ANZ CEOs global leaders in driving workplace transformation

It’s pleasing to see senior executives from Australian and New Zealand enterprises leading from the front when it comes to workplace transformation, according to Andrew Groth, SVP and Head of Infosys Australia and New Zealand.

“The C-Suite leaders I speak with across all industries recognise the critical importance of not only developing a holistic strategy across digital, physical and cultural elements, but implementing those plans with steadfast leadership,” he added.

“This level of seniority invested in transformation projects is leading the way globally, equipping employees with the right skills and focus to create more collaborative, agile, and progressive enterprises, resilient to future challenges.”

Groth’s comments come as workplace transformation has been found to be top of mind and growing exponentially within Australia and NZ (ANZ) businesses, becoming a critical differentiator of better staff wellbeing and business outcomes, according to a new report from Infosys.

The report aimed to identify and understand workplace transformation trends across digital, physical and cultural elements, according to the survey of 172 executives from organisations with over USD 1 billion in revenue across Australia and New Zealand (1300 globally).

It found ANZ businesses to be global leaders in developing workplace transformation strategies with 94% of local organisations having such a strategy in place, higher than their peers in Europe (89%) and the US (71%).

The business case for workplace transformation is also more evident in ANZ than other markets as the report indicates CEOs are more likely to be involved in the ideation and implementation of the transformation strategy.

Almost 7 in 10 ANZ executives (69%) said their CEOs were the most influential person in this decision-making process, almost double the response from executives in Europe (37%).

With workplace transformations being driven from the top, it’s no surprise that businesses here are leading in the development of transformation roadmaps across industries and regions.

The main reasons for ANZ organisations adopting workplace transformation solutions and technology was to improve productivity (65%), however, executives recognise it can have a positive impact across the business:

• Increase employment productivity (28%)
• Increase collaboration across teams (40%)
• Improve employee experience and wellbeing (38%)
• Reduce in churn of employees (35%)
• Help build a competitive advantage (33%)

Through the research, it was also evident businesses in ANZ place a high importance on the physical transformation elements of workplace transformation compared to other markets. Specifically, co-working spaces were increasingly popular across industries as well as the implementation of smart building technology and hot desking.

While a vast majority of the ANZ organisations are currently progressing their workplace transformation journeys, only 17% have completed implementation. It was clear the executives surveyed were apprehensive of how best to roll out the concept, potentially attributable to a lack of organisational readiness and maturity levels of their businesses.

The biggest apprehension local companies have before initiating workplace transformation is finding the right selection of tools and technology to use, as reported by 72% of respondents. The most popular communications tools used by ANZ firms are Skype (72%), Teams (70%) and WebEx (67%) and the most used collaboration software was Asana (71%), Yammer (66%) and Slack (64%).

Other concerns included the need to establish a team to drive the initiative (59%) and a perceived continuous reliance on external service providers (56%).

Moreover, getting buy-in from all parts of the organisation was also a significant challenge for almost half (49%), followed by organisational set-up (41%).