Employee Tech vs. Human Touch

How can HR professionals embrace the advantages of modern technology while still engaging on a human level?

The pandemic prompted people to embrace a variety of online offerings, from virtual yoga sessions to digital happy hours. The need to pivot how we think, live and work has impacted the culture of the workplace and will continue to do so for years to come. Businesses are increasingly turning to technology in an effort to resolve challenges presented by hybrid office environments and distributed organizations. Human resources departments have been beckoned to take the driver’s seat sourcing and implementing employee-centric software applications and tools, with tech spending on the rise.  

This employee tech, which usually comprises software applications that automate and manage human resource functions, helps to simplify processes and automate workflows. This can include everything from onboarding to termination, payroll and benefits to tax forms and compliance, or time-tracking and performance management. Employee tech has afforded human resources departments a number of advantages in recent years, including overall process consistency, faster scaling, and lowered administration expenses. It has minimized time spent on repetitive tasks such as data entry and redundant actions. 
 

Some particularly effective examples of process improvement have come from online payroll services such as Paycom Software or Rippling, where employees can be onboarded, paid, and signed up for benefits with a few clicks of the mouse.  

Compromising the Human Experience

When it comes to performance management, employee tech’s reputation has been less promising. A growing number of options for goal planning, task management, progress tracking, and productivity dashboards have flooded the SAAS marketplace. The hyperfocus on big data and business intelligence has moved into the realm of people and performance management with high expectations. Unfortunately, the attempt to reduce complex employee experiences into measurable metrics has harmed employee engagement by forcing a feeling of robotic expectations void of deeper meaning. The intentions behind performance-enhancing employee tech are understandable, but they have failed to engage employees’ motivation and discretionary effort in a way that delivers exceptional outcomes.

So, how can an HR professional embrace the advantages of modern technology while still engaging on a human level? 

Avoid Over Engineering

Dashboards and progress charts feed the temptation to engineer higher employee productivity through tracking task completion, keystrokes, time inputs, and other granular data points. But there is a costly trade-off that can result from over-reliance on employee tech to manage the employee experience. From the company perspective, metrics might seem to be the easy way to increase efficiency and boost productivity. The result, however, may be over-optimization of easy-to-measure metrics and the sacrifice of less tangible, but critical, things such as employee energy, innovation, creativity, and motivation. 

There are ways to avoid over-engineering employee productivity and create an ideal workplace setting that implements both granular tracking and deeper meaning. Start by taking an inventory of the applications you’ve implemented and identify the common thread that links them together. Company culture and strategy should be the overarching knot that ties all the various team and departmental objectives in unity. Employing applications that don’t connect to a bigger, comprehensive picture can bog workers down in priority conflicts and breed confusion. 

Think about which applications are useful for daily task management and use them for that purpose only. Don’t try to use linear task lists or cascading goal charts to elicit meaningful employee engagement. Boxing employees by boundaries defined with endless tasks will dry up creativity and squash critical thinking. Allow some room for employees to make decisions on their own and react to circumstances without having to follow a digital checklist or virtualized process map for every problem they face.

Be Aware of Detachment

The pandemic has been a boon for virtual experience and collaboration software. In many ways, these technologies have let companies and human resource departments continue with their operations in spite of challenges that would be otherwise debilitating. But it has left a portion of the workforce feeling detached and burned out. Companies are challenged by the Great Resignation as an unprecedented number of entry and mid-level employees voluntarily leave their jobs in the midst of strong consumer demand. HR departments are being forced to rapidly recruit, interview, onboard and train replacements, all without ever meeting anyone in person. This might look efficient on the surface, but this sort of digital-only connection may lead to a disconnect with colleagues, supervisors, and employees. 

Maintaining existing team dynamics through virtual interactions is one thing when everyone already has established trust and experience with each other, but creating new relationships in a remote or hybrid office environment is far more difficult. Even standard meetings, which already had a reputation for feeling wasteful, run the risk of losing all human touch when normal social dynamics like side talk, body language, and physical interactions are lost. Digital-only experiences can be dehumanizing if not checked and mitigated.  Not every valuable human interaction can be evaluated by a metric. Work to ensure employee tech does not incentivize unhealthy behaviors like calendar padding and does not become an excuse to avoid in-person collaboration.   

Choose Your Tech Carefully

When rolling out new technology, it might seem like a great timesaving or productivity-boosting software for the company, but then employees don’t use it or take full advantage of the capabilities. Reasons may vary, but it’s important to remember that introducing any kind of change has natural resistance. Adoption requires that the benefits of the new routine clearly outweigh the negatives of the status quo.  It’s important to look at the technology that creates a positive experience when used. Some things to look for are intuitive interfaces that don’t require excessive training, interesting features that are fun to see and use, and practical applications that are relevant to the employees’ job, function, or personal care. Rolling out new technology can be difficult if there isn’t a strong commitment to its success. Mitigate this early by making sure employees enjoy using the software. It doesn’t matter how good the business results are. If people don’t like using a product, they probably won’t.   

Help Employees Find Meaning in Their Work

Modern employees aren’t just seeking a paycheck. They are looking for meaningful experiences, and to feel personally fulfilled by the work they do. Companies that embrace this reality and take actions to meet these needs will become organizational gardens for activating employee potential.  

To fully engage employees, it is critical to recognize the things that are personally important to their lives and create an environment that encourages, not separates those details. Traditionally, managers invoke the need to keep home and work lives separate. But that’s not practical anymore, and it is a paradigm that fails to nurture employee growth. Home life invariably bleeds into work, and work influences the home. Instead of forcing the unnatural separation of these two, work and life should be blended in a healthy way. Select employee technologies that find the inherent connections between business and personal. Ensure that tech solutions are also being introduced to develop employees and promote personal growth, not just driving toward productivity improvement that primarily benefits the company’s financial statement. Use technologies that not only advance the metrics of the business but that also align with employee goals and personal vision. 

Embracing Employee Tech Without Compromising the Human Experience

While employee tech is absolutely helpful in automating processes, measuring inputs, and displaying progress, it can also be used to do more to improve the fundamental nature of the business-employee relationship. Without the element of human connection and unified purpose, employee tech will fall far short of activating the full potential of an organization’s employees. 

Employees that connect their work to their personal motives are more productive and creative, which leads to a healthier company. When work and life are blended, much like tech and human connection, employees will enthusiastically deliver results while employers see their businesses soar to new heights of success. It's a win-win scenario. 

Shawn DeVerse is the Co-Founder and President at Blendification Connect Shawn DeVerse