How Technology Enhances Employee Experience
It goes without saying that customer is one of the core parts of an organization. However, employees also play a vital role in the company’s success.
Recent trends show that definition of working for millennials exceeded the borders of just making money and became more oriented on the comfortable workplace as well as positive interaction with the organization.
In response to this, finding the ways of improving the employee experience became one of the top priorities of the human resource management. One of the ways of doing so is technology.
The article will explore how technological innovation at the workplace facilitates the employee experience and can guarantee your company’s success.
What is Employee Experience (EX) and Why Does It Matter?
Before defining what EX is, perhaps it would be useful to mention what is not considered employee experience. As mentioned by Forbes, employee experience goes beyond the notion of employee engagement, perks provided by the company or employer branding, nor is it considered to be an innovative way of HR.
CultureAmp defines employee experience as something that encloses peoples observations, feelings and encounters during their employee journey at an organization.
New York Times bestselling author and internationally recognized business leader Douglas Conant said:
“To win in the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace.”
Employee experience is more important now than ever. There is a big competition happening between companies not only for market share but also for talent acquisition and retention. Websites such as Glassdoor and LinkedIn showed that depending on employee branding is not sufficient anymore. Reviews given on those web-pages regarding employers play a decisive role for the potential workers whether to proceed with recruiting process or not.
A global leader in generic and biosimilar medicines, Sandoz, also realized the importance of employee experience and decided to improve it by $50 million investment into their Global Head Office in Germany. According to the CEO of the company Richard Francis, EX is a vital investment that should be considered by every leader regardless of the environment they operate in. CEO states that financial benefits are not primary driving motivators for employees and focusing on the EX is the most competitive action that organization can take.
Technology as a Means of Improving Employee Experience
Previously, we’ve mentioned that to improve employee experience, you should consider 3 employee experience aspects:
Work Culture — Environment, company values and shared behaviors where the employee operates.
Physical Environment — Things impacting an employee on either psychological or aesthetic level such as the arrangement of furniture, office layout, decorations to temperature, air quality and noise level.
Technology — Employed technology that makes tasks easier for the employee.
The article will focus specifically on how technological improvements enhance the EX. The borders between employees and technology are disappearing and businesses started realizing that employing technology is not only beneficial for the customer but also for the employee experience.
The objective of technology in a workplace is facilitating the everyday work for the employee. In fact, a survey conducted by Randstad shows that Millennials and Gen Z are asking more than just a social media integration in the workplace.
Here are some ways how technology can help to improve the EX.
Technology for Connectivity
Many organizations started switching to providing more convenient environments for their employees to boost their creativity and efficiency. It is of utter importance that a company has Wi-Fi connection available everywhere in the workplace so the employees will have the flexibility of moving around while being able to complete their tasks.
However, the topic of connectivity does not only apply to the workplace. Today’s workforce seeks flexibility, which sends a message to the business owners that employees should be able to connect with the workplace technology remotely.
Technology for Collaboration
Technological innovations made it easier for a group of people to work together. Online collaboration tools such as file sharing provide easy and convenient digital channel that allows employees to work from their personal computers on the same project, which guarantees comfort.
Furthermore, such tools decrease the overhead costs while boosting the engagement of the workers.
Technology for Security
Badge reader technology guarantees the secure environment for employees as well as for the organizations in general. However, many businesses started shifting towards the biometric security systems such as voice or facial recognition or fingerprint systems. Such innovations free the employees from the hassle of carrying the cards always with them and strengthen their feeling of security.
Oakland Airport is a perfect example of this. The company requires its employees to renew around 3,000 badges annually and with the help of Qminder and the self-sign-in option the overall time is optimized and employees are aided with given directions.
Technology for Carrying
Novelty applications provide the employee wellness tools that provide the information on the professional-personal balance of the employees at the workplace. Such technologies advertise the mental and physical health as well as many different healthy habits.
It goes without saying that one of the highest priorities of a business is personnel that is in a good mental and physical shape. Implementing this innovation is also a message to the employee that the organization values and cares about them.
Technology for Facilitating the Workload
Technology can make the working process much easier and enjoyable for the employee. Such innovations reduce the dissatisfaction of the personnel and their exhaustion.
Let’s take a queue management system, for example. It helps your employees with the workload as well as serving the customer quicker. However, the main aspect of it is the insights that the system provides regarding the customers. With this information, employees feel more confident and approach the customers with motivation and conviction.
You Can’t Level Up Without Employee Experience
There is a reason why employee experience became such an important word for the human resource management. Managers started realizing that employees are the cornerstone of any business, and their experience and well-being should not be ignored in favor of customer experience.
Regardless of the obvious benefits of the technology for the employee experience, some businesses still lack the courage of venturing into technological innovation at the workplace. However, the recent trend shows us that such innovations guarantee employee satisfaction.
Long story short, if employees feel satisfied and fulfilled, their positive vibes will rub off on your customers.
