Employee experience platforms are nothing but a set of all the digital tools that empower the people who work in a company to carry out their work efficiently. An EX is driven by AI and ML and uses neural networking and semantics to forecast the possible yet unexpressed opinions of the employees. It is a comprehensive platform that gives the hiring manager and leadership the ability to engage employees by listening, effectively communicating, and working on productive solutions for their employees.
An EX platform is used to understand the problem areas of a task, whereby an employee is not able to give the best or is facing repetitive setbacks. Depending on the cause of the hindrance, an appropriate turnaround is planned. If it is a technical glitch, the bug is reported and if it is a training requirement, the employee goes through a refresher program.
It may seem like hand holding an employee, but in reality, it is a good strategy to streamline the communications across a company, guide employees through complex tasks, help them discover their potential, and improve the process as a whole. As a result, productivity is increased both at an individual level and the company per se. Also, talent is retained.
Before integrating the current technology of a company or investing in a digital experience platform, it is good to check the answers to a few questions; Why is the employee experience platform so important, and why are all the big companies working against time to give their employees a better experience? Ask difficult questions and seek true answers that will give you deeper insights into how you can improve the working experience of the employees. An example of a related question is:-
- Which part of your regular work do you feel should be cut back or scaled up to increase your productivity?
- Are you comfortable working in the new hybrid workplace model?
- What are the factors that you value most about your team, job process, and the organization?
- Do you get enough time to interact with your line manager, on a one-on-one level?
- Do you want to learn a new skill?
- What do you like about remote working?
- Between the two, do you value time or money?
- Do you feel the training period before any new technology roll-out is enough to comprehend the system?
If you cannot make sense of the answers, then it is time you switch to machine learning and semantics that can foretell answers to related questions based on the answers given to one or two questions. This is how powerful and endless, the possibilities of a digital employee experience are.
Employees are a well-qualified and trained pool of talent. They are aware of the possibilities of machine learning and AI. The innovative technology that is used to develop good products for an unmatched customer-centric experience, is enabled by employees. They know that similar tools can be used to make their tasks simpler. They have opinions on how their process can be automated; why repetitive tasks should be automated; what tasks will need human intervention; and how they can resolve multiple tickets, irrespective of the size, in an efficient and time-saving manner.
When empowered with an EX platform, they will trust the leadership and will not consider talent hunters’ offers. If organizations do not take steps toward mapping an EX platform, they risk losing their employees to competition who might have tightened their seatbelts.
When devising an EX platform, an organization has to consider that each employee is unique and will have different responses to the same set of questions when compared with another employee. Every employee has different goals, aspirations, and abilities to complete a particular task. The organization’s EX platform has to collect and collate employee information, essential insights, and preferences related to workflow. Every individual should be able to relate to the AI-powered results that deduce their experience. Listening to employees through an EX platform should not be a lip-service act; it needs to be acted upon pronto. By being there for the employees, in true form, an EX platform can develop and succeed in establishing its hybrid workplace.
This brings us to another important question; How?
There are arguments and varied POVs of leadership, who feel that they can have their employee’s back concerning process flow; however, listening to all complaints or issues that every employee has, may not necessarily be required or even possible. If this argument is considered, then how will the organization know what can be expected as a routine process flow issue, and what cannot be part of it? Moreover, there is a possibility of the famous butterfly effect, which may have a chain reaction from an unrelated issue, yet affect the process or an employee’s productivity.
If an HR closely observes through EX touchpoints, then they can locate the genesis of the problem; they are likely to find resonance and multiplicity of tasks that yield big, positive outcomes, by making small or perhaps seemingly insignificant changes in the structure.
The touchpoints that an EX must incorporate must reflect, reinforce and reiterate every aspect of employee experience. Multiple pulse surveys, impromptu rendezvous, virtual room meetings, appraisals, in-person skip levels, and multiple other means to communicate in a direct or indirect method, can be used as touchpoints. HR self-service points that enable check-ins, feedback, and call-to-action buttons, can also be included as touchpoints. The best EX should include even the grapevine conversations and the deep pondering of co-workers that is not explicitly conveyed.
Conclusion:
An EX helps businesses steer through some tough challenges, related to talent attraction and retention. We can solve what we know, but trying to know the unknown, will unlock several possibilities. When trying to assess employee experience, an easy route is to just ask them; how they are feeling. Sometimes the easy path is the least trodden one. But it is always the first step to building trust among the employees of the organization.
