As businesses continually strive to lower costs and increase productivity, it comes as no surprise that more and more companies are investing in new technologies.
Despite this, a recent report from McKinsey indicates that U.S. productivity growth has been steadily declining since 2004.
The good news is that it’s possible to reverse that trend by using custom-built apps that are designed to support your company’s unique workflows while empowering on-the-go workers.
Today’s mobile workforce needs apps that work well across all devices—phones, tablets, and laptops—while offering a seamless experience as employees move from one to the next.
With the right custom mobile app in place, your team’s productivity will improve—even when your workers are out of the office. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five ways mobile apps help employees in all industries work more effectively.
1. Mobile apps increase employee engagement
Employees become more engaged when they’re able to use modern tools that make their jobs easier and allow them to accomplish more.
The importance of an engaged workforce can’t be overstated. According to Gallup, highly engaged teams are 21% more productive and 22% more profitable than their non-engaged counterparts.
Studies also indicate that 70% of U.S. workers are unengaged at work—making them much more likely to be on the lookout for their next gig.
On the flip side, 87% of engaged employees say they are unlikely to leave their employer.
Since it costs more than $4,000 to replace an employee and takes an average of 42 days to fill a position, this has significant budgetary and productivity implications.
A way to further increase engagement is by using a no-code development platform to empower your employees to build the custom apps they need. No-code platforms enable everyone on your team—even non-technical workers—to become citizen developers and participate in the app creation process. This approach increases engagement in two different ways: workflows become more efficient and employees learn how to use new tools.
This is a big deal: A separate study from Gallup found that 87% of millennials highly value professional training and career growth in the workplace. Encouraging employees to participate in no-code mobile app creation not only satisfies these demands, it also directly benefits your company through digital transformation.
2. Mobile apps increase efficiency by eliminating mundane tasks
There’s nothing an employee dreads more than having to repeat the same time-consuming tasks over and over again.
According to IT Chronicles, office workers spend an average of 69 days each year on administrative tasks. Collectively, these wasted hours amount to an annual $5 trillion loss for companies around the world.
How, specifically, can mobile apps increase efficiency?
Building a custom mobile app enables organizations to collect, share and unify data to support different use cases. Employees no longer have to toggle between several spreadsheets to do their jobs. Instead, they can use a custom mobile app—which they might have even helped design.
3. Mobile apps reduce errors and improve production quality
If your business still relies on a manual paper filing system, it’s time to consider upgrading.
Swedish-based machine manufacturing giant Husqvarna recently used AppSheet to build a custom mobile app that digitalized inventory across its 150,000-square foot North American warehouse—home to over 35,000 SKUs.
Prior to building with AppSheet, Husqvarna had 12 employees who were responsible for manually counting inventory and storing that data on paper.
Within eight months of using AppSheet, Husqvarna’s team created 41 unique apps. This led to productivity gains, more visibility into key metrics, fewer tracking errors, and increased employee engagement, among other benefits.
4. Mobile apps facilitate telecommuting and field technician productivity
It’s no secret that employees today, and millennials in particular, expect more flexibility when it comes to working from home.
In fact, experts predict that remote workers will account for 34–50% of the workforce by 2020.
Research has shown that remote employees are actually more productive than their in-office counterparts. A recent Stanford study, for example, found that remote workers take less sick time, are less distracted, and are 50% less likely to leave their organizations.
However, if your business relies on employees filling out manual forms in the office—or if your employees are only able to access work-related files and documents from their work computers—they won’t be working remotely anytime soon.
This also makes it harder to attract top talent, as remote working enables you to attract employees from all over the country—or even the world.
Mobile apps enable employees to collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, and other key business tools from any connected device. In other words, employees can get their jobs done at any time from anywhere in the world.
5. Mobile apps increase productivity by connecting data
In the past, organizations relied on several different software solutions to facilitate their day-to-day operations. The typical software suite might include tools to manage HR, accounting, inventory, supply chain, customer transactions, security, payroll, and more—all made by different vendors.
Custom apps enable businesses to centralize all of this data—which means employees can access each system through a single interface.
Research suggests that businesses with poor data quality lose 6% in revenue each year.
Simply put, the more centralized your data is, the more accurate it will be—leading to greater productivity and profitability across your organization.
Take Team Productivity to the Next Level with No-Code Apps
Custom mobile apps help businesses realize significant productivity increases.
These tools increase employee engagement—particularly when you empower your team to build their own custom apps. And they also make your company more efficient while reducing errors and streamlining communication.
Add it all up, and custom mobile apps save your business a lot of time and money, enabling you to improve productivity and reclaim countless hours by streamlining mundane tasks.