Tatiyana Emylia | 19 November 2021
RGP’s Veracity shares the need for human-first approaches to digitalisation, empowering your employees to be at the heart of digital transformation
At this point, pushing for digitalisation would be preaching to the choir. The global pandemic has shown exactly how pertinent digital transformation is to ensuring business continuity in the face of unexpected challenges. Even without COVID-19 however, the world has seen so many technological advancements, especially in the customer experience front. From same-day delivery e-commerce options to digital signatures, anything and everything is within a consumer’s reach—but what about that of our employees? Global consulting firm RGP recently held a webinar, Digital Workplace Experience: The Future of Digital is Human, broaching the topic of workplace experience and its importance.
What is workplace experience?
As the managing director of business development for digital transformation consulting firm Veracity, Mark Deutsch explained workplace experience as a human-centred concept that combines technology, operations, and culture to create a more in-depth, more adaptable, and modern workplace. It aims to improve production and collaboration for and among employees, which ultimately unlocks more productivity and simplifies processes making for a more enhanced employee experience. To put it simply: It means thinking of your employees as your customer.
Often, companies forget tying up the loose ends behind their customer experience enhancements (such as the same-day delivery options earlier). Employees are left to deal with multiple systems, where internal structures and processes grow increasingly complex and convoluted. It makes for a cumbersome employee experience, especially when such processes could easily be streamlined if more attention and investment were paid to them.
Where technology evolves from a ‘nice to have’ to a ‘must-have’, Jennifer Jones, managing director of the brand experience team at Veracity stressed the need to strengthen the synergy between people and technology.
Is workplace experience really that important?
The way we work is changing. With the advent of more technological innovation comes higher expectations of direct feedback, communication, and real-time collaboration. This is especially so where the global workforce grows increasingly multi-generational—millennials are expected to comprise three quarters of it by 2025. Company environments need to meet all needs of this diverse labour population, and you do this through enhancing your workplace experience.
Employees are four times more likely to stay with companies with great workplace experience, according to Sapling HR. This is something you want: employee retention dramatically reduces training expenses, since the organisation doesn’t have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on onboarding and training just for new hires to jump ship a year later.
A good workplace experience goes beyond cost savings, too. The Harvard Business Review reported that companies that invest in their workplace experience achieve 2.1 times higher than average revenue growth in three years.
More importantly, it’s ideal for companies to have an enthusiastic team. The Boston Consulting Group found that 7 in 10 of digital transformation initiatives fall short of their objectives, and a common reason cited is a lack of organisational buy-in.
How do you improve workplace experience?
To improve employee experience is to understand them, and if your employees here are your customers, you go about this through understanding the employee journey. This means figuring out their pain points, gaps in the journey, and all around understanding the lifecycle of an employee from onboarding to an alumni.
Jennifer recommended creating more environments for collaboration as well. Two prongs at play here: this beefs up your company’s knowledge base but more importantly, connects the people in your organisation to one another.
Beginning the journey
A key takeaway here is that transformation is never linear. It’s iterative, and never ends. It fundamentally rests on your desire to understand and empathise with your team, and ultimately serve your customers.
