Digital Transformation: Boosting The Employee Experience

Investing in employee experience technologies can improve attraction and retention of top talent. Unfortunately, some organizations focus more of its digital transformation efforts on helping external users, instead of the internal ones.

During a session at the April 2019 Digital Transformation Online Summit, two thought leaders participated in a panel about using digital transformation to boost the employee experience to the max. Here is a summary of that session.

Putting People First

Even if the end goal is to help customers, is it critical that enterprises understand that new technologies empower employees to help customers.

“It’s not just a journey, it’s on-going,” said Chris Grubbs, senior project manager, product owner technology, at Southwest Airlines.

During the panel at the Digital Transformation Online Summit, Grubbs defined the two types of digital transformation: customer-facing and employee-facing. Often at times, enterprises focus more on the customer-facing technology while neglecting the need to modernize employee-facing technology.

To make internal digital transformation work, Grubbs suggested that organizations focus on serving the needs of people. This includes conducting workshops with all work groups, and defining a dedicated team to facilitate all activities. During this process, it is recommended to avoid discussing tools and instead focusing on processes that are used for employees on a daily basis. Mobility leaders should define processes on the issues impacting the majority of users, but still document edge cases.

Connectivity should also be part of the solution, and it should be addressed with hardware, software, and managing updates. Organizations should also ensure that employees get all the mobile training that they need. A buy-in from C-Suite is also needed in order to facilitate these changes.

In the end, there is no silver bullet to this process. It is a journey, but it can be achieved with the right planning and execution.

Getting Out Of Silos

Silos are often one of the major complications that prohibit an organization from improving the user experience. It is a valuable point stressed by Chris McCann, director, global service owner, partners and services at the Bose Corporation.

Silos can increase complexities and can limit an organization from improving the user experience. Cost reducing measures doesn’t necessarily translate into better results for enterprises.

During the panel, one idea that was suggested was transitioning from a global process owner (GPO) model to a global service owner (GSO) model. Both options offer the same responsibilities for leaders, but the difference is that the GSO model has new responsibilities of providing world class user experience. With a GSO model, organizations can create an easier process and collaboration platform. After all, GPO tends to focus on resolving issues, whereas GSO focuses more on the experience of the user.

Technology is also a big part of the user experience. The right enterprise service management system can create a digital engagement layer between workers and those units in the business that service employees. It acts as a single platform to connect siloed functions across an organization, and makes it easer to communicate and provide services to employees.

Want to learn more about using digital transformation to boost the employee experience? Click here to watch the entire session on-demand from the Digital Transformation Online Summit.