June 2015 - The Resource Collaborative

Much has been written and discussed about digitization and how it could/would/should impact our lives and our job. As stewards of healthy workplaces, it is critically important that our thinking stretch to understand the impact this will have on the ability of corporations to hire and retain the best employees.

In its research report titled “Predicts 2015: The Digital Workplace Underscores the Benefits of a Consumerized Work Environment”, one of their key findings is that “Digital literacy is not about tool proficiency, but about how well people apply that knowledge to making decisions, cultivating relationships, building reputation, and mobilizing colleagues, teams, communities, or networks to rally around a common cause. Digital literacy focuses on the application of digital insights obtained by mastery of technology, and how those skills become ingrained in people’s behaviors, attitudes and culture”. A key take-away from this is that technology teams need to be encouraged to include employees across the organization in the productive use of their technology and not continue to hold the corporate technology as sacred.

There was a time when this was unthinkable – employees had to deal with many devices in an effort to keep corporate technology separate from their personal technology. The world has become a smaller place and it is just impractical to continue along this path. After all, if you are hiring the appropriate staff and have thoughtful technology guidelines in place, and the staff is productive and the results are present, why should using a personal iPad, a laptop issued by the company or Facebook for research be in question?

In fact, and here is the important kernel of wisdom here… if you do not allow some autonomy in gaining digital literacy across the workplace you will appear arcane and it will be increasingly more difficult to attract top talent and retain them! Here for your detailed pleasure is the Gartner “Predicts 2015: The Digital Workplace Underscores the Benefits of a Consumerized Work Environment”.

http://resources.cio.com/ccd/assets/78349/detail

For excellent Human Capital and Talent Acquisition Services, contact The Resource Collaborative at: info@trcollaborative.com or call us directly (908) 376-2012

The best technology teams today are those who have a commanding understanding of the business of their organization and then are able to fast forward to enable the business prerogatives with innovative technology – i.e., competitive advantage.

Technologists are usually very interested in the latest “tech stuff” out there…truly superior technologists are those who can imagine how to apply the appropriate “tech stuff” to empower their businesses…this may mean leaving a widget or two in the dust, but the results will be creating value for the organization.

As you build your technology team, you need “doers”, those who want to apply known technology and get real satisfaction out of the completion an effective deployment can deliver. In addition to this critical attribute, I have found that in any group of technologists, there are those who really have a natural curiosity and constantly want to push the envelope and see how far a hypothesis can go…these are the folks who you want to cultivate as innovators.

There was a time when we could have robust technology R & D budgets to sift through possibilities and send only those with solid results through to deployment. Today, technology changes so quickly, having a formal R & D function may not be practical. Instead, you should be looking to hire members for your team who will produce results and will also naturally “test” new possibilities.

These folks have certain attributes to look for:

*Good Listeners – they need to hear what the business is requesting to make certain their curiosity stays the course of “value”;

*Domain Experts – they understand the business of the organization thoroughly and keep abreast of goals and visions;

*Consensus Drivers – they have credibility across the organization

*Collaborators – they do not think technology drives the business, they allow the business to walk arm in arm with any initiative

Oh, and they should be great technologists! Certainly not an afterthought, but as you can see, an innovator needs more than excellent hard skills, they need to be leaders!

How do you enable innovation on your teams? For team-building expertise, please contact us:

TRC at info@TRCollaborative.com

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