By Tim Minahan, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Citrix

Where and how work gets done has forever changed. But one thing remains consistent: the need to provide a superior and consistent work experience that empowers employees to perform at their best across any work channel or location. Citrix Systems, Inc. is continuing to innovate its market-leading digital workspace solutions to help companies enhance employee experience and adapt to the new world of work. The company today unveiled fresh thinking about what employee experience means, along with a new corporate identity to support it.

Work is no longer a place.  It’s happening in kitchens and basements, in parks and on sidewalks and scaled back, socially distanced offices. Regardless of where they are working, employees need a workspace that provides a consistent experience that minimises distractions and interruptions from a myriad of apps and collaboration channels so they can think, create and explore, and work the way they want.

Taming Complexity

While consumer experiences keep getting faster and simpler, employee experiences remain as cluttered and complex as ever. During a typical day, employees:

·         Use more than a dozen apps to get work done – often four or more just to complete a single business process like submitting expenses, booking travel, submitting purchase orders or approving time off.

·         Spend at least 20 percent of their time searching for information they need to do their jobs.

·         Are interrupted by a text, chat, or application alert about every two minutes.

New team-based collaboration tools are only adding to the noise, forcing employees to adopt yet another work channel, increasing alerts and disruptions, and significantly hindering their ability to get meaningful work done. Add to this the pandemic-related challenges of spouses working from home, kids learning online, pets lurking about and makeshift office set ups, and it’s clear that employee experience – and the technology used to drive it - need a fresh look.

With South Africa experiencing an all-time high with regards to unemployment, it is imperative that we seek new, innovative forms of income. The number of unemployed persons increased by 344,000 to 7.1 million in the first quarter of 2020. This is quite a climb compared to 2019’s fourth quarter, which resulted in an increase of 306,000 in the labour force. With employment availability declining, it is now  momentous for us to create opportunities for ourselves and one another.

To thrive amid constant disruption, organisations must cultivate a workforce empowered to adapt to changing conditions and innovate quickly. Work needs to be designed around an employee experience that removes friction stemming from clunky technology and empowers people to work the way they want – wherever work needs to get done. Savvy companies are using this time to embrace new, flexible work models and simplify the work experience so employees can access the resources they need to perform at their best whether working in the office, on the road, or at home.

Fueling Engagement

According to a study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a superior employee experience not only drives better productivity, engagement and retention, but also improves customer satisfaction and profitability.

And this is where technology comes into play. A good user experience enables focus. When employees feel empowered by the tools they use rather than encumbered by them, they can focus, innovate and deliver value.

Quieting Noise

Citrix is committed to delivering technology that enables employees to do just this. Citrix solutions are uniquely designed to remove the distractions that get in the way of individual progress and unlock an employee’s full potential.

Take Citrix Workspace™. The secure, intelligent, and high-performing digital workspace organises, guides and automates everyday tasks to boost productivity and create a sense of personal accomplishment that fuels engagement and innovation – all while ensuring privacy and security. Using the solution, companies can:

• Empower the employee/end-user by securing all tools, apps, content, and devices they need and prefer to use in a simple experience that can be customised to fit personal preferences and evolving work styles.
• Deliver an engaging experience over any network, leveraging advanced application delivery capabilities that make it easy to deliver an optimal app experience across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
• Bridge the gap between productivity and innovation using built-in intelligent features to prioritize everyday asks, enabling employees to focus on the meaningful work they want to do.

Delivering Value

Citrix Workspace replaces a user experience filled with distractions, context switches, and complexity with a simpler way to work that unlocks innovation, engages employees, and drives better business results.

More than 400,000 organisations around the world are using Citrix solutions to reimagine the employee experience and power a better way to work. Click here to learn more about these offerings and the value they can help your company deliver.