13 Sep
Reinventing the Employee experience In Hybrid Workplace World
The employee landscape is fundamentally shifting in response to the pandemic. And I believe that the “future of the workplace” is now on every business leader’s mind. However, the next steps in the “new normal” have several challenges and questions that need to be focused on.
How would a remote culture work? How can you keep everyone on the same page when some work from home, others work from the office and some opt for a mix of both? How can you ensure that the hybrid workplace world delivers the best employee experience? Also, if you want to build a positive, and engaging hybrid workplace for your staff, you can’t continue with what you are doing right now with completely remote-based employees or work from the office staff. Instead, you need to reinvent the employee experience in the hybrid workplace world.
Is everybody planning to return to the office?
Well, different opinions are coming up based on companies’ requirements. For instance, Amazon plans to resume work from office culture, Dentons offers permanent remote working, and PwC enables its employees for personalizing their work experience. So, there is a mix of opinions and a common solution for such varied thoughts is reimagining employee experience with a digital-first approach.
Employee experience is the best for new normal-
Pandemic has set so many challenges which are the “new normal” for the businesses out there, so delivering a good employee experience (EX) has become crucial than ever. Organizations are pushed to have digital workplaces that best suit their needs and retain their best employees.
Businesses positioning digital transformation as a must-have are prepping themselves ahead of the game. Employees will expect to have the tools they need to work from anywhere in the globe as the hybrid workplace becomes the norm and working from office/ home becomes secondary. So, implementing a digital solution is the key to reinvent the employee experience for your hybrid workplace model.
How can you reinvent your employee experience?
Improve communication:
One of the major challenges of going remote is communication. There is no face-to-face interaction with peers and no coffee-fueled brainstorming sessions, and no team collaboration due to a lack of transparency. You may no longer stop by a colleague’s desk for a chat, organize face-to-face meetings, or have an in-person conversation for project updates. The communication barrier has taken a toll on the employee journey and make them feel disconnected from the organization.
With the modern intranets platform, hybrid workplace staff will find it easier to connect with their colleagues and have brainstorming sessions whenever needed. There are channels where people with common interests can collaborate and have a mindful conversation. It targets employees with tailor-made information based on the employee’s choices, activities, location, and what not? Relevant content will make the employees feel connected and develop a sense of belongingness than delivering common content for everyone across such a wide platform.
Centralized information:
Every organization has hundreds of files, data, and content floating across email threads, one drive on laptops or desktops. It is difficult for the employees to find the relevant documents and also kills their productive time in searching the files when the documents are scattered across their workplace.
Mckinsey reported that employees spend 1.8 hours every day i.e 9.3 hours in a week on average in searching and gathering information (or) we can put it in another way, 1 out of 5 employees is not contributing any value to the business as he is busy searching for answers.
Modern intranets enable the hybrid workplace staff to find business-related materials like company policies, news, files, announcements, and rich content right from one center to provide easy and smooth navigation. Also, business application and collaboration tools are integrated into the intranet which makes users access multiple apps in one go avoiding context switching.
Intelligent Search:
Hybrid workplace staff finds it very difficult to search the exact information they are looking for. They have to filter each document to find relevant info amidst the hundreds of business data, hampering the organization’s productivity.
Intranets with an intelligent search feature will improve the search experience and help employees to bring in more relevant results based on user’s preferences, searches, and other data collected. Multilingual search functionality will cover the global employees by catering to the needs of hybrid staff resulting in improved employee experience (EX).
Mobile ready experience:
With time, the rise of mobile usage is increasing and for some workforce, mobile devices are the only medium of communication for meeting workplace commitments. On average, Americans spend 3.6 hours a day on their phones, and app usage increased by 25% in 2020 compared to the previous year. Also, workplace apps are rapidly being downloaded by mobile consumers.
Intranet with mobile-ready feature connects the hybrid workforce regardless of how and where they work. Access critical information, connect with peers, and receive company updates, from any mobile device available. Convenience boosts employee experience to the next level. The frontline workforce is the critical resource of an organization and reaching them on time is very important. Pushing the right information at the right time on the mobile app will enable them to take the right action when needed. Moreover, push notifications on the mobile intranet app will make sure employees do not miss out on important notifications.
Virtual water coolers:
Taking a break from the busy schedule and having a casual conversation with your peers over a cup of coffee relieves stress. We had a chance to go for lunch breaks, had in-person conversations, chat on a favorite topic in pre-pandemic times. Is it possible to have a similar trend in the hybrid workspace?
Modern intranets allow employees to have non-work-related chats with their colleagues irrespective of the location they are. It helps the staff to know their peers personally that strengthens the bond and stays out of the office pressure for a while. Water cooler moments are highly beneficial, it lets the employees relax a bit, engaged, happy and elevates employee experience.
Hybrid workforce with a modern intranet-
The efficiency of your collaboration tools is indeed a determining element for your overall employee productivity. Collaboration is a must in today’s environment, whether it’s for meetings, project updates, or just everyday social contact at work. A digital workplace acts as a virtual water cooler that facilitates engaging your colleagues on a personal ground. It also gives you quick access to the required business materials presented in a structured way. Get all your organization updates and news at your fingertips, with a mobile intranet app.
So, having an awesome modern intranet can work wonders, combat collaboration challenges, and elevate the employee experience
Mesh 3.0– an AI-powered employee experience platform has got all the features that have the potential to cater to the needs of the hybrid workforce model. It’s designed with a core thought of delivering the right content at the right time to the right people. The advanced features include-
Are you ready to deploy Mesh? To know more, consult one of our digital workplace experts for a free demo.
Poonam Chug is AVP - SaaS Strategy & Business. She has worked in various areas, right from designing and executing sales & account management strategies to reengineering digital workplace solutions. With her determined focus on our mission and progressive approach, she has achieved customer delight in the space of AI, Knowledge Mining, Content & Collaboration, Virtual Assistants, RPA and more. Backed with a deep understanding of customer needs and technology, she leads the SaaS business unit with an upshot of maximizing revenue while ensuring customer satisfaction.
Poonam Chug