India Inc. needs to focus on Employee Experience

“Your customer experience will be great, if your employee experience is greater” said Carel Wain.

Every company emphases on customer experience following “customer is the king” phenomena. But companies should realise that employees who serve these customers need attention. Today companies are getting conscious about how they should look at improving Employee Experience. So, what is Employee Experience — it’s when an organisation creates a workplace where employees feel like coming and working rather than feeling forced to come. Companies are beginning to realise this and are coming to believe that Employees are their biggest assets and that they need to invest in employees to enhance customer experience. Employees are the back bone for any organisation. Treating your employee’s right at work will not only boost the company’s profits but also create a happy work environment for them, both at workplace and back in their homes.

Considering this, today companies in India have started investing in new offices spaces, well-being programs, maternity and paternity leave, healthy foods, workplace flexibility, and so on. Best example for this is the new 11 floor Flipkart office which caught everyone’s attention. Google has always been innovative with their workplace.

So that’s about infrastructure, what about the technology that employees are using to deliver at work?

Today’s employees have far more informed exposure to Technology through their personal devices. They are able to take advantage of Apps and portals to increase productivity and enhance efficiency in their personal transactions. People in all walks of life are using mobile phones in all kinds of scenarios. Technology has been a huge catalyst in bringing about this disruption. However, enterprise technology is still far behind where companies are tied to legacy systems or applications built on top of legacy architecture.

Companies have to concentrate on improving the technology environment a workplace, not just the Business systems, but the tools employees use to get work done. This includes all Employee operations within the organisation from HR functions and Work management operations. Companies should look at providing a singular platform accessible from all devices for Employees to manage their operations efficiently and reduce the time spent on managing work. Technology is now becoming the central nervous system of any organisation and it is only imperative that HR , Employee and Work management leverages that effectively.

Additionally, as per a recent study, by 2025, 75% of the workforce will be the ones who are born between the early 1980s and early 2000s. These are digital natives who have grown up using Facebook, Google and online applications. When they start new jobs, their expectations with the technology at workplace would be to expect a similar platform. Providing them legacy applications will impact their engagement and employer brand.

So for companies to be future ready, they need to switch to SMAC enabled technology platform to manage their Talent Operations.