Microsoft will discuss how to look beyond the digital age in the workplace, and why we should do so, at the closing keynote of this year’s Employee Benefits Connect.
The session, ‘The rise of humans: how to outsmart the digital deluge’, will be led by Dave Coplin, chief envisioning officer of Microsoft UK, and cover the rapid growth of internet-connected devices and the associated advantages and disadvantages.
Coplin will also address business leaders’ angst about missing the next big technology trend, and why they may fail to realise the true potential of big wave data.
He said: “Technology effects employee benefits by making it far easier for employees and organisations to manage and understand the value of the benefits being offered.
“But technology is transforming what sort of benefits employees are looking for. Gone are the days of simple medical, dental and shopping vouchers. Increasingly, employees are looking for organisations that provide them with a very different way of managing their lives.
“Some of this is about the technology that they are provided with, but increasingly it will be what that technology enables them to adjust their work style, in terms of both location and time.”
On the drawbacks of the swift growth of internet-connect devices, Coplin added: “I suspect that despite all of the obvious advantages, most of us will from time to time experience moments of frustration, when either the technology doesn’t work or when it seems to be getting in the way.
“The problem with this is actually not the technology itself, but more that we have yet to adjust our ways of working to ways that are relevant to the opportunity that technology offers.
“Opening ourselves and our organisations up to new ways of working effectively removes the constraints and catapults us to new levels of productivity by enabling to fundamentally change how we work.”
Coplin will also explore how the rapidly rising volume of information is affecting all aspects of our lives as individuals, as consumers and customers, as workers, and in business.
Employee Benefits Connect 2015 is taking place on 4 March at the Lancaster London.