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Technology tools for productivity

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A recent study by the Pew Research Center highlights how important technology has become to modern workers.  

The Pew Research Center surveyed 1000 American adults and ended up following up with 535 who were working full or part time. The findings are fairly straight forward: the internet and e-mail are perceived by online workers to be very important communication tools for productivity. Both technologies serve as multipliers allowing workers to communicate more broadly than traditional phone.

Interestingly, social media was not rated that highly by either office based workers or non-office based workers.

The study can be found online at the Pew Research Center website.

Questions for the OD Professional

The study raises some issues in the people space:

  1. The trend to a more mobile and internet connected workforce will continue. How are you helping your organisation to build capability to manage that change in direction.
  2. How are you building capability in frontline supervisors to enable and support this shift (if the shift aligns with your business strategy)?

Supporting links

Pew Research Center (html)

Digital Life in 2025: Technology's impact on workers (PDF)

Six Tools of Managers

Six Tools of Managers

Over the last several months I have been reflecting on the nature of “management”  and what managers really do. Management has been described interns of essential function (Planning, organizing, staffing, coordinating, and controlling) - this described what needs to be done. But how to go about giving effect to those function is another question. Another frame of reference is French and Raven's basis of power.  French and Raven's is a more academic approach based on the application of power.