Use no-code technology to unlock the power of your workforce

2023 will be the year of the employee experience and you should be there.

Today, the speed at which businesses are transforming is groundbreaking. In Gartner’s 2022-2023 surveys, 69% of CFOs plan to increase their spending on digital technologies, and CIOs are redoubling their efforts to accelerate the time-to-value of digital investments. Some digital initiatives that would normally have taken more than a year to complete have taken off in a matter of weeks. This leaves no room for miscoordination and wasted time.

This new speed of work, coupled with old ways of coping, has accelerated another macro trend: employee burnout. The current economic downturn has put additional pressure on employees to do more, faster, in an increasingly noisy and complex digital work environment.

How can employees keep up? Better yet, what can organizations do now to truly unlock the power of their workforce and empower their employees to do their best work quickly, successfully and with satisfaction?

Embracing the next big thing

Say hello to a new way to enable workflows. No-code/low-code technology is a star that has been on the rise in recent years and is expected to shine next year. In fact, VMR Research estimates that the market size of low-code development platforms is expected to increase almost 2,000% over eight years, increased from $12.43 billion in 2020 to $233.43 billion in 2028.

This new approach makes software development simpler, faster and democratized. It enables the everyday worker to easily create technical solutions and software applications, with little or no knowledge of programming (coding). For example, when your employees use spreadsheets or boards, they don’t think about complex technology. They use a simple tool that is actually very powerful under the hood. Eventually they start automating a very intrinsic and complicated workflow step by step without noticing it.

Placing codeless solutions in the hands of employees allows them to do the sorts of things that were previously reserved for developers and deep tech experts. We call these workers “citizen developers,” and new technologies make it easier than ever to create collaborative work structures built by workers and for workers to keep work going.

Empowering citizen developers

Empowering employees with no-code technology can make their lives much easier. They can automate mundane tasks and focus on their most important work instead of spending a disproportionate amount of time logging activities they have already completed into a software database. In addition, citizen developers speed things up because they have the power to solve their own problems in an agile way without having to wait for IT departments or deploy point solutions.

Another critical aspect of no-code software that helps workflows function effectively is enabling employees to collaborate in a more sophisticated way. Any piece of software that does not have the best collaboration will be absorbed into the market. Without collaboration in your work systems – and collaboration is usually lacking in legacy tools – it’s a dead end. That’s partly because it doesn’t help you unlock the power of your company or its employees. Collaboration is an essential part.

Putting no code in the right hands

How do you get no-code technology into the hands of your employees? IT departments have guided us on an accelerated journey of digital transformation over the past few years, and they will continue to do so.

While administrative staff and employees are the ones who can really see an impact from no-code solutions, IT departments are typically responsible for the acquisition decisions. Beware though. Often an IT department will purchase an end-to-end software solution that requires employees to customize their workflows to run them effectively.

With citizen developers, however, this equation is turned on its head. Employees can design their own solutions around their existing workflows, making the software complementary to their work rather than cumbersome.

To maximize the effectiveness of these purchasing decisions, IT departments should consult with their staff, especially administrative and junior staff, to determine technology needs from an execution perspective.

Plans for a bright future

2021 was the year of digital transformation and 2022 the year of hybrid working. If organizations want to be successful in 2023, they must start with strategies for an improved employee experience. By focusing on your people – the core of any business – you can innovate, outsmart the competition and build robust cultures.

Unlock the power of your employees by empowering them to self-heal, self-automate, and create and modify their own workflows on the fly. When companies equip their employees with code-less self-driving technology, it has proven to help democratize workflows, automate previously stagnant processes, and ultimately optimize operations.

We are facing a recession and the need to increase productivity, time to market and bottom line while reducing burnout. Giving employees a hand to get to work on their own becomes critical in the new year.

Andrew Filev is founder and CEO of Wrike.