November 16, 2017 7 min read

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There’s a myth among business leaders that mobile technology will cause productivity to skyrocket.

The myth is one of the big drivers behind the trend of today’s mobile workplaces. More than half of enterprises believe mobile apps will boost productivity by 40 percent or more. Eight in ten global workers say mobile technology makes them more productive. It’s no surprise then that more than 90 percent of organizations have a mobile work strategy in place, or plan on implementing one.

So now that nine in ten corporate employees are using at least one mobile app at work, productivity should be soaring -- right?

Not exactly. U.S. labor productivity increased just 0.3 percent a year between 2011 and 2016, and it hasn’t grown more than two percent in any given year since the tech boom. Mobile is on its way to becoming ubiquitous, yet many enterprises are still struggling to see the productivity gains they were promised. So, what’s the problem?

Mobility by itself doesn’t improve productivity. What it does is create infinite opportunities for employees to work more productively. But it’s up to enterprises to leverage the technology to actually help people get more work done -- whatever that looks like for each organization.

Related: 4 Ways to Keep Mobile Tech from Hindering

The challenge: Mobility focuses too heavily on technology.

If the massive move toward mobile feels like a major transition for enterprises, that’s because it is. But many organizations don’t go far enough. They try to fit mobile into their existing way of doing things. They implement the technology without considering the context and changing the culture (and workflows) around it.

The end result: Devices and apps that throw more work at employees without actually helping them complete it.

Part of the problem is that enterprises are still stuck in a desktop computer mindset, expecting mobile work to look and feel the same as it does in the office. But “the mobile interface and the optimal way to use it have very little in common with the desktop interface and its uses,” Soltero says.

“The faster we accept this reality, the more quickly we can begin to evolve a new understanding of how to use our mobile working hours more efficiently and effectively.”

Related: The Future Of Work: Risk And Reward In The Mobile Workplace

Focus on all aspects of the workflow.

Mobile devices and apps are just one part (albeit an important one) of the overall shift that needs to happen. To close the productivity gap, enterprises must focus on all aspects of work -- not just mobile -- and start removing the obstacles getting in the way.

This thought process demands a cross-disciplinary, omnichannel approach led by someone with a clear vision for what a productive digital workplace should look like.

Related: If Your Smartphone is Your Workplace, You May Want These Lite Apps

The ultimate goal, says the Harvard Business Review, is an organization “in which all knowledge workers have full context, tools, and support to focus their time on the biggest value drivers of the business without being bogged down by overhead and bureaucracy.”

More than 80 percent of digitally mature companies get there by employing an actionable digital strategy that draws upon numerous technology solutions -- one of which is mobile -- to solve the challenges that are getting in their employees’ way.

The reality: Productivity is being held back by legacy processes and practices.

Think about the last time you got an email on your mobile device requesting a document. Chances are, you weren’t able to easily send it from your device. Or consider the last time someone texted you about a meeting. How many clicks and scrolls did it take to check your availability?

The mobile doesn't fix tried and true barriers to productivity.

Even after making the transition to mobile, many enterprises are continuing to grapple with the same barriers to productivity they had before, such as:

Inaccessible data. Two in five enterprises say their data’s too siloed to be accessible, let alone useful.

Information overload . 74 percent of employees struggle with the amount of data they have access to and would prefer access to only the data that is personalized to them.

Clunky software interfaces. More than 40 percent of employees say it takes too long to accomplish basic work tasks.

Complex workflows . 62 percent of employees delay completing tasks that require the use of multiple systems.

Poor communication. More than 85 percent of employees and execs say ineffective communication is a top reason for workplace failures.

Work overload. Employees who don’t feel like there are enough hours in the day to get all their work done suffer a 68 percent productivity loss.

Stress. Nearly 60 percent of stressed-out employees report feeling less productive and they feel disengaged.

On its own, mobility doesn’t solve any of these problems -- and it may even exacerbate some. A mobile device may allow employees to receive texts and emails and access certain systems wherever they are, but reading texts and emails and completing complex workflows on a mobile device doesn’t equal productivity.

Unless people have a seamless way to access their business systems and get real work done in the systems they are already using, it’s just extending the workday and contributing to feelings of stress and work overload.

This is the disconnect between what mobility can do and what enterprises are asking it to do. To truly improve productivity, employees needs a new and better way to get work done wherever they are.

Related: Workflow News & Topics

They need relevant information sent to them before they are forced to log into hard-to-use systems and they need complex workflows to be broken down into simple tasks that can be completed in just a few clicks.

Employees need information that matters to them to be accessible based on their context (role, location, etc.) in real time; and they need this all to be available to them where they are, regardless if that is on their devices, their intranet, internet, or in the other applications they are using.

Harnessing productivity.

As a differentiator for an organization, business leaders need to start rethinking how information can be distributed and tasks can be completed in a manner that will make employees more effective.

Questions need answering.

Begin asking, where are the biggest pain points hampering employee effectiveness? How could employees solve these challenges by working differently? How can their mobile devices, as well as their laptops and desktops, and the applications they use help make that happen?

Related: The Tools That 5 Highly Productive Entrepreneurs Use

Changing the focus to a culture of empowering your employees with mobile workflows that can be easily accessed in a few clicks, and the productivity gains you are looking for will follow.