How Digitalization Aids in Boosting Employee Morale

When we talk about digitization projects, the issue of motivation almost inevitably comes into play. And mostly the question is about how to motivate employees to face this work process transformation. Of course, there are countless examples of how to take the fear of change away from employees and make the digital workplace “palatable” to them.

What Can Employees Gain Through Digitalization?

With the increasing presence of digital aids and their completely self-evident integration into our lives, not only at work but also at home, this concern is increasingly receding into the background. Especially for younger generations, the desire for new stimuli through constant change is almost indispensable when it comes to positive job evaluations.

That’s why it’s no longer about how to win employees over to digital transformation, but rather about what employees can gain through it. Can digitalization really motivate employees?

Structuring Ensures Creativity

In many cases, digitization can automate work routines. This gives structure to a large part of one’s tasks, which allows us to fully develop our creativity. Yes, as contradictory as this may seem at first glance, the more clearly our tasks are organized and responsibilities distributed, the more freedom we have for creativity and new ideas. It gets even better: The structure even gives us momentum for successful brainstorming.
And with design thinking, this is recognized and works in the same way: Genuine innovation comes about precisely when we organize our structured work in such a way that creative phases are embedded in them.

The feeling of participating in a creative process or even being an author is extremely motivating for most people. For employees even more so, it symbolizes their direct participation in the organic growth of “their” company. This opportunity to exert influence functions for many as an (indirect) driving force and thus motivational factor which boosts employee morale.

I don’t know about you…I am not one of those geniuses who dominates chaos; rather, it is the other way around. Therefore tools are convenient to me, which:

1. prevent the chaos from becoming rampant, or
2. restore order in the short term.

Digitalization can achieve both.

Two Examples Illustrate How Digitalization Boosts Employee Morale

An example for first case: secure scheduling with reminder functions and notifications, access to colleagues’ calendars without having to call them over and over again to ask whether they are available… this is pure work simplification. It’s faster and easier for me to plan my weeks so there are NO overlaps, and I always get to my meetings on time.
Anyone who has experienced the opposite knows how incredibly demotivating it is to chase after appointments or not to have an overview of weekly or monthly planning.

That’s why the digital calendar definitely boosts employee morale…
Of course, there are always people who think they are safer with a handwritten appointment calendar. Well, I can only say: with the multitude and growing diversity of our living and working spaces, a handwritten document is quite complex and difficult to “keep alive.”

In the second case: As a marketing person I (of course) also have a high affinity for photography. A successful visualization is half the battle if you want to communicate a message successfully. As a result, we work with countless photos every day. It is virtually impossible to manage them when they are disorderly. But to store them in a central place and to tag them helps to bring an understandable order to existing chaos for everyone. And this example can be applied to many other events. Where confusion or disorder prevail, digitalization helps us to fight chaos in many ways! So, a cheer for storage systems.

Digitalization Enables Concentration on the Essentials

And for those who are no more fanatical about order than I am: I try to create a system for my files at home again and again, but I usually get stuck in the middle or lose myself in details, because at home tidying up takes place without digitalization…and that can be quite slow and tiring.

Last but not least, digitalization allows you to concentrate on the essentials. With digitized processes, we can do many urgent things with our hands because processes are predefined, and we don’t have to spend time or our brains on them. This saves time and energy, which we can use for the really important topics.

So digitalization can really increase employee motivation in many ways. Of course I’m hearing voices in the background again about the disadvantages of digitizing everything and everyone…but that wasn’t the starting point of this article. 🙂