DRAFT HRM GROUP ASSIGNMENT 1: CURRENT ISSUE REPORT

1.0 INTRODUCTION

When an organization undergoes a digital transformation, it alters its use of IT resources

(including hardware, software, and personnel) to boost productivity and adapt to emerging
market trends and business models. This change is cultural in character and impacts the whole
company, from sales and marketing to operations and customer support. It is often followed by
a transition to cloud computing. Improved internal communication and information sharing is
the backbone of every successful digital transformation. The objective is to improve teamwork
and employee involvement. The advantages of digital transformation are appreciated by
businesses in many sectors: As a result, firms modernize legacy processes, accelerate efficient
workflows, strengthen security, and increase profitability (What are the Benefits of Digital
Transformation, 2021). The process of digital transformation affects all aspects of an
organization. This procedure includes the use of systems, procedures, workflow, and
organizational culture. This shift impacts all levels of an organization and unifies information
from different departments. In addition, digital transformations are critical for businesses to
continue being successful because they pave the way for a number of important benefits,
creating a system for gathering the right data and incorporating it fully for business intelligence,
consolidating information and resources into a suite of tools for business, unlocking
efficiencies for the teams and delivering more seamless, intuitive experiences for the
customers, and encourages a digital culture that is crucial for a business to remain sustainable
(What are the Benefits of Digital Transformation, 2021). Moreover, digital transformation may
cause major shifts in how people actually do their jobs, changes that can boost teamwork,
momentum, and interdepartmental communication. However, innovating in a digital culture
translates to calculated risk-taking.
2.0 DIGITAL LITERACY AND ITS IMPACT ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE

The utilization of technology and computer are now so commonplace in both our
personal and professional lives. In order to compete successfully with those businesses that
were "born digital," businesses are rapidly evolving. A workforce that is digitally connected
and has the flexibility to work and communicate from any location at any time is now
considered as the workplace, not as a physical office space. To ensure that workers can
successfully adapt to the new tools, methods, and procedures that are essential to increasing
company productivity, employers should think about fostering digital literacy in the workplace.
Formerly, digital literacy meant you could send an email or type documents in a word
processor. Knowledge employees, who may be required to utilize specialized software in the
course of their jobs, were the most likely to have needed this proficiency. However, the term
has changed significantly. Digital literacy in the digital age is an understanding of an array of
digital tools that enable in-office, hybrid, and remote work across all types of workplaces.
Think of real-time collaboration software, office chat applications, and high-tech asynchronous
work tools; these are all examples of the kinds of digital literacy that fall under the umbrella of
a "digital workplace." (Christian, 2022). These days, digital literacy is more of a mentality than
a set of skills. Employees in the modern workplace are expected to quickly learn new
technologies when they are introduced to them on the job and to adjust to the constant evolution
of the methods and resources at their disposal. Staff members are also required to make
strategic use of technology, such as by using their own mobile devices for work and benefiting
from collaborative workflow programs (Christian, 2022).

Start by raising staff engagement (Corbin, 2019). Transitioning to a digital workplace

can boost engagement by enabling easy communication between employees. They have the
option to blog, identify others, and foster a collaborative environment. Other than that, making
papers easily accessible from a single location will improve user experience, enhance the use
of digital platforms, and increase engagement. By putting corporate values on display where
everyone can see them and infusing them into daily duties, it is also developing a virtual
company culture.

Moving ahead, communication can be improved (Corbin, 2019). The capability for
businesses and their employees to connect with anyone at any time thru the Internet is not
impossible through digital practice in the workplace. Departments can communicate more
easily with platforms like Google Meet or Zoom, and staff members can easily stay informed
of any changes in the business's operations. By establishing uniformity across the organization
and keeping everyone informed of changes, communication tools can help build an
encouraging employer brand.

Lastly, attract & retain talent (Corbin, 2019). A company can benefit from technology
advancements when its workforce is digitally literate because it can manage organizational data
and workflows, build social networks and collaboration platforms, and draw in more talent. As
Baby Boomers begin to enter retirement, they bring their expertise and experience with them.
Business performance, value, and general productivity will start to suffer as a result. Employees
can preserve this expertise for the millennial and generation z future digital generations by
converting their workplace to a digital one.

Employee performance can be significantly impacted by digital literacy, particularly in

the areas of cooperation and communication. Employees who have not yet mastered digital
articulacy (the capacity to comprehend and apply technology to daily tasks) must work hard to
effectively communicate with co-workers using different methods and possibly unfamiliar
equipment, like text messaging or video conferencing, for example (Muncaster, n.d.).

First, technostress. Based on psychologists, “Technostress is anxiety, tension, or distress

caused when a person is overwhelmed by new technology. It occurs when they are unable to
adapt and learn to use technology in a healthy, productive way” (Brod, 1984). Technostress is
a form of technology-related stress that raises anxiety and stress levels. Information overload,
constant connectivity, rapid change in technology, poor user experience and interface design,
and fear of technology are the causes of technostress (Sharma, 2023). Technology overload
creates work-life conflict, which in turn creates stress and affects the workers’ job performance
(Tams et al., 2020). It is anticipated that this will put more stress on the workers and result in
low motivation and discontent at work. Following that, the conflict between employees and
ICT functions can increase stress when too many complex ICT features are installed in the
workplace and enable complex multitasking. Job discontent is the result of this stress. Work
productivity decreases as stress levels rise (Yin et al., 2018). Overload work has been assigned
to employees, with the understanding that it can be completed quickly and simply thanks to
technology. Unfortunately, employees perform poorly when they experience overload,
complexity, or uncertainty because they feel disoriented and lose focus.

Going forward, distraction and interruption are on the horizon. According to one
researcher, when using technological tools for work, employees may become side-tracked by
investigating other activities like web browsing and listening to music that blurs the work-
nonwork boundaries. They aren't really invested in their work, hence the output suffers.
Technology-mediated interruptions, such as email or instant messaging, are typically self-
initiated or initiated by colleagues, while software application interruptions, such as a software
update notification or application outage, are typically outside of a worker's control. Not only
that, social media are also the biggest interruption in the workplace for instance Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram while it is acknowledged that it can be a valuable form of
communication and marketing tools in workplaces and indeed are necessary in some
organizations (Casey, 5). However, frequent access or availability of internet connection is
associated with decreased productivity due to frequent distraction through engagement in
online activities.

The final is addiction and excessive use. Technology may become addicting which
leads to social anxiety, especially when used for business. Digital literacy leads humans to
prefer not to interact with people, which causes social anxiety, and a lack of soft skills and
confidence in the workforce. Employees also tend to rely more on digital literacy when doing
their work and this can become a habit to the employees. To illustrate, when a notice appears
on your phone or computer, you can't help but check it. No matter what the notice is for, the
dreaded buzzing sound is constantly present, and it just becomes worse in the office. An
employee's anxiety levels rise until he or she has a chance to read a work-related email that has
been sent. Based on the responses of one research, since most contact occurs online, employees
have nervousness and stage fright when they have to conduct a presentation offline or talk with
their superiors (Sharma, 2019). Overusing technology will have an impact on employees’
physical & mental health. They might have myopia as a result of spending too much time in
front of screens.
3.0 SOLUTIONS FOR DIGITAL LITERACY IMPACTS ON EMPLOYEE
PERFORMANCE

Based on the impacts that were previously written, digital literacy plays an important
role in an organization. However, it is necessary for an organization to cope with the negative
impact of digital literacy. These impact over time will become a big problem if left alone and
affects the employee’s performance. Even though digital literacy helps the employee to do their
task, the employer should reduce the amount of work for the employees because overload work
will cause technostress. Keeping up with the pace of technology can be difficult, especially for
employees in fast-growing companies. Managers and companies need to take this matter
seriously and solve this problem quickly. To avoid technostress, employers should create
technology training in the workplace for employees. Technology training is a program that lets
others learn the software and the digital literacy that will be used by the organization. This
training helps employees to understand how to effectively use the new technology skills and
makes the employees more confident in their work. Besides being able to overcome the
problem of technostress, this can increase their daily productivity and indirectly help
employees do work efficiently and effectively. Next, employers must set boundaries for digital
technology use for employees (Sharma, 2023). To give an example, employees must set online
time limits, take frequent breaks, and unplug from technology, and ICT literacy after work
hours. Being "always on" can cause tension between job and personal life, which in turn can
lead to burnout. Therefore, it is crucial to limit access to technology outside of work hours.
Companies should make it clear that workers aren't allowed to communicate outside of business
hours. Everyone on the team must respect the value of "offline time" and work to accommodate
it when necessary. Further, technostress can be avoided by embracing technological change
systematically in the organization (Sharma, 2023). Employees may experience anxiety,
bewilderment, and even technophobia as a result of sudden company-wide technological
improvements. Organizations need to execute progressive technology transformation to
prevent such a scenario. This will make it easier for workers to adjust to new technologies and
reduce their risk of developing technostress. If your company is struggling to keep up with the
rapid pace of technological development, one solution is to use digital adoption platforms like
‘Whatfix’ that offer in-app support for a wide range of business apps using mediums including
step-by-step tutorials, balloon tips, videos, and textual guidelines. In addition to gathering team
feedback, it monitors how your change endeavor is developing.
 Next, digital literacy makes it easier for employees to stay on task, but it can also be an
addictive distraction. On average, it takes around 23 minutes to go back into the zone after
being interrupted. It makes no difference whether the source of disruption is a phone call, an
email notification, a disruptive co-worker, or anything else. Every time you get interrupted at
work, you lose around 20 minutes of time that you might be working. To prevent this from
happening, employers should teach their employees to use the right tools and resources while
working. Employer access to communication and sharing tools can prevent employees from
surfing the web that is not important and that is essential to ensure that work is as seamless as
possible. For instance, employers can use an application such as Asana to help the employee to
stay on track. This can improve the quality of employee work because they focus on their work.
On top of that, this can avoid by working next to productive colleagues as motivation and
productivity are contagious. Benefit from those wonderful human behavior traits. Working
close to a productive colleague may also promote greater interpersonal engagement, knowledge
sharing, and the generation of fresh ideas. Following after, the distraction of digital
technologies can be dodged by encouraging team members to mute or turn off non-work
notifications (Power, 2019). Employees’ focus will be drawn to a personal email or Facebook
notification, and if they answer, even more time will be wasted. Even if employers have little
control over what employees do on their own time, employers can help them learn to balance
their personal devices and social media use with their work responsibilities. Advise them to
disable alerts for the majority of the day, suggesting they set aside a certain time to check and
respond to messages. Employers might also inform their employees of mobile apps that can
help them limit their daily social media use to an appropriate period of time. In addition,
employers and managers can avoid distraction from digital technology by teaching the
employees time management as a skill (Power, 2019). Even if limiting employees’ time spent
on personal devices is a good first step, remember that distractions like emails can also cost-
productive work time. Effective time management is the foundation of efficiency, and the
ability to keep distractions at bay while on the job is crucial. Teach employees effective time
management techniques to ensure that every second counts. Show them that by scheduling
comparable jobs together, they can increase their productivity because they won't have to
switch gears in their heads as often. Or suggest they try the Pomodoro Technique, in which
they divide their work into 25-minute chunks and take 5-minute breaks every 25 minutes.
 Last but not least, there are several ways for employers to suppress the addiction and
prevent social anxiety of the employees and encourage healthy workplace device use.
Employers can replace smartphone or digital literacy that use to communicate between
employees with physical meetings and face-to-face communication. Organise team-building
exercises that don’t revolve around technology (How to combat digital addiction in the
workplace, 2019). For instance, you may organize lunchtime activities like as yoga, jogging,
or a music club for the employees. The well-being of an organization as a whole may be
improved along with its productivity by strengthening the meaningful ties that exist among
workers. Moreover, employers can deal with the nervousness, lack of soft skills, and
confidence of the employee with regular face-to-face meetings also to address problems at
work with technology addiction. Employers can set up face-to-face meetings regularly to boost
the employee’s confidence to talk and communicate in front of others so that they can generate
more ideas and improve employee performance. Face-to-face meetings can also curb excessive
technology use among employees and employers themselves. Employers and employees
themselves can give suggestions for the problems they face and help other colleagues. In
addition, employers can create technology-free zones in the workplace, where people can read,
eat, chat, and generally take a break from digital devices.
4.0 CONCLUSION

Digital literacy is no longer exclusive to knowledge-based jobs. “These are becoming

universally applicable to almost everyone,” says Ying Zhou, director of the Future of Work
Research Centre at the University of Surrey, UK (Christian, 2022). Over time, even in non-
tech positions, some level of digital literacy has come to be required. Technology is no longer
industry-specific, from warehouse operators adopting cloud-based management systems,
physicians talking with patients through remote video consultations, and contractors managing
building projects using mobile collaboration applications. The same goes in the workplace,
where almost every aspect of daily operations calls on digital literacy. Collaboration teams with
higher digital literacy are more productive because they can more quickly recognize and exploit
key data, information, and trends. Having this power is essential in a world where fresh
information is continuously being released and consumed. The requirement for digital literacy
has increased as more firms use remote or hybrid working arrangements. However, despite the
rising significance of digital literacy, not every worker must be an expert in every piece of
software in order to get employment. Instead, they must be comfortable using digital tools,
eager to experiment with new ones, and accepting of the ways in which the correct tools may
promote workplace cooperation while also being flexible and adaptable enough to pick up new
procedures. Employees nowadays must anticipate that they will continually improve their
digital abilities. After all, when a person starts a new position, it is expected that they either
have the necessary digital abilities or that they will quickly acquire them. “It’s nearly half of
all workers now. Regardless of what work you did previously, an employer now expects you
to learn whatever digital skills are required in a role” says Ying Zhou, director of the Future of
Work Research Centre at the University of Surrey, UK (Christian, 2022). Evidently, learning
digital literacy may benefit workers in both their professional and personal lives. They will be
able to perfect these talents if they continue to study and practice daily. Employees will soon
be empowered to handle project management, cooperation, and communication, enabling them
to overcome the present obstacles they confront (Schueller, 2022). They will also be able to
interact and execute everyday professional and personal duties with confidence using digital
tools.