Technology is key to navigating a changing workplace and customer expectations. It helps businesses manage workers more effectively and meet customer expectations with easy experiences that accommodate our on-demand, on-the-go lifestyles. That’s why businesses across industries continue to digitally transform their operations, adopting technology solutions for a variety of goals and purposes.
Small businesses aren’t excluded from the trend. In a recent survey, 85% of SMBs reported that digital tools have helped their business in some way, including winning more customers and growing their workforce.
Mobile technology, in particular, is a big part of the digital revolution that many businesses have come to rely on. In this article, we’ll take a look at mobile technology in business and why small businesses should take advantage of it.
The evolution of mobile technology in business
Mobile technology in the workplace started with the idea that businesses could uproot their traditional desktop computers and make them mobile — through laptops and other devices like pagers and early versions of the cell phone. With these tools, companies no longer had to be tethered to an office environment but could take their work anywhere.
When smartphones came along, the mobile trend advanced, especially among employees. Suddenly, smartphones weren’t just for personal use anymore but could also help employees with work. With their mobile devices and apps, employees could access information, get tasks done, and connect and collaborate with each other no matter where they were located.
To accommodate the shift in smartphone use from personal to business, some ahead-of-the-curve companies adopted software solutions that were optimized for mobile devices. Soon, other companies followed suit, such that just a few years ago, almost 80% of IT executives said employees couldn’t do their jobs effectively without a mobile device, and 75% said mobile devices were essential to workflows.
The recent pandemic only accelerated this trend as more and more businesses switched to remote work in some capacity and leaned even more heavily on mobile technology as a result.
Today, the benefits of mobile technology in the workplace are significant:
- Flexibility. Workers can conduct business anytime, anywhere. They don’t have to physically be in the office to access the company network and resources, share data, or communicate with each other or customers.
- Efficiency. Workers can access systems, make updates to information in real-time, and sync it with other users — right from their mobile device — making workflows much simpler and faster. They don’t have to go through multiple steps to compile information in one place, input it into a desktop computer in another place, then manually share it with stakeholders.
- Productivity. With more efficient workflows and fewer steps involved, workers can get more done in a similar or shorter time frame.
- Employee morale. Last but not least, mobile technology empowers workers to take care of everyday administrative tasks on their own and in their own time. They can check tasks off the list at home or wherever they are, and don’t need time-consuming back-and-forths with HR, managers, or other team members to get stuff done. Through self-service capabilities and greater autonomy, employee morale gets a boost.
How mobile technology can help a business
You don’t have to run an enterprise-level company to take advantage of mobile technology. Small businesses across industries can also incorporate mobile solutions into their workplace to smooth and streamline administrative workflows that are necessary for HR and people management.
With an HR and payroll software solution that includes employee mobile technology, your business can:
- Enable self-service. Self-service modules allow employees to complete administrative tasks and look up their own information. For example, employees can record their hours and review pay stubs with a self-service time-and-attendance module. Similarly, employees can research the benefits that are available to them, as well as access their own employee profiles, and modify critical HR data as needed. They can do all of this on their own, without the need for intervention by an HR administrator.
- Give employees more ownership and autonomy. Employees own, control, and are ultimately responsible for their data — not HR administrators or managers. This takes the burden of data maintenance off of your HR team so they have more time to concentrate on tasks that are strategic for the business.
- Stay compliant. HR administrators can easily access up-to-date employee information beyond payroll-related data to ensure the business stays compliant with changing laws, rules, or standards around education, training, equipment, document storage, performance management, and more.
- Provide a great employee experience. When employees can access information and act on it — whatever they need, whenever they need it — they have a more positive and empowering experience in the workplace. For example, if an employee is buying a house and needs to show proof of employment, they can access the system and get what they need on their own, without relying on anyone else to do it for them.
Choosing the right HR & payroll system
Not any HR and payroll system will do. You want one that includes a mobile app and self-service capabilities while still providing an optimized desktop experience. With this kind of flexibility, anyone on your team — whether working remotely or in the office — has what they need at their fingertips to access and manage information and complete tasks.
The system should also include time and attendance functions that allow employees to clock in and out from anywhere, communication tools that help teams and managers stay in touch, and one-stop easy access to HR-, payroll-, and employee-related data such as pay stubs, benefits information, tax withholdings, and more.
Go mobile with PrimePay
For your small business, smartphone use makes good sense with on-the-go mobile access to information that reflects today’s distributed, flexible workplaces. With PrimePay’s HR and payroll system, you can streamline your people operations and empower your workers, no matter where they are or what they need to do.
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PrimePay can partner with you to offer support throughout the entire employee lifecycle. Learn more about how PrimePay can help you streamline HR processes.
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