Organizations that aim to grow faster and more sustainably are looking at employee experience as their holy grail. The scope of employee experience (EX) is broad. It includes all interactions between an employee and their employer, colleagues, and work environment. This includes the recruitment process, onboarding, performance management, compensation and benefits, learning and development, and work culture. All of these are important components of a successful business.
Let’s understand what employee experience platforms in HR are and why you need one. If you have not implemented one yet, this information is for you.
What are employee experience platforms in HR?
Employee experience platforms are digital tools that organizations use to manage and enhance the employee experience. These platforms offer a range of features, including employee communications, learning and development resources, performance management tools, and employee feedback and recognition programs.
Employee experience platforms seek to enhance the workplace experience for employees. They do this by making it simpler to communicate, collaborate, learn, and remain engaged with the company. They often leverage technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics to help personalize the employee experience and provide insights into employee engagement and performance. The goal of these platforms is to create a positive and productive work environment where employees feel valued, supported, and empowered to do their best work.
Benefits of employee experience tools
Personalized learning and development opportunities
One of the key benefits of employee experience platforms is their ability to provide personalized learning and development opportunities for employees. These platforms can help organizations identify the skills and knowledge gaps of individual employees and create customized learning paths to help them acquire the skills they need to succeed. This can not only help improve employee engagement and satisfaction but also contribute to the growth and success of the organization as a whole.
Driving business results
Modern employee experience tools can also help to drive business results by improving productivity, collaboration, and innovation among employees. They provide employees with the tools and resources they need to work more efficiently and effectively. This can help organizations to achieve their strategic goals and objectives.
Enhancing employee well-being
Employee experience platforms contribute to the overall well-being of employees. They provide resources and tools for managing stress, mental health, and work-life balance. This can help employees stay healthy and engaged. Furthermore, it can help them stay motivated. This, in turn, can contribute to a positive and supportive workplace culture that values employee well-being and helps prevent burnout and minimize turnover.
Increasing transparency and accountability
Employee experience platforms help increase transparency and accountability within organizations by providing employees with access to information about company policies, procedures, and goals. Building trust between employees and management fosters a company culture of openness and honesty. This, in turn, boosts employee engagement and satisfaction.
Empowering employees
Employee experience platforms empower employees by giving them more control over their own career development and growth. By providing employees with access to learning and development resources, career development tools, and performance management tools, these platforms can help employees to take ownership of their own career paths and feel more invested in the success of the organization.
Improving diversity and inclusion
Employee engagement platforms play an important role in improving diversity and inclusion within organizations. Tools and resources for diversity and inclusion training, feedback, and employee recognition can help create a workplace culture that values differences. This culture respects the unique qualities of each employee and fosters an inclusive environment. This also helps your organization attract and retain a more diverse and talented workforce.
Supporting remote work
With the rise of remote work, employee experience platforms can help organizations to support their remote employees and ensure that they feel connected to the organization. By providing remote employees with access to learning and development resources, communication tools, and collaboration tools, these platforms can help create a seamless and productive remote work experience for frontline workers.
Why you need an employee experience platform
Improve employee engagement
An employee engagement tool allows employees to communicate effectively within an environment that also supports collaboration and easy management. Offering the right features can make task execution significantly easier for your employees. Not just that, you can also tailor content and tools as per an individual’s needs. All of these factors combined dissolve a majority of roadblocks in facilitating high employee engagement.
Improve onboarding process
Onboarding, if done right, can be a game changer for organizations. When an employee is introduced to the work setup, they need to be given just the right amount of information. If you share too much information, they will feel overwhelmed and if you share too little, they will be confused. An employee experience platform can help by acting as an on-demand repository for information. All you have to do is set up a milestone-based process for your new hires and they will get all the information they need along the way.
Make employee management easy
Employee experience platforms have something in store for all employee groups. For managers, it offers a unique set of management tools that allow them to review their team’s performance, and offer the necessary feedback. They can even take on coaching and mentoring roles to further assist their team members. An EX platform also helps build a feedback loop by using pulse surveys or employee engagement surveys to empower team members and managers alike.
Improve employee productivity
We all know increased engagement leads to increased productivity but an employee engagement tool can directly impact employee productivity as well. Since an EX platform helps streamline workflows in an organization, there is room for fewer errors when it comes to operations. To add a cherry on top, it offers reporting abilities to track the key performance indicators.
Increase retention rates
One of the most used retention tactics is offering your employees fun perks; however, do you really believe it makes a difference? Analyzing what makes a meaningful addition is the key to increasing your retention rates and an employee experience platform helps you do just that AND more! It addresses the top reasons for low turnover rates such as poor work relationships, fewer growth opportunities, and lack of recognition right off the bat, enabling you to be a better employer.
Attract more qualified candidates
All candidates conduct thorough research before joining an organization. In most cases, they also reach out to current and former employees for feedback on what it was like working for your organization. They enquire about policies, work structure, work environment, and a lot of other factors. Now if you are offering your employees a great experience, they will communicate the same to prospective candidates.
Enhance loyalty
A competent user-friendly employee experience platform will not only help attract better talent, but it will also enhance loyalty in your existing employees. By making your employees feel valued, you facilitate long-lasting relationships that thrive on mutual growth.
Improve communication
More often than not, the root cause of most problems is miscommunication or lack of communication among employees. By giving them a platform to communicate effectively, you will eliminate all problems stemming from it. It will allow a free flow of information and enable employees to address any concerns they may have. It will also help enhance the manager-team relationship by facilitating an open-door policy even if you are working remotely.
Increase customer satisfaction
If your organization offers a great employee experience, it goes without saying that your employees will take their job roles seriously and go above and beyond to ensure your organization thrives. They will, in their bid to promote growth, deliver great customer service. If you make them feel valued and they genuinely care about your products and services, they will not shy away from going the extra mile.
Increase ROI
As per Inc, if you invest in nurturing positive employee experience and promoting employee engagement, your profitability can increase by 22% and shrinkage levels can decrease by 28%. You must be thinking what if there are disengaged employees? If engagement can increase the ROI, disengagement might decrease it, right? Well, yes! As per a poll, disengaged workers cost the United States $450-$550 billion per year. So, it is time you invest in a comprehensive and efficient employee experience tool like Auzmor Office.
Improve cross-functional support and collaboration
When it comes to a hybrid or remote workplace, cross-functional and team collaboration is extremely important. However, it is hard to facilitate it without a supportive platform. As per research, 53% of frontline employees use messaging apps to communicate with each other and collaborate. Now, most apps are not designed to keep data privacy in mind and risk data leaks. Implementing an EX platform that supports chatting within the platform will enable you to protect your data and improve collaboration at the same time.
Reduce information overload
68% of managers believe that information overload has a negative impact on their personal and professional relationships and more than 25% of workers experience significant stress and poor health due to the sheer volume of information they have to process. Offering your employees a platform that centrally stores all of the data for them can be a lifesaver.
Must-have features in an employee experience platform
- Communication channels: One of the most important features of any employee experience platform is communication channels. The platform should provide a central location where employees can access important information about the company, its policies, and its goals. This can include announcements, company news, and updates on company initiatives. The platform should also include tools for two-way communication, such as chat, messaging, and forums so that employees can ask questions, provide feedback, and collaborate with one another.
- Learning and development resources: Another essential feature of employee experience platforms is learning and development resources. The platform should provide employees with access to a wide range of training and development resources, including e-learning modules, videos, webinars, and other educational materials. The platform should also offer tools for tracking employee progress, providing feedback to enable employees to monitor their own development and receive guidance and support as needed.
- Performance management tools: Employee engagement tools should also include performance management features that help managers and employees to set goals, track progress, and provide feedback. These tools should enable managers to monitor employee performance, offer insights, and conduct performance reviews. The platform should also allow employees to provide feedback on their own performance, set goals for themselves, and track their progress over time.
- Recognition avenues: An employee experience platform should also include tools for employee feedback and recognition. The platform should enable managers to provide regular feedback to employees, as well as tools for employees to provide feedback to their managers and peers. You can use pulse surveys, or employee experience surveys to ensure you are getting high engagement. The platform should also include recognition programs that allow managers and employees to acknowledge and reward outstanding performance and contributions.
- Employee self-service: Employee self-service is another important feature of employee experience tools. The platform should provide employees with easy access to information about their own employment status, such as their pay, benefits, and time off. Employees should also be able to request time off, update their personal information, and access other HR services through the platform.
- Mobile access: In today’s mobile-first world, it’s essential that employee engagement platforms offer mobile access. The platform should be accessible from any device, including smartphones and tablets so that employees can access the platform from anywhere at any time. This is particularly important for organizations with remote or distributed workforces.
- Integration with other systems: Employee experience platforms should be able to integrate with other systems, such as HRIS, payroll, and performance management systems. This will ensure that employee data is accurate and up-to-date and that employees can easily access all of the tools and resources they need to be productive and engaged.
- Social collaboration: Social collaboration is an important feature of modern workplaces, and employee experience platforms should facilitate communication and collaboration among employees. This can include tools for creating and sharing content, as well as social networking features that enable employees to connect with one another and share information and ideas.
- Analytics and reporting: Finally, employee engagement platforms should offer robust analytics and reporting capabilities that enable organizations to track and measure the impact of the platform on employee engagement, productivity, and other key metrics. The platform should provide real-time insights into employee behavior and sentiment, and enable managers to make data-driven decisions about facilitating positive employee experience.
The benefits of an employee experience platform simply cannot be stated enough! If you are ready to invest in a comprehensive solution that will single-handedly improve employee engagement, productivity, and collaboration in your organization, check out Auzmor Office. It is an expert employee experience platform that comes packed with a plethora of key features, like social intranet, people hub, channels, analytics, and much more. Get in touch with our team to book a free demo!
