Digital Transformation Programs Are Leaving Workers Behind

Sandeep Kishore
Zensar

The lack of proper IT tools is killing the morale of white-collar and higher-level professionals in the US, according to new research from Zensar.

More than half of such professionals involved in the study, titled Living Digital Survey, said their company's digital transformation priorities are focused on how to increase profits instead of empowering workers.

Most also said that IT tools play a key role in productivity, and nearly a third said having the proper IT tools makes them happier.

In addition, close to half said if their company's digital transformation priorities focused more on how to empower people, morale would improve.

Outfitting Workers with the Proper IT Tools Is a Win-Win

More than three-fourths (76%) of the 1,000-plus survey group said having the digital tools they need at work makes them more productive. More than half (53%) said it makes them more successful. The same share said they would be more empowered to better manage workflow if provided with the IT tools they needed, and 42% said it speeds up boring tasks.

42% also said it would result in better worker morale. A third said it makes them smarter. Nearly as many (28%) said it makes them happier. And 38% said a focus on worker empowerment via IT would allow the company itself to change faster.

Yet Many Companies Don't Do It – and the Fear Factor May Be to Blame

At least a third of these professionals indicated that fear could be preventing their employers from outfitting them with all the digital tools they need to succeed at work. Nearly a third (31%) said their company has a wait-and-see approach to new technology. More than that (44%) said their employers are too concerned with incremental expenses to invest in new technology.

Supervisor inattention to worker needs is also to blame. Less than half (47%) of white-collar workers and just more than a third (37%) of their higher-level coworkers said their bosses understand their technological needs.

Companies That Don't Provide Proper IT Tools Suffer from a Fatal Disconnect

Half of the survey group said if their employers' digital transformation efforts focused more on employee empowerment, it would be easier for them to collaborate with coworkers. More than half (53%) said technology makes companies better.

Yet only 65% said they feel very connected with their company's mission; less than half (48%) said they are aware of their company's digital transformation strategy.

Surprisingly, 53% of white-collar workers feel connected only to the people on their team. And just more than a third (37%) only feel connected to people in their nearby vicinity. Those shares are even lower among higher-level – so-called gold-collar – workers, at 50% and 30%. With the proper IT technology, however, companies could improve connections within their organizations.

IT Matters to Workers of All Ages

People tend to assume only the youngest workers place a high value on having the technology they need at work. But Zensar's research reveals that these digital natives are not alone.

68% of the 18 to 34 age group said having the digital tools they need at work makes them more productive. But an even higher portion — 80% — of the 35 to 54 age group connect proper IT tools to their own productivity. 83% of workers age 55 and older agreed.

The 35 to 54 age group is the most bullish on technology's effect on business in particular and life in general. When asked how they feel about technology, 57% of this group said it makes life better, and 58% said it makes companies better. And nearly half (46%) of this age group said they believe technology will free up people to do more creative thinking.

Digital Transformation Has a Human Component

It's understandable that some companies' digital transformation priorities are focused on how to increase profits. But rather than focusing exclusively on the financial aspects of digital transformation, businesses need to take a big-picture view of what they're trying to accomplish and how they can unlock exponential value today to create the enterprises of tomorrow. That should include understanding what digital tools workers want and need to get the job done.

Organizations can then make the most informed decisions about and investments in IT technology. And they can ensure that they and their customers benefit from the quality performance that highly engaged employees deliver.

Sandeep Kishore is CEO of Zensar

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Digital Transformation Programs Are Leaving Workers Behind

Sandeep Kishore
Zensar

The lack of proper IT tools is killing the morale of white-collar and higher-level professionals in the US, according to new research from Zensar.

More than half of such professionals involved in the study, titled Living Digital Survey, said their company's digital transformation priorities are focused on how to increase profits instead of empowering workers.

Most also said that IT tools play a key role in productivity, and nearly a third said having the proper IT tools makes them happier.

In addition, close to half said if their company's digital transformation priorities focused more on how to empower people, morale would improve.

Outfitting Workers with the Proper IT Tools Is a Win-Win

More than three-fourths (76%) of the 1,000-plus survey group said having the digital tools they need at work makes them more productive. More than half (53%) said it makes them more successful. The same share said they would be more empowered to better manage workflow if provided with the IT tools they needed, and 42% said it speeds up boring tasks.

42% also said it would result in better worker morale. A third said it makes them smarter. Nearly as many (28%) said it makes them happier. And 38% said a focus on worker empowerment via IT would allow the company itself to change faster.

Yet Many Companies Don't Do It – and the Fear Factor May Be to Blame

At least a third of these professionals indicated that fear could be preventing their employers from outfitting them with all the digital tools they need to succeed at work. Nearly a third (31%) said their company has a wait-and-see approach to new technology. More than that (44%) said their employers are too concerned with incremental expenses to invest in new technology.

Supervisor inattention to worker needs is also to blame. Less than half (47%) of white-collar workers and just more than a third (37%) of their higher-level coworkers said their bosses understand their technological needs.

Companies That Don't Provide Proper IT Tools Suffer from a Fatal Disconnect

Half of the survey group said if their employers' digital transformation efforts focused more on employee empowerment, it would be easier for them to collaborate with coworkers. More than half (53%) said technology makes companies better.

Yet only 65% said they feel very connected with their company's mission; less than half (48%) said they are aware of their company's digital transformation strategy.

Surprisingly, 53% of white-collar workers feel connected only to the people on their team. And just more than a third (37%) only feel connected to people in their nearby vicinity. Those shares are even lower among higher-level – so-called gold-collar – workers, at 50% and 30%. With the proper IT technology, however, companies could improve connections within their organizations.

IT Matters to Workers of All Ages

People tend to assume only the youngest workers place a high value on having the technology they need at work. But Zensar's research reveals that these digital natives are not alone.

68% of the 18 to 34 age group said having the digital tools they need at work makes them more productive. But an even higher portion — 80% — of the 35 to 54 age group connect proper IT tools to their own productivity. 83% of workers age 55 and older agreed.

The 35 to 54 age group is the most bullish on technology's effect on business in particular and life in general. When asked how they feel about technology, 57% of this group said it makes life better, and 58% said it makes companies better. And nearly half (46%) of this age group said they believe technology will free up people to do more creative thinking.

Digital Transformation Has a Human Component

It's understandable that some companies' digital transformation priorities are focused on how to increase profits. But rather than focusing exclusively on the financial aspects of digital transformation, businesses need to take a big-picture view of what they're trying to accomplish and how they can unlock exponential value today to create the enterprises of tomorrow. That should include understanding what digital tools workers want and need to get the job done.

Organizations can then make the most informed decisions about and investments in IT technology. And they can ensure that they and their customers benefit from the quality performance that highly engaged employees deliver.

Sandeep Kishore is CEO of Zensar

Related Links

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Agentic Remediation: Capitalizing on the New Era of Database Observability

Developers building AI applications are not just looking for fault patterns after deployment; they must detect issues quickly during development and have the ability to prevent issues after going live. Unfortunately, traditional observability tools can no longer meet the needs of AI-driven enterprise application development. AI-powered detection and auto-remediation tools designed to keep pace with rapid development are now emerging to proactively manage performance and prevent downtime ...

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Every few years, the cybersecurity industry adopts a new buzzword. "Zero Trust" has endured longer than most — and for good reason. Its promise is simple: trust nothing by default, verify everything continuously. Yet many organizations still hesitate to implement Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA). The problem isn't that ZTNA doesn't work. It's that it's often misunderstood ...

When Dashboards Say "Green" But Customers See Red: Why Digital Experience Still Fails at the Last Mile

For many retail brands, peak season is the annual stress test of their digital infrastructure. It's also when often technical dashboards glow green, yet customer feedback, digital experience frustration, and conversion trends tell a different story entirely. Over the past several years, we've seen the same pattern across retail, financial services, travel, and media: internal application performance metrics fail to capture the true experience of users connecting over local broadband, mobile carriers, and congested networks using multiple devices across geographies ...

Don't Fall Into These 5 PostgreSQL Traps

PostgreSQL promises greater flexibility, performance, and cost savings compared to proprietary alternatives. But successfully deploying it isn't always straightforward, and there are some hidden traps along the way that even seasoned IT leaders can stumble into. In this blog, I'll highlight five of the most common pitfalls with PostgreSQL deployment and offer guidance on how to avoid them, along with the best path forward ...

Why AI Is No Longer Optional for IT Operations

The rise of hybrid cloud environments, the explosion of IoT devices, the proliferation of remote work, and advanced cyber threats have created a monitoring challenge that traditional approaches simply cannot meet. IT teams find themselves drowning in a sea of data, struggling to identify critical threats amidst a deluge of alerts, and often reacting to incidents long after they've begun. This is where AI and ML are leveraged ...

Outages Aren't the Enemy, Complacency Is

Three practices, chaos testing, incident retrospectives, and AIOps-driven monitoring, are transforming platform teams from reactive responders into proactive builders of resilient, self-healing systems. The evolution is not just technical; it's cultural. The modern platform engineer isn't just maintaining infrastructure. They're product owners designing for reliability, observability, and continuous improvement ...

The Changing World of Application Delivery (and why it pays to have choices)

Getting applications into the hands of those who need them quickly and securely has long been the goal of a branch of IT often referred to as End User Computing (EUC). Over recent years, the way applications (and data) have been delivered to these "users" has changed noticeably. Organizations have many more choices available to them now, and there will be more to come ... But how did we get here? Where are we going? Is this all too complicated? ...

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On November 18, a single database permission change inside Cloudflare set off a chain of failures that rippled across the Internet. Traffic stalled. Authentication broke. Workers KV returned waves of 5xx errors as systems fell in and out of sync. For nearly three hours, one of the most resilient networks on the planet struggled under the weight of a change no one expected to matter ... Cloudflare recovered quickly, but the deeper lesson reaches far beyond this incident ...

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Chris Steffen and Ken Buckler from EMA discuss the Cloudflare outage and what availability means in the technology space ...

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