Have you ever found yourself contemplating whether to stay in an organization or leave sooner than planned? Whether you’re an HR or a boss you might have been in this situation at one point. If familiar with the term Customer Experience, you won’t find it a puzzle to understand how crucial Employee Experience is. Employee experience is a big concern in the corporate world and there is no way you can ignore it.
To get things done, you certainly need people and these people have to be happy to even perform to their very best. And that’s where employee experience comes in. The way an employee feels while working in an organization contributes a lot to his or her emotional relationship with the company.
Ensuring that employees have the resources to perform their tasks and that they are happy at work is essential. Other factors like employee engagement, appreciation, and satisfaction also contribute to employee experience. And when you sum it all up, employee experience plays a big role in employee productivity.
At this juncture, we shall look at the most reliable ways technology is helping organizations around the world optimize the employee experience. So here we go.
The 5 Ways Technology is Contributing to Employee Experience
1. Enhances Collaboration
Employee collaboration is essential in accomplishing tasks in an organization and on time. It is generally a work style where employees despite their type of teams or departments communicate effectively and smoothly.
Collaboration among teams plays a big role in creating a sense of community, increasing employee engagement, and building trust. In a working culture that has greatly changed, maintaining collaboration between employees can be challenging especially when technology is overlooked. Salesforce indicates that 86% of employees and executives specify a lack of collaboration for workplace failures.
Today, technologies like AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) alongside other tools are helping HRs maximize employee experience. The use of social networking and other online portals allows employees to communicate in real-time no matter the distance and time difference.
If you think deploying technologies in your workspace is costly, you might find yourself registering a high employee turnover. 80% of businesses today use social collaboration tools for enhancing business processes, according to Mckinsey and why not you? By putting these technologies in place employees will communicate smoothly and they will find it easy to perform their tasks.
2. Provides Instant Feedback
A work culture that prioritizes feedback enables employees to discover their strengths and weaknesses and it can also keep them on track. Among the many discoveries, OfficeVibe indicates that close to half of the total number of employees become actively disengaged when they get little or no feedback. Also, 98% of employees find it difficult to become engaged when managers fail to prioritize offering feedback.
Providing constant feedback is one of the best ways to empower employees and when you empower them, it cultivates a fabulous employee experience in the organization. As work styles continue to shift to remote or hybrid methods, you might definitely need to outsource and this may give rise to remote workers.
So, how can you communicate, assign work or even give feedback? Technology can help out. Introduce performance management tools to monitor the productivity of the employees and the overall organization.
Today Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) can allow proficiency and user experience and this impacts employee experience. Therefore, with all the digital transformation that is happening around us, there are quite many ways of providing instant feedback to employees to optimize the employee experience.
3. Automation
Work practices that frustrate employees whether while logging in their attendance, performing their tasks, or the unfavorable working shifts highly lead to negative employee experiences. As years pass by, we continue to witness forces like AI and digital transformation conquer work cultures.
Automation in workplaces reduces the time required for employees to accomplish their tasks, improves productivity, and also increases employee morale. Companies that take this into consideration realize better working spaces, employee interactions, and productivity.
According to McKinsey, 31% of companies had fully automated at least one function in 2020, and the pandemic and its effects have greatly accelerated the speed. Internet of Things (IoT) has helped businesses automate processes and this has improved employee experience as well.
If a company had predicted to switch to the latest working trends in 10 years’ time, the sudden arrival of coronavirus pushed it to occur in just a few weeks or months. There are very many applications and software today such as Culture Amp and Quantum Workplace that can improve employee engagement and experience.
Automation helps employees complete repetitive tasks in less time which reduces stress and also positively impacts the overall employee experience in an organization. So, providing training for employees to attain the required digital skillsets to handle the tools or other technologies in place is an urgent call. Besides, in case you find it hard to stay updated with evolving technologies, you can follow the most amazing technology blogs.
4. Practical Learning Experiences
A majority of modern employees join companies expecting to advance career-wise. Drawing up programs and opportunities for career development can even improve the employee experience. In fact, almost all workplace motivation theories propagate the idea of offering effective learning opportunities to employees.
The need of the hour is digital skills and many people are becoming adventurous and aren’t ready to settle for mediocrity. Consider it that every new talent that you hire is looking forward to something new in terms of career development, personal well-being, and growth.
Previously, organizations had to invest a lot in terms of money and time to facilitate career development through workshops and seminars. Not anymore! There are many holistic learning approaches such as Learning Management System (LMS), Gamified Learning, Virtual Learning, and videos that can help employees advance their digital skills within their localities.
Another vital consideration is upping or providing the necessary tools for employees to perform their tasks efficiently. Whenever you place a dedicated employee on a challenging job with the right resources, they are motivated to explore more and will obviously improve the employee experience in an organization.
5. Digital Reward System
In the modern business world, employee appreciation and reward are crucial in retaining the best talent. Also, good pay, employee benefit plans, and allowances are big players in employee satisfaction. Modern businesses are keen on exploring ways of appreciating and rewarding employees and we must say, a digital reward system is a reliable business model.
Traditional methods of paying employees may not be the best option in a world where we have remote workers. More so, when digital transformation is in trend. It’s generally because they lack convenience and since the remote working style is increasing globally, digital reward systems such as digital gift cards, coupons, and NFTs, are more secure, easily transferred, and offer a better employee experience.
Encapsulation
As more and more organizations globally are realizing the need to prioritize their employees. Happy and satisfied employees will have a positive experience in the workplace and this helps the organization to grow sustainably. Without a doubt, modern technology can help you in optimizing employee experience as explained.
