Workfront and the employee experience

Learn how Adobe Workfront manages all work in a single place, creating better day-to-day experiences for teams.

Employees today won’t settle for an unsatisfactory work experience. Employers, having witnessed the Great Resignation, are scrambling to avoid burnout and turnover. But according to our research, workers will commit to a role for the right technology. In Adobe’s 2021 State of Work report, the number of digital workers who reported applying for a job because they heard the company uses great technology rose seven points in 2020.

That same study found that nearly half of US workers say they’re likely to leave their current job if they’re unhappy or frustrated with the technology they use at work. It’s likely that’s because instead of streamlining work, many workplace tools hinder cross-team collaboration, clear visibility into projects, and time spent on stimulating tasks. Instead of letting teams focus on strategy, most of these tools give way to endless document chasing, convoluted review cycles, repetitive grunt work, and limited understanding of big-picture impact. And that means these time-consuming manual tools are also cutting into work-life balance.

The good news is that roadblocks to an ideal employee experience can be eliminated with better work management — and experts say technology is just part of the equation. “Ensuring that people and processes are aligned is just as important,” says Steve Hammond, vice president of Adobe Experience Cloud. For globally dispersed teams, alignment can look like a central hub for readily available project details, time for innovation, company-wide contributions to success, and teamwork that transcends disciplines. Adobe Workfront makes alignment possible with easier, more meaningful ways to work that lead to a sense of accomplishment and connection.

To demonstrate how Adobe Workfront helps teams find more enjoyment on the job, we’ll discuss how the platform addresses today’s biggest work management challenges. The result is smarter processes, more satisfying work, and happier teams.

Better work management is essential to the employee experience

Employees are hungry for more opportunities to work, learn, and even play. Adobe’s report, The Future of Time: Hybrid Workplace, found that 53% of workers would pursue passions and personal growth through their employer. Outside of work, approximately 53% of employees would spend extra time on themselves — like their hobbies and health — followed by family and social time.

Despite their professional and personal ambitions, most employees spend too much time on tasks that get in the way of doing their jobs effectively — and by extension, enjoying their free time. Remote and hybrid work is exacerbating the inefficiencies of dated, inadequate tools, which is leaving workers frustrated and weary rather than inspired and motivated.

Feeling like a cog in the machine versus a person who makes a difference certainly saps morale from the employee experience. When workers hand in assignments with no feedback on how that work is used, how it helps the company reach its goals, or how it performs, it sends the message that their output is busywork — and not connected to business-critical strategy. This creates a cycle of poor collaboration due to the lack of alignment on goals, while lack of alignment on goals leads to poor collaboration.

This cycle also creates silos. Employees have less visibility into the lifecycle of work from kickoff to completion, putting blockage on collaborative syncs that free up valuable information for everyone involved. Siloed platforms do a disservice to employees in this environment as they toggle between different tools that serve different purposes. When workers have to constantly go back and forth between different tabs to communicate with colleagues, manage their assignments, and get their work reviewed, it’s disruptive to creativity and strategic ideation.

Poor user experiences in work management tech often affect work processes as well. The absence of automation sees many teams plowing through projects without a streamlined path to completion. In lieu of standardized processes, requests are ad hoc and tasks are chaotic, eating up valuable work time. In fact, the same report stated that a third of the workweek is spent on unimportant tasks. Without fast and simple ways to prioritize work, it becomes even more difficult to align people and their tasks with organizational goals.

While these challenges complicate the employee experience, the solution can be simple. Adobe Workfront is designed to smooth out bottlenecks and break down silos for teams that want the employee experience to be a positive one.

4 ways to enhance the employee experience with Workfront

Workfront is a work management solution that helps automate complex work processes, tie work to outcomes, and make it easy for people to find what they need. According to Hammond, Workfront is a premier workflow management and work collaboration solution that produces results. “We recognize that happier employees are more productive and make for a better customer experience,” he says.

Here are four ways Workfront makes the employee experience better.

1. Gain a full understanding of work across the project lifecycle

With ineffective tools, projects are often overcomplicated. Teams must hunt down the info they need to simply do their jobs. Meeting time to market is more critical than ever. Without all project details at the ready, work can fall behind. Workfront lets teams find what they need quickly and easily when they:

• Gain a full view of all background details, due dates, and tasks
• Have a record for all projects from request to delivery
• Understand everything that’s happened upstream
• Track work downstream
• Learn how their work is used

2. Shorten the review and approval cycle

Workloads are high enough without constant loops of feedback from myriad stakeholders, especially when that feedback is delivered in disparate, static documents. Workfront lets teams automate approval cycles and submit higher quality work by helping them:

• Reduce bottlenecks and speed up work
• Minimize frustrating delays
• Have one place to track changes and see comments without the need to download or view them in a different tab
• Eliminate confusion and complication
• Prevent frustration and burnout

3. Focus on important work by keeping everything in one system

In the face of rising consumer demand, work output must be exceptional. With Workfront, teams in separate locations don’t have to work in separate tools. Work is delivered in one collaborative digital space, allowing for more opportunities to innovate and less time spent toggling between apps. With code-free integrations and higher productivity, your teams:

• Reduce manual steps to chasing down briefs and other important information
• Break down silos by providing one system of record for all work and work-related info
• Align workers, tools, and processes to common goals
• Contain seamless workflows and collaboration
• Spend more time creating due to reduced time on manual tasks

4. Let teams know their work matters

By regaining time to do what they love, teams aren’t spending all their time tracking in spreadsheets and updating tasks. And by doing what they love, teams are reminded of why they chose to work for their employer. Workfront helps create a culture of positivity with functions that show teams how their work benefits the company and the end user, helping them:

• Inspire and motivate one another by commenting on work directly within the application
• Connect company strategy directly to their work
• Learn how work ties to organizational goals
• Get insights on the impact their work has had
• Gain a sense of accomplishment

How companies like yours can elevate the employee experience

From insurance to retail, many Adobe customers are experiencing higher productivity, faster project completion, and savings of millions in potential outside agency fees with the help of Workfront. This work management application is helping employees and their employers deliver more strategic outcomes by improving everyday work for long-term benefit.

Watch this video to find out more about Adobe Workfront’s work management and collaboration features built for today’s dispersed working world.