The insights generated from wearable and connected devices are expected to enable more effective management of employee wellness and productivity within the next four years, says Deloitte human capital technology and digital learning associate director André Vermeulen.

On average, worldwide, a person owns three connected personal devices, including wearable devices, and this number is expected to rise to seven by 2020.

The objective for businesses should be to convert data from such devices into useful information through analytics. Different analytics processes should be used to derive information specifically for different operational processes, effectively operating as ‘lenses’ through which the large amount of information is viewed.

Effective data storage and analytics platforms will be required to managed the massive amounts of data from in-house, wearable and external data sources to create useable information. This can then be leveraged to improve employee wellness and the effectiveness and efficiency of business operations, notes Vermeulen.

Many of the systems and devices currently used are consumer driven and not designed for business use, yet they are used broadly enough to merit consideration as an indication of how technologies will be incorporated into people’s daily lives, he explains.

These systems can be leveraged using powerful analytics platforms instituted by businesses to track many different metrics, including employee health and wellness measurements, as well as productivity, performance and safety.

Deloitte is testing a high-technology, non-intrusive health and wellness system that can determine an employee’s general health and wellness from a five-minute scan, including levels of fatigue and susceptibility to drowsiness, highlights Vermeulen.

“This technology has already been proven in sports training. We are now testing its use in highly physical jobs such as mining. It promises to make mines more productive by helping to ensure that people are assigned to jobs most suited to their current physical condition and reduce injuries or accidents owing to difficult-to-detect fatigue.”

A plethora of wearable devices and connected devices in an Internet of Things context can also be used to verify safety incidents, with the highly detailed data gathered from these devices and the use of analytics improving safety for future similar incidents.

Vermeulen says companies will eventually be able to correlate working conditions with possible injuries, which will enable them to manage employees’ wellness proactively.

The combination and analysis of the data from many devices and systems on a suitable platform through analytics ‘lenses’ will provide the means to identify the areas and elements in the company’s operations that can be improved, he adds.

“These trends are part of the broader industrial revolution that is a result of dramatic technological innovation, which is also driving cultural changes and social innovations.”

Meanwhile, immersive and experiential training is increasingly being used to induct employees in technical positions or working in dangerous or hazardous environments.

The rich experience that can be gained from three-dimensional and augmented wearable devices, as well as the nascent holographic systems, is effective for training employees.

“This immersive method of teaching is very effective as a means to imprint information in the memories of people, making it well suited to safety and technical training. These systems also enable the company to assess how effective its training and induction courses are to instil the correct behaviour in trainees,” concludes Vermeulen.