Success In The Digital Workplace
It starts with treating workers like customers
Posted on 03-19-2018, Read Time: - Min
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In a tight job market, your best workers are no different than your best customers – they’re in hot demand, and if they don’t find what they’re looking for, they might choose the competition.
It’s no wonder that as the unemployment rate goes down, voluntary departures go up – the question is what employers do about it.
Raising pay isn’t the only answer. In the current environment, employees know they can get a raise if they leave. Just like customers who know that price isn’t the only thing that matters, employees know that compensation is just a piece of the puzzle. They are also looking for great experiences with their employers.
By embracing an employee-centric mindset, employers can start to design these experiences into the moments that matter for their workforce.
Many companies may claim to put their employees first, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. Designing worker experiences means changing the culture of the organization to empower workers and adopting an “outside in” perspective. For HR, this involves a significant shift from the conventional practice of pushing processes and programs out to employees. It means rethinking the entire worker experience, including candidates, and building offerings to enhance that experience.
For example, rather than taking a “one-size-fits-all” approach to recruiting, HR teams should tailor the experience to candidates’ individual needs and characteristics. During the hiring process, recruiters should provide personalized feedback and updates to candidates, regardless of the outcome. Many organizations even follow up with candidates who aren’t hired to ensure their experience was positive – and keep them in the pool for potential openings down the road.
At a time when a company’s reputation is cultivated as much online as it is in the marketplace, recruiters should establish a positive experience for all new hires and candidates who don’t get the job. A company can create a deeper talent pool, attract better candidates, and strengthen its employment brand by simply focusing on the candidate experience.
Managing the employment brand doesn’t stop once a candidate is hired. HR should also foster an environment in which the worker feels empowered and fulfilled. This requires a commitment to worker empowerment and deeper, more frequent insights into employee behaviors and expectations.
Three tools can help HR identify and act upon workforce insights:
- Design thinking can help HR organizations move beyond its compliance-and-processes focus. Originally developed to incorporate consumer preferences into high-tech gear such as smartphones, design thinking can be applied to a wide range of non-technological processes including HR technology -- and HR teams are using it to evoke enjoyable experiences among the workforce.
- Customer personas. Initially conceived by consumer marketers, these narratives describe an employee’s experiences during a typical day, as well as relevant background, goals, attitudes, and working environments. They help HR teams identify employee motivations, expectations, aspirations, and behaviors. Personas bring the “user” to life, allowing HR practitioners to relate to employees on a more human level.
- Journey maps. Think of these as diagrams or frameworks of all the steps that workers—defined by their personas—go through. This can mean all the steps in the employment life cycle, from attraction and recruitment to separation and alumni status. Journey maps tell an individual’s story and identify the moments that matter most, then use them to design programs and solutions that maximize that experience.
Developing accurate, actionable insights about the workforce also involves robust people analytics. By incorporating people analytics into a worker-centric mindset, HR can segment and personalize the workforce, creating huge amounts of real-time data that may be linked with business and talent outcomes. Managing all of this data and developing insights with the use of analytics products and solutions is critical.
Three scenarios to enhance the use of “people data” in an increasingly worker-focused approach include:
Three scenarios to enhance the use of “people data” in an increasingly worker-focused approach include:
- Increasing number of sources for people data. As sources of data expand exponentially, HR and the business need to track, analyze, and convert that data into meaningful insights.
- Accessibility of data and insights. Easy, clear access to data and information, where relevant and when appropriate, is important for socializing the increased use of people data in making decisions.
- Scalability of data and analytics. Businesses need to design operations so their processes and systems leverage the power of people data across the organization.
Finally, treating workers like customers involves a shift in organizational culture. An organization’s culture includes the values, beliefs, and behaviors that influence daily life in the workplace. It shapes the way employees interact, create value, and perform work—and it can offer consistency in the face of the unknown. Although culture varies from company to company, our research1 has identified common characteristics among high-performing organizations in their culture, including:
- Trust – Empowering the workforce includes trusting the decision-making ability of those workers closest to external customers and operational issues.
- Inclusion – The organization enables its workers to be connected, valued, and feels like they belong within the culture.
- Accountability – The organization provides the information and tools to serve customers and help advance strategies while maintaining accountability for actions and results.
The consequences of the mindset of employees-as-customers are shifting the way organizations and HR approach the people who create value for the business. This approach requires strong HR capabilities in culture, teams, and analytics to effectively engage employees, empower agility, and to ultimately become a people-centric, digital organization.
Notes
1 High-Impact HR, Bersin, Deloitte Consulting LLP / Jeff Mike, EdD, 2017
As used in here, “Deloitte” means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of our legal structure. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.
Notes
1 High-Impact HR, Bersin, Deloitte Consulting LLP / Jeff Mike, EdD, 2017
As used in here, “Deloitte” means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of our legal structure. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.
Author Bio
| Jeff Mike is Vice President and HR Research Leader at Bersin, Deloitte Consulting LLP. An expert in building the capabilities of corporate HR teams, Jeff transforms talent acquisition professionals from process-oriented practitioners into strategic partners who are able to compete in complex global talent markets. Connect Jeff Mike Follow @boundary_span |
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