessibility and reliability – can actually have a serious impact on employee well-being. Digital pervasiveness won’t stop, and without proper strategies in place to make them work for organisations and end users, they have the potential power to destroy productivity and innovation.
Leaders must recognise the impact of IT’s dark side on employees:
- Technostress: Experiencing stress due to IT overload and complexity
- Addiction: Having a fear of ‘missing out’ on the latest technologies and emails
- Productivity: Reducing employee productivity, innovation, and task performance
- Well-being: Harming employee well-being, and subsequently job satisfaction and organisational development
- IT misuse: Misusing organisational IT resources, presenting risks to organisational reputation and potential financial loss
- Attention: Acting on continuous partial attention (“there but not there”)
Technology is a significant capability and it’s not going away. Taking on the dark side requires senior executives, IT leaders and HR leaders to work together and make technology work for them, not against them:
- Make ‘mindful use of IT’ an organisational priority
- Engage users after IT implementations and provide on-going support
- Fit technologies within existing workflows
- Develop IT-use related well-being strategies, but remember that ‘one size does not fit all’
- Strip out complexity
Participants included Baxi, Community Health Partnerships, Interserve and Liverpool CCG.
Next, this group will explore Innovation Health Check: Build Workforce Resilience and Agility for a Constantly Changing World. For more information and to join, please view the event page.