The area of remote and hybrid work opportunities is officially here! Today’s company team members can literally work from anywhere in the world with a strong and effective internet connection, but only if their business leaders provide or empower them with the correct tools. As the ‘’work-from-home revolution continues, leaders must ensure their business technology isn’t just secure, easy, and simple to use, but for the most part accessible too.
As research is shown, there’s a significant improvement in the way some companies respond to their employees and teams all requiring different needs. The pandemic has pushed companies to plan and think more carefully about the accessibility of their technology and tools.
So, let us ask the question. How does your company measure up?
Is your technology on the level and standard in which it should be, or are you struggling to be fully inclusive with your new range of tools?
STEP 1: AUDIT AND EXAMINE YOUR TECH ACCESSIBILITY
The first step in ensuring your tech is accessible for everyone is understanding what that really means. In the digital world, accessibility is mostly defined by enabling anyone to use software or hardware for a certain purpose.
For example, whilst in a video conference, companies might use automatic transcription to ensure that people with listening difficulties can still participate in the conversation. When working with new and improved technology it requires training, companies, and employees will need to make sure they tailor to the needs of team members who might have disabilities. You need to think about the tools that your employees use each and many of those tools will be still accessible.
Things that you may still need to consider:
- People with learning difficulties and training options for remote working
- People who are visually impaired and how employees can be assisted when using tech-like apps and software.
- Employees who have mobility issues and how these can be overcome with things like voice assistants during work.
Your best way forward is to account for a variety of different needs.
STEP 2: WORK WITH PROFESSIONALS TO ADDRESS PROBLEMS
In order to fix and adapt your technology to make it more accessible to employees you can start working with professionals to overcome certain problems and issues. Developers can work with you on specialist solutions intended to help those with specific requirements. Sometimes the simplest change can make the biggest difference. You don’t want to drive away excellent talent from your company because the tools you are using haven’t taken their needs into account yet.
STEP 3: CREATE A FEEDBACK LOOP
Often, the easiest way to ensure that your technology remains as accessible as much as possible for each of your team members is to listen to their advice and feedback. Your employees will always be able to provide good feedback and guidance on the usability problems they often encounter with your apps and tools. Empowering your employees with opportunities to have a say on the kind of technology they choose and use will improve engagement, boost productivity and enhance employee retention within the workplace.
MAKE TECH ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYONE:
In summary, you will need to build your solutions with the needs of your employees in mind, and they’ll reward you with quality and excellent work!
Supreme Talent – Expertly Matched. Lasting Success.
