We’ve all heard about the ‘Great Resignation’ and even ‘quiet quitting’ within the workplace on the back of the COVID-19 pandemic. And while this may not have had as much impact in South Africa, largely affecting more specialist roles, it’s a reality that many people across the globe are leaving their jobs, despite the current global economic crisis.
Daniel Wilks, EMEA Area Vice President of Solutions Sales, Employee Workflow at ServiceNow.
According to Daniel Wilks, EMEA Area Vice President of Solutions Sales, Employee Workflow at ServiceNow, a leading digital workflow company, this is a direct effect of an employee’s experience within the workplace.
“It may sound clichéd, but there is a war for talent out there at the moment. Employees have a greater choice than ever and we’re finding in many places that there are typically more job openings than there are candidates, even in today’s challenged economies. Because of this, you would be hard pressed to find an organisation that is not currently grappling to improve their delivery of great experiences to their employees.”
The positive effects of an improved employee environment
Wilks explains that there are several macro trends globally, including this emphasis on the attraction and retention of employee talent, which is right back at the top of the C-suite agenda, he says.
“The past scenario is that staff members may have ‘voted with their feet’ if they were not having a good employee experience. Today, we need to look at it in the context of employee expectations increasing. And this is a win-win situation for the business itself, as delivering a better and more efficient employee experience has a direct effect on increasing operational excellence and organisational efficiency, which translates into both top- and bottom-line benefits for a business.
“So, we’re also seeing demand from businesses for what could be called unified services to employees. For instance, an employee who needs help to get their job done effectively shouldn’t have to think about which system to go to, or have some institutional knowledge on the company for which they are working. There should be a unified service experience that centralises and simplifies this process for employees, allowing them to be more productive faster, focusing on higher value work.
“In addition, organisations are now accepting the fact that hybrid work is a trend that’s here to stay. Initially post pandemic, many companies were talking about the return to work, but this discussion has changed to the future of work. This may certainly differ from industry to industry, but many organisations are now having to address how they provide consistent experiences to employees, wherever and however they’re working. This type of consistency is critical to boosting productivity.
“Finally, while we know that all of this is taking place against a backdrop of cost consciousness from a macro-economic point of view, we also need to be able to extend the value of an organisation’s existing investments in technology, like collaboration tools, core human capital management systems, learning systems, payroll solutions – all of the different applications with which employees interact with on a daily basis.
“This can be achieved by identifying and optimising enterprise processes that run right the way across an organisation, transcending these different technologies.”
A simple example is looking at the onboarding of a new employee into an organisation. It is important to get them productive as quickly as possible and also retain them, because recruiting and onboarding is one of the most expensive processes an organisation can go through.
“However, this onboarding process is not one that lives solely within the HR system,” Wilks states. “There may be legal dependencies in terms of contracts, IT involvement as equipment is being provisioned, security to consider in term of access, learning to think in terms of modules that may need to be completed from a compliance perspective, and payroll. As is evident, there are many different systems that this process would need to interact with – it doesn’t live in just one domain.”
Improving processes with ServiceNow
Says Wilks: “ServiceNow helps organisations to identify those types of enterprise-wide journeys and processes, bringing them all together in one engagement layer and optimising them to maximise consistency and efficiency. At the same time, we’re aiding clients in attracting and onboarding the right talent, while giving employees experiences that will allow them to do their best work, and also increasing organisational efficiency and productivity.”
ServiceNow starts by looking for ways to eliminate inefficiencies in a process – there might be manual processes that are laborious and inefficient, and which could also create compliance risks. “If you’re onboarding someone you need to know that the right processes have been undertaken and the correct training done. If you’re offboarding someone, how do you ensure that you’ve revoked access for instance, and do that in a consistent way?” Wilks asks.
“We then look for ways to define and optimise processes – ensuring that inconsistencies are eliminated is a key part of reducing costs – while also improving compliance. Furthermore, ServiceNow can assist with the harmonisation of systems, masking the complexity that may exist behind the scenes by providing a simplified engagement layer that allows people to get to detail faster.
“This then allows employees to self-serve more effectively. And for the times when employees have more complex requirements and can’t self-serve, there are a few ways that ServiceNow can help here too, by using natural language capabilities and AI, to assist agents in getting to the source of a solution faster themselves, thus helping employees more effectively.”
At the heart of ServiceNow’s value proposition is recognising and leveraging a customer’s existing technology investment in different areas; connecting the dots; and allowing for automated, more efficient processes.
“We saw a rapidly accelerated digital transformation and these tools are now ubiquitous. By harnessing these existing tools, we’re able to meet employees where they’re at, instead of disrupting their flow of work, and allowing them to trigger requests for help or information in the applications they’re already using,” he adds.
Are you at risk of increasing employee turnover, lowered productivity, and decreased HR efficiency, or are you keeping pace with the changing needs and expectations of employee experiences? Take a ServiceNow survey here for answers, or click to watch a practical demonstration example of unified employee engagement within the workplace.
