Employees demand greater investment in mobile technology to boost workplace productivity

ENGLAND, UK: Almost two-thirds (62 percent) of employees in mid-market businesses in the UK want to see greater investment in mobile technology to access back office systems in order to boost their productivity.

This is the key finding of research carried out by Source for Consulting in partnership with leading software provider, Advanced Business Solutions (Advanced).

The research findings have been published in a new white paper – Don’t forget the back office: exploiting social and mobile to make mid-sized organisations more productive.

The report is based on a survey of staff from 160 mid-market UK organisations in July 2014, carried out to gauge interest in using mobile technologies to access and manage information held on CRM, HR, finance and other business critical systems.

The survey reveals that employee demand to use smartphone and tablet devices in a professional capacity is only partially being met. Only seven per cent of finance staff can access customer and supplier data via mobile devices and just nine per cent can retrieve key business performance data and metrics. Only one in five HR personnel can access their organisation’s core HR systems via their smartphones.

Around 56 percent of respondents stated they would like to submit holiday requests via their smartphones whereas only 23 per cent are able to do so. And, 50 percent admitted they would like to be able to report absences using a mobile device, but this is currently an option for just 21 percent of those surveyed. Approving expenses while on the move is a preferred option for 44 percent of respondents.