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How technology can empower employees

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Sridhar Iyengar at Zoho Europe describes the essential pillars of employee experience and explains the role that technology plays in enabling them

 

Employee experience (EX) has grown in importance over recent years, spurred by the Great Resignation and changing expectations around ways of working catalysed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

A global survey of employers by Willis Towers Watson during the pandemic revealed that 92 per cent of organisations are prioritising EX enhancements over the next few years, up from 52 per cent pre-Covid, highlighting the shift in demands and perceptions both for employers and employees.

 

Growing importance, coupled with a weakened economy, demands that businesses carry through on their EX-enhancements, using technology to deliver a high standard of experience across the new, more flexible ways that businesses are working.

 

Technology can play a key role in empowering staff and improving their day-to-day experience. With expectations changing, businesses should utilise tech as a key driver to attract and retain talent.

 

Technology is a key enabler

There are three essential pillars of the employee experience: culture, physical workspace, and technology.

 

The benefits of technology are vast, enabling greater efficiency and ease which boosts business productivity.

 

Employees expect to have access to technology which makes their day-to-day role easier through flexibility, efficiency, ease-of-use and a great user experience. 

 

One way businesses can improve EX is through automation. Automating repetitive manual tasks such as workflow management in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms, for example, can save tens of hours a week for staff, streamlining processes to make tasks easier.

 

This frees staff up to engage in more interesting, and more meaningful, activities elsewhere. Employees generally would prefer to be doing high-level, high-value activity, rather than administrative or backroom tasks. For example, interacting with clients and delivering customer service, or closing deals with sales leads - and when they are freed up by technology, they have more time to engage with these interesting tasks that have greater business performance impact.

 

Vendor consolidation is another area where technology can improve the employee experience. The long sought-after single customer view for businesses, which is often achieved through tech consolidation or improved integration between platforms, benefits employees too. It collates data onto one platform through increased visibility at every stage of the user journey, minimising the risk of large volumes of data being siloed by different technologies which don’t integrate well together.

 

Fast data access makes the lives of both staff and customers easier. It makes it easier for employees to do their jobs, improving their satisfaction, which improves their capability and desire to deliver a superior customer experience.

 

Removing a disjointed user experience through vendor consolidation also helps to create a seamless experience no matter what department staff are working in or where they are logging on from. Technology can provide a consistent experience and easy collaboration between data and applications, while reducing cost and saving time.

 

When staff are given the right tech tools to do their jobs more effectively, they are more productive and can reach personal goals more quickly and easily, empowering and motivating them to serve the business better.

 

Empowered employees lead to empowered customers

Technology intertwines with all areas of businesses and the benefits overlap between employee experience and customer experience.

 

Freeing employees up using automation affords them more time to address higher level customer enquiries, taking over from AI-powered chatbots, for example, which have already streamlined the process for both staff and customers. This leads to improved customer service for base level enquiries but also at the stage staff take over, dealing with more sophisticated requests which demand a higher standard and more personalised service.

 

With customer loyalty influenced by every touchpoint they have with a brand, meeting empowered, happy employees is an important factor in retaining and attracting new customers, closely tied to driving overall business success.

 

When employees aren’t equipped with the correct tools or if they are struggling with legacy processes, they risk burnout, and that can have a detrimental impact on the customer journey, which is even more important during times of economic uncertainty. Improving processes through constant innovation, such as going paperless for easier remote and hybrid working, will motivate employees and have a knock-on effect on the customer service they deliver.

 

Training is crucial to adoption

The adoption of any new implementation in a business needs to be led from the top down and new technology is no different.

 

Ensuring the proper training is vital to demonstrate to employees not only how to use technology, but to understand why it is beneficial to them and motivate them to use it to their advantage.

 

Using employee data to increase training effectiveness can play a significant role in EX. Analysing data at each stage of the employee journey can provide valuable insights and help employers understand the reasons behind workplace issues or with evaluating the success of a particular training course.

 

Course ratings, trainer ratings, and learner feedback are examples of data insights that can steer future training courses to optimise the benefits for employees and improve the adoption process of specific technologies and skills.

 

Technology drives business success

EX focus is a key aspect of employee attraction, recruitment and retention in the modern working environment, and without a happy, motivated workforce, companies risk a reduced business performance.

 

EX has been more in focus in recent years, but shifting perceptions of what employees demand can have a transformative impact on productivity, customer experience, and other areas of a business, with a high standard of EX now providing a competitive advantage over rival employers.

 

Especially during periods of economic uncertainty, businesses should always be looking to improve their processes across all areas to grow. EX is a major part of this and should incorporate culture, flexibility, and management style, with tech playing a core role in each.

 

Many businesses have undertaken the digital transformation of their products and services in recent years, but now is the time to look inward at employees and use technology to empower current staff to drive business success.

 


 

Sridhar Iyengar is Managing Director for Zoho Europe

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com

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