Putting people first
New benefits and continued work-from-home arrangements support the diverse needs of LIKE.TG employees.The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we work. The situation is unfolding and changing day-by-day. This means that our response as a company continues to evolve as we listen to and address feedback from our employees, customers, and partners. Our commitment to put people at the center of our decisions is unwavering.To continue to support our employees as they balance work, family, and life, LIKE.TG has broadened our menu of well-being benefits for employees. Employees will have the choice to work remotely through at least June 2021, regardless of office re-opening status. We are also actively supporting and counseling employees as they navigate relocation decisions, including partnering with people managers to guide their teams through this process.We kicked off monthly wellness surveys to fully understand employee needs and challenges and their input continues to guide our actions. All our benefits were developed in response to employee feedback over the past six months and these recent additions come on the heels of additional programs we implemented as we moved to a distributed work environment. For example, we recently rolled out the Perk Allowance program, which grants employees an allowance for expenses related to physical and mental health and work/life balance, such as childcare, virtual fitness classes, and technology equipment for personal use.As our employees around the world quickly transitioned to a digital work environment in March, we rallied to create a plan that ensured employees felt safe and supported, and most importantly, that they stayed inspired and engaged by our purpose. Monthly live, engaging All Hands and a series of live sessions centered around wellness and self-care were quickly scheduled. Teams are also able have a little fun through monthly engagement activities like “Work from Home Olympics,” coloring contests, a LIKE.TG playlist with inspirational tunes, and a special story time with CEO Bill McDermott where Bill read a children’s book about taking chances.We continue to listen to and evaluate how we can best support our employees in the current environment.Navigating employees’ return to the workplaceAs we look to the future, we are committed to help our employees safely return to the workplace and maintain secure, functional workspaces for our people to thrive. Our company’s return to the workplace is grounded in our values of putting people first, focusing on two key areas – 1. giving employees choice and 2. a thoughtful, safe, phased approach to helping employees return to the office that considers their health, safety, and well-being every step of the way.To aid other companies in managing the unpredictable circumstances of COVID-19, we have published our own internal resource – Guide to Going Back – to assist organizations as they consider and develop their go-forward plans for safely returning to the workplace.The guide shares some of the actions we are taking, and it is intended to be used as a shared resource to help our customers, partners, and communities as they focus on ways to help keep their own workplaces safe, as well as smooth the reopening process. We are hopeful that it can help other companies as they manage the process of returning employees to the workplace while keeping health and safety as the number one priority.There is no one-size-fits-all approach to managing this ever-evolving situation. The re-opening plan will look different for every organization and office location, just as personal and professional needs look different for every employee.Stay safe and healthy.
Putting the power to give back in the hands of employees
Giving to those in need is personal. How we choose to give back and to whom varies based on our unique backgrounds and the communities in which we live and work. For those reasons, LIKE.TG launched the Employee Empowerment Reward in 2023 to put the power of giving in the hands of employees.LIKE.TG gives each employee $100 to donate to an eligible cause or organization of their choice—in addition to the company’s 2-to-1 donation match and double rewards for service.Since launching the Employee Empowerment Reward, we’ve seen volunteer participation increase by 25%. As a result, in 2023, employees donated six times the amount of rewards dollars donated in 2022, before the program began.“We’re setting an industry standard for our global impact with the Employee Empowerment Reward as a jumping-off point to encourage donation participation and volunteerism,” says Gina Mastantuono, LIKE.TG chief financial officer.“People want to work for companies that care about our society and the future, and it’s clear our employees want to deepen their impact,” she adds. “That’s why empowering our talent is a company priority. Giving is core to our purpose of making the world work better for everyone.” A two-in-one winNearly eight years ago, Vikash M., a UK-based advisory solution consultant at the company, wanted to give but didn’t know which organization to support. He stumbled upon a YouTube video about Akshaya Patra Foundation, a charitable trust that provides hot meals to school kids in India, and got involved right away.He started sponsoring a school that feeds 250 children. Thanks to donations like Vikash’s, the school reports the dropout rate has fallen and enrollment is up."This is allowing the kids to not just have a meal, which is what we should all be having on a day-to-day basis,” Vikash says, “but it’s also providing an education. So, you're kind of getting a ‘two-in-one' for these young children in India. That is super powerful.”Wanting to do more, Vikash visited the local chapter’s kitchen and engaged the organization to support yearly Diwali fundraising events at the LIKE.TG Staines office. In 2023, employees worldwide got on board and, with the help of the Employee Empowerment Reward, doubled the number of donors and funds to support kids in India.“We should always be giving back in some shape or form,” Vikash says. “LIKE.TG allows us to do that in such a way that we don't even need to put our hand in our own pockets.”The “Aloha spirit”Rachel K., head of employee workflows for the analyst relations team in the U.S., has a special connection to Maui, a place she’s visited for 30 years and where she consistently sees the “Aloha spirit” in action."It’s the sense of community,” she explains. “It’s the sense of ‘we before me.’ It’s a very LIKE.TG-team mentality. I saw it firsthand again when I was in Maui in November 2023.”After a deadly wildfire devastated the small town of Lahaina a few months earlier, Rachel created a fundraising campaign to support the Maui Humane Society, Maui United Way, and Maui Food Bank. She encouraged LIKE.TG employees to use their Employee Empowerment Reward to donate.Rachel’s campaign worked. She raised more than $48,000 in six months—including contributions from her analyst partners. "This company will support whatever the heck you want to do with gusto,” she says, reminiscing about former places of employment that wouldn’t. “LIKE.TG really gives you the opportunity to be your true self here." Cultural immersionDaniel B., originally from Australia, spent half his life in Japan—first as a university student and then as an employee. Wanting to learn the language, Daniel began volunteering with local organizations. Now fluent in Japanese and a team lead for LIKE.TG, he continues to give back, supporting the Japan Committee for UNICEF.“In Japan, there’s an aging population problem,” he explains. “Some people can't maintain their homes and gardens anymore.” One of the big challenges is around bamboo, he adds. “It tends to grow pretty quickly and spread. People often need help maintaining it, and we help every year.”Daniel and other employees from the LIKE.TG Japan office also participate in the annual Tokyo Yamathon, a 42-kilometer fundraising walk for the Yokohama Children’s Hospice Project."We only have one planet,” Daniel says. “I have a firm belief that we should do what we can to preserve the integrity of the environment. The Employee Empowerment Reward means that I can give to causes that I think are worthwhile and meaningful to me.”Join us to do your best work inside and outside the office. Explore LIKE.TG careers.
Q&A: Meet LIKE.TG’s new CMO and CCO
As one of the fastest-growing software as a service (SaaS) companies, LIKE.TG’s visibility among customers, partners, and analysts is higher than ever. The spotlight creates big opportunities for the company’s new chief marketing officer (CMO) and chief communications officer (CCO).Two highly accomplished industry leaders were recently named to these positions to help accelerate the company’s strategy to become the defining enterprise software company of the 21st century. Both bring more than 25 years of experience to their roles.CMO Michael Park’s executive leadership experience includes profit and loss management, product, go-to-market, and marketing. Prior to joining LIKE.TG, he held roles at several world-class companies, including Microsoft, HP, SAP, Siebel Systems (Oracle), and Procter & Gamble.CCO Paige Young previously led global communications teams for industry leaders such as Unity, Zendesk, Adobe, Expedia, Inc., and Microsoft. She's known for her creativity, decisiveness, and track record of executing high-value communication campaigns. We sat down with Michael and Paige to learn more about the roles marketing and communications are playing on LIKE.TG’s drive to reach at least $15 billion in subscription revenues by 2026.Q: Why LIKE.TG?Michael: I don’t see another company in the market right now that can lead the conversation about digital solutions. LIKE.TG has such a strong track record of delivering great products to its customers. If you look at what the team has built in our technology business, it has literally put LIKE.TG at the cornerstone of building new digital apps and services at the exact moment when every business in the world is trying to do these exact things. I can’t think of a more exciting place in the tech industry than ServiceNow.Paige: I love what Michael said. I also love that LIKE.TG has focused so strongly on staying true to itself. Candidly, I wasn’t looking to leave my former employer. It was only going to be a truly unique opportunity that made me rethink my next five years. When I spoke to Bill, and he explained the vision for LIKE.TG, it was clear to me that this company is thinking exponentially about its future. To help bring our audiences closer to LIKE.TG and refine our own message…I just can’t think of a more exciting place to be right now. Q: When you think about the marketing and communications functions, what’s important for people to know?Paige: I’ll start on this one. First, I’m so happy to be partnering with Michael. To me, marketing and communications teams are like chocolate and peanut butter. Each is good on its own, but the magic is when you combine the two. In just our short time working together, it’s clear Michael and I both embrace that spirit of collaboration across the two functions, which is wonderful.As far as the communications function, this is a moment of experimentation. We all know how absolutely saturated the information environment has become. I believe that a best-in-class communications function is constantly trying new things to break through the noise.The other thing that’s important is that our audiences have plenty of choices about how to invest their time. We have to represent those audiences—whether they’re customers, partners, shareholders, or our own colleagues—by giving them content and storytelling that’s truly engaging.Michael: I absolutely echo Paige on the partnership between marketing and communications. When I think about marketing, I think about the leadership role the function can play in building a state-of-the-art, integrated, go-to-market approach for ServiceNow. Bill always talks about making this a brand-led company, which is why we’re rallying behind “The world works with ServiceNow.”We will extend that brand to the solutions that we know our customers and partners care about. We’ll bring the story all the way down the funnel to ensure that our customer-facing teams have more awareness than ever about the full breadth of what LIKE.TG can deliver. This is a great marketing organization with a proud history. I believe we’re building a trailblazing marketing model that’s never really been delivered before. It’s an exciting time. Q: B2B companies don’t necessarily have a pristine reputation for pushing the envelope in marketing or communications. Fair or unfair?Michael: Part unfair, part fair. The dynamic in enterprise software has almost always been about a product-led selling motion or a relationship-led selling motion. Both motions are hard, and neither can be successful without great marketing and communications. In that sense, I tend to think these functions are a bit unsung in terms of the great work that’s been done across the industry.Having said that, we have historically been too conservative about supporting the existing business models, often at the expense of creating new capabilities, new content, new experiences that will really pull the business in an entirely different direction. That’s what I believe we can do with ServiceNow. We can change the engine while the rocket is midflight.Paige: This is a tough, ferociously competitive industry, so I actually think that some of the best communications and marketing in the world is done within B2B. It’s hard to capture attention and rise above the noise, so I wouldn’t want anyone to think that somehow the communicators and marketers in this field are anything less than dynamic. That also happens to be true of the team at LIKE.TG, well before Michael and I arrived here.The one thing from a communications perspective that I think is fair to critique is this idea of the echo chamber. Enterprise software is a hugely exciting space with so much potential to help businesses in different industries disrupt the status quo. Sometimes, though, we speak in a wonky, unrelatable language that the industry itself understands but leaves many audiences wanting. If we can constantly check ourselves on this level, and keep things human, I’m confident we’ll love the results.Paige is not alone. “What I love about the marketing and communications functions is that they focus every single day on connecting people to our purpose,” says CEO Bill McDermott.“With Michael Park and Paige Young, LIKE.TG hit a leadership jackpot," Bill adds. "I love the passion and experience they both bring to our company. There’s no room for small dreams at ServiceNow. With these two at the helm, we plan on redefining the standard for best-in-class marketing and communications.”Find out more about LIKE.TG’s leadership team.
Q&A: Meet the skills intelligence leaders powering the future of work
Remote work, the Great Resignation, political and social unrest. The past few years have flipped the talent landscape on its head, and employees are rethinking what they want from work.At the same time, companies know they need to recruit, develop, and retain a workforce that can respond to evolving business demands. As the relationship between an employee and employer evolves, talent strategy must get personal. Companies need to know their employees’ skills, interests, and goals to provide meaningful and impactful work experiences.That’s why I’m thrilled LIKE.TG is deepening its commitment to talent solutions and the future of work with the acquisition of Hitch Works, a skills mapping and intelligence company. Hitch will add a new layer of AI-powered skills insights to the Now Platform to help customers address talent gaps. It will also tie employee learning and development to workforce planning and more effectively match people to projects—all from a single platform.As part of the acquisition, we’re proud to welcome two accomplished leaders to the team, Heather Jerrehian and Kelley Steven-Waiss. The pair built Hitch to make work more meaningful and purpose-driven. At LIKE.TG, they’ll continue to build solutions to help customers address talent gaps and make work better for everyone. I sat down with Heather and Kelley to learn more about their backgrounds and get their perspectives on the future of skills technology.Q: Why LIKE.TG and why now?Heather: The market is here, and the moment is now to be the leader in skills intelligence. Joining forces with LIKE.TG allows us to scale our skills-related capabilities across a wide ecosystem of business leaders, managers, and employees—and be at the forefront of the future of work.To rapidly deliver our skills intelligence and talent mobility solutions to the global market, we needed a strategic partner whose vision, mission, and values aligned with ours. At Hitch, we’re passionate about making work more meaningful and purpose-driven. LIKE.TG’s relentless focus on making work better for everyone—and doing so collaboratively, inclusively, and with humility—resonated with us and was apparent from the very first meeting.Kelley: LIKE.TG and Hitch are aligned in our shared purpose to change the world by making work better for everyone. We share a belief that a productive and engaged workforce is the greatest asset of the organization. Creating a great employee experience is critical to supporting business agility. People are more than the job they’re doing today. They have an amalgamation of personal and professional experiences and skills that we need to make visible to drive positive outcomes.As we emerge from the pandemic and combat the Great Resignation, we’ve realized the extent to which the employer value proposition is centered on employee experience. People need to be seen, valued, and heard. On top of this, employees want a single place to consume content, get work done, learn new things, and connect to information—and it needs to be consumer-grade and easy to use.With LIKE.TG, we have an opportunity to make the vision of Hitch a reality to win as the leader in workforce skills solutions. Q: Where do you see the skills management/employee development market heading in the next 3–5 years?Heather: Employees today expect their workplace technology to be highly customized and consumer-grade. Digital tools need to be intuitive, on-demand, connected, and collaborative.The same principles apply to skills management and employee development technologies. Although formal development planning happens a few times a year, employees are constantly learning on the job, in the flow of work, through informal conversations with colleagues and mentors, in virtual classrooms, on apps—and this list is not exhaustive.In the future, I predict that AI-powered skills intelligence will bring these learning systems together and allow companies to have unprecedented, real-time visibility into the skills of their workforce. This will allow companies to tap into internal capacity, be more intentional about upskilling and reskilling, and promote and develop employees based on what they know, not who they know.Kelley: As many organizations are starting to realize, we’re living in a world that doesn’t stand still, and neither do skills. Employees are constantly looking for opportunities to learn and grow in their career. Skills are the new currency and will become the basis for making recommendations about learning, roles, mobility, etc.People will need to reimage themselves and build a muscle to learn, unlearn, and relearn throughout their careers. As such, skills management needs to be dynamic and smart, capturing the movement of skills as they change by role, industry, and discipline.In the employee development market, we expect learning to become more about experience and outcomes versus content. Technology will need to enable learning in the flow of work and be customized and personalized. Users will want it all in one place, which puts LIKE.TG at the epicenter of this evolution.Q: Any unique/favorite examples of learning experience technology in action?Heather: In January 2022, Hitch launched a skills intelligence accelerator program open to all companies, not just customers. This was born from repeated discussions in which customers told us they didn’t know how or where to start on their skills-based work journey. This is an emerging and increasingly relevant space. However, there’s no playbook.In a matter of weeks, diverse yet like-minded companies came together in a monthly virtual roundtable to exchange ideas with luminaries in the field of skills-based work. The program addressed questions such as: How do you gain visibility into organizational skills and capabilities? What people-related processes and policies are impacted by moving to a skills-based enterprise? The resulting insights have been priceless. We’re on the path to the future of work where barriers to entry are low, participants are diverse, discussions are problem-based, and collaboration is technology-enabled. Kelley: When we first released Hitch to our early customers, we created apprenticeship opportunities that paired employees with experts in different fields to learn new skills on the job and in the flow of their daily work.This idea later became the impetus for feature developments such as skills-based mentor matching and non-obvious career path offerings based on matching people with adjacent skills. It was also the start of our work on the proprietary algorithms and skills intelligence engine powering our platform and the direct link to learning content via learning management systems and learning experience platforms.Since then, our customers have used this applied learning as a strategy to empower employee development by offering insights into new career pathways based on skills. Doing so allowed our customers to drive a great employee experience and proactively build a supply chain of critical skills from the inside.Q. What’s the best career advice you ever received?Heather: Ask for 100%, 100% of the time. A friend shared this with me. I thought it was brilliant and also terrifying because it can be difficult to ask for what you want. I’ve found it easier to advocate for others than myself, so I use this as a reminder that the worst thing that can happen is someone says no.Kelley: I would say 1) Do what you love, and success will follow; and 2) Take the opportunities that scare you to death because that’s where you’ll learn and grow the most.Find out more about how LIKE.TG is helping organizations power the workforce of the future to create unified employee experiences.Use of forward-looking statementsThis blog contains "forward-looking statements" about the expectations, beliefs, plans, intentions, and strategies relating to LIKE.TG’s acquisition of Hitch Works Inc. Such forward-looking statements include statements regarding future product capabilities and offerings and expected benefits to ServiceNow. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on potentially inaccurate assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected or implied by the forward-looking statements. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, our results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. We undertake no obligation, and do not intend, to update the forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the inability to assimilate or integrate Hitch’s technology into our platform; the inability to retain employees of Hitch after the transaction closes; unanticipated expenses related to Hitch’s acquired technology; potential adverse tax consequences; disruption to our business and diversion of management attention and other resources; and potential unknown liabilities associated with Hitch’s business. Further information on factors that could affect our financial and other results is included in the filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time.
Q&A: The importance of an end-to-end observability platform
Pressure is mounting for organizations to deliver exceptional customer and employee experiences, rapid event resolution, and better business outcomes. Observability will be a key strategy play to achieve end-to-end visibility of complex tech estates, says Pablo Stern, senior vice president of technology workflows at ServiceNow.In an interview at Knowledge 2023, Stern talked about how an observability platform can encompass both DevOps workflows and business processes across the enterprise. We’ve edited his interview for length and clarity.What does the Now Platform do, and what’s the end game?A couple of years ago, we acquired Lightstep, which is now called Cloud Observability. Part of the thinking around Cloud Observability and LIKE.TG was, “How do we bring what we observe to the actions that you want to take as an organization?”If you look at many of the platforms in the market, they have observability, but it ends there. The action path isn't one that's connected. LIKE.TG can bring, from a cloud perspective, observability through the workflow platform to drive outcomes.For example, when a problem occurs on your site, you can quickly get the right site reliability engineering team engaged to diagnose, identify root cause, and workflow a resolution to bring your site back to health quickly.How do I instrument all those workflows?In the cloud world with OpenTelemetry, there’s a true democratization of the sensors into your estate that help you identify issues. With Cloud Observability, we connect directly into that open-source estate to deliver outcomes. It starts with gaining visibility into those large, distributed cloud estates. You need to understand not only what exists, but also what the applications and services you have are tied to.If there's an issue, the first step is to get visibility. The second step is to push for introspection—whether it's at a trace, metrics, or log—and to then understand where the problem is, what the root causes are. Finally, there’s the action to drive remediation. This is the workflow piece, which is the power of what our platform can do. We can connect those workflows with the right person at the right time to expedite remediation.What’s the difference between observability and monitoring?It starts with the foundational convergence of service and operations. You have service management practices, which is where your teams address issues, such as a major incident or incident response. Then, you have your operations of your estate, which could be hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of different applications or services.We combine those two experiences on the Now Platform. By doing that, we connect the people to the machines.If you consider cloud environments, we not only connect the people and the machines, but we can also see what's happening in those highly distributed environments to find the needles in the haystack. To do this successfully, at cloud scale, you have to evolve from collecting raw data (monitoring) to gaining true insights from that data (observability).And then, when you have those insights, not only do you observe, but you can also act.What are the steps to get to observability?Start with the end in mind. What outcomes are you trying to achieve? Is it delivering amazing customer or employee experiences? What are the things you need in order to do that, and how do you connect that outcome to the systems you have? With many customers, we may see a multitude of systems and tools that help them get to some, but not all, of those outcomes.From a LIKE.TG perspective, we've been very focused to bring that all together in a central control tower so that as you're advancing those outcomes, you can get to them faster. You don't have to “swivel-chair” as much as you did in the past.What's your best advice for customers?Focus on the intended outcome that you're delivering. Observability is going to be key, and it's going to be even more critical in massively distributed estates. You can’t rely on three or four people and their knowledge to determine a root cause quickly, because you may have hundreds or thousands of services that are interconnected.You need visibility into those services. You need to understand them and have a way to quickly observe and diagnose what's happening in those environments. It’s critical to make sure you can go from observation to action. You need to get the right teams to drive the resolution as quickly as possible because you need the full closed loop.Find out more about benefits of Cloud Observability.
Q&A: Transforming customer support to elevate the customer experience
When the pandemic hit, the pressure to adapt LIKE.TG training offerings grew exponentially. An increasing number of customers from the Americas, Europe, India, and Australia wanted more virtual classes, more flexibility in scheduling, and more customization.Answering basic project planning questions in a timely manner became more difficult for the LIKE.TG custom training and adoption team. With the rising demand, our team resources—spread across the globe—had to scale.To effectively manage custom training projects from inception through project close and post-implementation review, we needed a standard project management approach. We wanted to be able to answer questions such as: What projects are in the pipeline? What is our resource capacity against our future needs? How do we see a project’s progress, risks, and issues? Can we see our key business metrics in one dashboard? A standardized approachWe knew a single system of record could capture the demand and resource pipeline for delivering customer projects across the team’s global portfolio and help us scale using real-time, centralized reporting. It could also help us provide a consistent customer experience.Our team had very little experience in project management. Although unfamiliar with concepts such as project plans, risk registers, and resource plans, we were very familiar with the Now Platform®.We decided to try Project Portfolio Management (PPM), a LIKE.TG solution that provides project, program, portfolio, resource, demand, and timecard management capabilities. It’s part of Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM), which helps organizations drive business outcomes by aligning their strategy with their work across different methodologies and structures. We chose Performance Analytics, another Now Platform solution, to track our progress over time.Adopting a feature-rich package such as PPM could have easily overwhelmed us. But we were able to start with the features we needed straight out of the box. Project management out of the boxLike many customers, we were keen to avoid a long development cycle. We wanted to reap the benefits of PPM as quickly as possible. So, we started with some basic guidelines for adoption: Stick rigorously to the concept of a minimum viable product. We wanted to track projects and resources and then continue to iterate after our initial migration and go-live. Remain true to out-of-the-box features and zero customization. In this way, the solution could be rapidly implemented, easily upgraded with each release, and used by other teams in the future. Streamline processes to drive adoption and simplify reporting. Templates would give us a way to set up standard reports. Postpone complex integrations such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM that support the seamless handover of customer data between sales and training delivery teams. We needed to get our bearings with PPM first before taking on complex integrations. 3 areas of positive impactPPM has been a game-changer for our team. It has greatly increased our productivity and efficiency and helped us sharpen our project management skills. Here are three areas where PPM has had a positive impact:1. Project managementWe dramatically improved how we track and manage demands, customer projects, and resource usage. We can now create and manage a wide range of demands and projects, whether they involve a few small tasks or a large portfolio of projects with complex relationships and dependencies.Tracking and managing all work from a single system of record ensures all project activities are captured and underlying financial data is instantly available. Separately, this has improved our processes for learning credit consumption and pricing. Mobile features are next on our wish list for adoption.2. Resource managementWe’re now allocating our staff more effectively by analyzing workloads and distributing tasks appropriately. Little automations, such as resource plans that autoskip scheduling someone during planned holiday time, make life much easier.Timecards ensure we know where resources are spending their time, and we can compare that against our plan. As our program matures, we also plan to adopt a skills matrix. 3. Real-time reportingWe use dashboards to make better informed investment decisions about training initiatives. Leadership dashboards offer visibility into key business metrics such as project financials. With this information, leaders can plan for the future, create roadmaps, and make smart investment decisions.Sales team leads can review customer training portfolios and provide proactive, targeted advice. This improves both our customer experience and sales pipeline. By aggregating customer data, we can make smarter decisions about our market offerings and price points.To make the transition as seamless as possible, we assigned a dedicated change enablement leader to manage communications and stakeholder engagement, and to gather feedback at every step of our implementation.On-demand training on the Now Learning platform allowed team members to familiarize themselves with PPM early in the process. We also ran process user training for different personas that included both instructor-led sessions and demo videos.The best decision we ever madeMore than a year later, our team adoption of PPM has been a greater success than we anticipated. Implementing the base functionality has drastically improved our understanding of our daily operations. We’re easily managing scope through our templated project deliverables, and a project-on-a-page dashboard drives our post-implementation review process with zero effort.LIKE.TG customers are choosing to invest in their people and processes as part of their digital transformation. With our adoption of PPM, we’re doing the same. Armed with it, the custom training and adoption team is ready and able to scale to meet customer demands more efficiently and productively to improve the customer experience.Find out more about our internal adoption of PPM in the case study.
Quickly get started with generative AI on the Now Platform
There’s no doubt that generative AI and the productivity it promises have captured the world’s imagination. We’ve talked about applying AI to just about everything—from those soul-crushing tasks we never want to do again to dreams within our grasp for the first time.Goldman Sachs estimates that generative AI could add nearly $7 trillion to global gross domestic product (GDP) in the next decade. While the potential for generative AI to improve human productivity seems almost limitless, the industry buzz is distracting, which makes it challenging to get started, especially with enterprise scale and reliability.How to get started with generative AILIKE.TG has made significant, strategic investments in AI in the past six years, including nearly a dozen acquisitions and a specialized AI development environment for our engineers to quickly build and test AI capabilities.Our focus on AI has been purposeful and long term, so we can uniquely meet our customers’ needs in this moment. Customers see the impact of these investments. For example, BT forecasts $31 million in savings by leaping toward AI-led operations with ServiceNow.Since May, we’ve launched multiple AI capabilities that allow customers to use both general-purpose large language models (LLMs) and domain-specific LLMs from ServiceNow. They’re built for enterprise-level use cases, processes, and security and trained for the unique needs of agents, employees, customers, developers, and IT administrators.With today’s announcement of Now Assist, LIKE.TG’s generative AI experiences, we’ve infused native generative AI capabilities in all workflows on the Now Platform®. Now Assist incorporates generative AI features such as case, incident, and agent chat summarization; virtual agent; and search.These capabilities can be applied to a broad range of scenarios and functions so that every persona, from employees to agents to developers, can harness the power of generative AI. Customers also benefit from an improved self-service experience, which can lead to higher case and incident deflection and cost reduction. With the Now Assist experiences, available Sept. 29 in the LIKE.TG Store, customers can deliver value quickly by applying generative AI where the works get done: Now Assist for IT Service Management provides summaries of incidents for speedy IT team handoffs and problem resolutions. It can also help generate and update work notes. Now Assist for HR Service Delivery improves HR team productivity and efficiency, as well as employee experiences, through instant summaries and conversational chats. Now Assist for Customer Service Management reduces manual work and helps resolve customer issues by rapidly generating summaries for cases and chats. Now Assist for Creator empowers developers of any skill level to build apps fast—developers can generate code from text and code prompts. Accelerating time to valueFeedback from more than 150 customers using early versions of Now Assist shows positive results: increased self-service for lower case count, faster resolution times, improved customer satisfaction and agent productivity, better post-case documentation and closure, and more.Customers are also finding speed to value. Several customers report they’ve implemented generative AI solutions with LIKE.TG in mere weeks. With LIKE.TG’s frequent release schedule and innovation on a single platform and single data model, many customers can achieve rapid value acceleration with generative AI.Additionally, as customer zero, LIKE.TG has gone live with more than a dozen internal generative AI pilots, including IT, customer service, and engineering use cases. The early results show significant productivity savings and increases in agent and developer satisfaction.How LIKE.TG generative AI pricing worksWe’ve also designed the pricing and packaging of our generative AI capabilities so that customers can realize value quickly. Our guiding principles have been: Value: Enable customers to easily capture the unparalleled value created by our Now Assist experiences. Flexibility: Create a scalable model that allows customers to grow and innovate in this fluid market—and allows us to continue to learn and adjust. Simplicity: Make it easy to understand and fit the way customers buy today. Customers currently on a LIKE.TG® IT Service Management, Customer Service Management, or HR Service Delivery Pro or Enterprise solution can buy Professional Plus or Enterprise Plus add-ons to get access to generative AI capabilities in the Now Assist experiences.The Pro Plus and Enterprise Plus add-ons are also available for customers with industry solutions licenses, including Telecommunications, Technology Providers, Financial Services, Public Sector, and Healthcare.With Now Assist for Creator, developers and administrators can supercharge their work with intelligent code recommendations. These text-to-code generative AI capabilities are built on our own LLM and trained by LIKE.TG engineers so that developers can confidently burn through backlogs and get value faster from LIKE.TG investments.Developers can get started with Now Assist for Creator right away by purchasing the Creator Plus license. No base license is required.All Pro Plus, Enterprise Plus, and Creator Plus package add-ons are purchased by seat. Each seat enables the user to execute a certain amount of generative AI “assists.” Incident or case summarizations, for example, are called assists. Higher-value, more complex interactions require more assists, whereas simpler, frequently used interactions require fewer.Don’t worry about running out of assists: By design, the initial entitlement should be all you need for your generative AI journey. If more generative AI capacity is needed at some point, customers can purchase additional assist packs.It’s time to stop the hype and put enterprise-ready AI to work. With the LIKE.TG intelligent platform for end-to-end digital transformation, businesses everywhere are already saying yes to entirely new ways of working with generative AI.Find out more about how you can put generative AI to work in our Vancouver release webinar.
Race to Automation with the right ITSM
At LIKE.TG, ITSM is like a favorite sports car we’ve tuned and optimized over the years into a precision machine that can keep pace with the speed of technological and business innovation. But to keep ITSM operating at its full potential requires constant maintenance, modifications, and grit.More recently, we’ve realized that ensuring continued ITSM performance requires automation and developing enterprise solution connections.Automating routine maintenanceAs we considered where to begin the ITSM automation journey, we focused on tasks that can yield real benefits for routine, back-end IT service management processes.Everyone loves the glitz and glamour of a finely tuned front end, and LIKE.TG does a great job delivering exceptional front-end experiences for customers through products such as Virtual Agent , Now Mobile , and Service Portal . But the work to ensure those parts work smoothly in the back end is often less stylish, and a lot of companies are still using manual processes.Manually keying in the back end of a common request, such as a password reset, requires service delivery teams to spend time completing mundane, repetitive tasks instead of investing in more interesting, higher-value work that would deliver a more satisfying experience to the customer.Specialized tools for your engineLIKE.TG IntegrationHub and LIKE.TG Flow Designer are exceptional tools that allow teams to fix, modify, and build precisely what an organization needs from ITSM. Created to enable IT to eliminate the need for manual intervention and drive end-to-end automation, IntegrationHub and Flow Designer are accessible for team members of all skill levels.Add in the powerful Now Platform and you have a foundation in which everyone from professional developers to part-time mechanics can work as a team to deliver workflow apps quickly. Paired with IntegrationHub and Flow Designer, your ITSM team can create custom, end-to-end automation that far outperforms out-of-the-box tools. Such flexibility allows you to create the right experiences and a better work process, with one platform, architecture, and data model.To learn more about how IntegrationHub and Flow Designer can boost your team’s performance, check out our ebook, “ITSM: Beyond Out of the Box.”
Raising awareness through the disability pride flag
Updated July 19, 2023Did you know there’s a disability pride flag? It features five color stripes—red, gold, white, blue, and green—each representing a range of disabilities. In honor of International Day of Persons with Disabilities, celebrated annually on Dec. 3, five LIKE.TG employees share their personal stories related to the flag.Red—physical disabilitiesCarmen B., a staff product manager, identifies with the red stripe. After being diagnosed with thyroid cancer at 20 years old, she had her thyroid removed. Since then, she’s set out to prove nothing can hold her back from living her best life.“One thing I want people to know about me and my disability is that it hasn’t stopped me from doing the things I love, and it doesn’t need to stop anyone else.” That attitude inspired her to complete a 500-mile bike ride in 2021.Gold—neurodivergenceSenior Software Engineer Adarsh R. discovered he had a stutter when his classmates laughed at him while he read a poem to the class at age 6.Although Adarsh tried to hide his stutter as a kid, he proudly accepts it as an adult and even uses it as a conversation starter. “Stuttering is a part of me, but it doesn’t define me,” he says.White—invisible disabilitiesJessica Z., sales effectiveness enablement manager, is a champion for invisible disabilities such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She went undiagnosed for more than 10 years.“The diagnosis for me made a lot of sense in my work and my personal life in terms of the hyper focus and what felt like the ability to lose focus really easily,” Jessica says. Today, she has open conversations about life with invisible disabilities.Blue—psychiatric disabilitiesMany people tend to associate post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with veterans. But PTSD is a psychiatric disability that presents in many forms.Elena V., a senior tech support engineer, developed PTSD shortly after being held at gunpoint while in college nearly 15 years ago. To this day, nearly anything can be a trigger for her.“It’s not weakness to have mental health issues,” she says. “For me, one thing that’s helped is talking about it.”Green—sensory disabilitiesTony M., senior manager of customer engagement, was born visually impaired. He calls his disability his superpower, as it pushes him to strive to make life easier for anyone he can influence.“Don’t be afraid to interact [with anyone with a disability], show empathy, and say hi, but don't ignore them,” Tony advises. “You might learn something really cool about someone that will make your day.”Watch the video to hear more of these employees’ inspiring stories:
Re-imagining online citizen engagement
We’ve all been there. You need something from your local or state government agency, so you navigate to their website. But instead of finding what you need quickly, as you would with many consumer sites, the site is a mess.It’s organized by agency department, which you don’t really understand, or it’s not organized at all, with a hodgepodge of information all over the place. The search doesn’t really work, presenting search results that are nowhere near what you’re looking for. You try another tactic and go to Google to search. This presents you with pages of mostly outdated links. These links typically send you deeper into the site, with no context or navigation ability.When you do find what you’re looking for, it’s a PDF. No instructions, just a PDF that you need to fill out with your personal information and then snail-mail back. Oh wait. You also need to fill out another form and submit it to a different agency, so you need to enter all that personal data again.Ugh.Welcome to the unfortunate status quo. Many government websites were created over a decade ago and haven’t been modernized much since. They tend to follow a departmental structure, requiring users to understand departments and agencies to find what they’re looking for. Site content is frequently out of date and delivered in a variety of formats, with no context or clear instructions.On top of that, most website creation software used in the government space isn’t flexible enough to enable content creators to automatically post updates to multiple areas, which means there is typically only one way to get at certain pieces of information. For example, tax credit information for seniors, which should be available on the office of aging page, finance department page, and tax credits page, may only end up being published on the page of the agency that produced that information.It doesn’t have to be this way. There are solutions available that can enable government agencies to reliably deliver an excellent web experience for citizens. A service portal is one such solution. It enables agencies to easily offer services in a logical, structured way that doesn’t rely on citizens having to know the vagaries of a government’s departmental hierarchies. Instead, citizens can find what they are looking for and complete what they are trying to do, quickly and efficiently.Citizens simply register to use the portal, which gives them an account they can log into at any time, from anywhere, to get what they need. They can navigate to the information they are searching for—and if they get stuck, they can easily find their way out and get back on track. They can also track the status of all their requests, such as a license application or pothole report, regardless of the departments, agencies, or people involved. As a result, government agencies can provide an experience akin to ecommerce sites, delivering a consistent, engaging experience that will satisfy constituents.The service portal augments the traditional web site, providing a way for government agencies to organize and present services to vastly improve a citizen’s ability to find and access what they need. It can also take other valuable information, such as frequently asked questions (FAQs), building locations, contact information, facility hours of operation, and trash collection schedules and turn them into knowledge base articles that make them easy for a citizen to search.Machine learning tools can then be applied to continuously improve the relevancy of the results of a visitor’s search to ensure citizens are able to locate the information they’re looking for, fast. It can also be applied to more routine requests to the agency’s public information office, constituent services office, or any public call center. Using a virtual agent, or chatbot, the site can now help visitors discover answers.In this way, government agencies can create self-service capabilities like those at the core of most consumer experiences. For citizens, this will go a long way toward boosting customer satisfaction, while obviating the need to get on the phone with a civil servant. This “case-deflection” can free up the agency’s time, allowing staff to innovate instead of just keeping the lights on.By combining virtual agent or chatbot technology with well-curated knowledge bases, staff can get back valuable time to focus on their mission. This is important to enable them to have the time for those high-touch moments, where a caring employee can make all the difference in someone’s life.Next stepsLook at your department’s or agency’s website and put yourself in a citizen’s shoes. Try to apply for a service. Note the search path and obstacles you encounter. Document any paper-based or telephone-based steps in the process - this is low-hanging fruit for transforming your citizens’ digital experience. Now, consider how a top ecommerce site might present the same information and services you offer. There is your target!Want to learn more about digital transformation in citizen engagement, read how Tennessee DHS redefines the customer experience for government services.
Recession-proof your business with customer service
The possibility of a recession is still hanging over the economy. In the present scenario, despite high inflation, consumers are spending well and employment rates are increasing, indicating a strong job market. However, some believe a recession could occur in the first quarter of 2024. The uncertainty surrounding the economy can be daunting, but preparing for a recession can help businesses avoid negative experiences such as losing out on customers and market share.Throughout history, businesses have experienced periods of economic growth and decline. Those that have survived and thrived have done so by adapting their strategies to the changing economic environment.For instance, Citigroup grew during times of recession by offering quality service, and focusing on its branding. Starbucks, despite the worsening economic condition and competition, focused on "Reigniting the emotional attachment with customers."Businesses choose to focus on customers because customers can protect a business from the harsh wind of a recession and prepare them to come out stronger after the economic slowdown. Here's how customer service can help businesses focus on customers and sail through a recession smoothly.Reduce customer churn During times of recession, as unemployment increases, economic conditions become unfavorable, and customers grow cautious of their spending. They are likely to stay with brands that have provided value and met their expectations in the past. Businesses, by being available for customers during tough times and resolving issues effectively, can build stronger relations and a loyal customer base. By increasing customer retention even by 5%, businesses can increase profits by 25%, as stated by Bain and Company. This further saves a business from incurring high costs on customer acquisition.Amplify market awareness Every customer interaction a business has counts. Around 64% of customers are likely to switch to a competitor due to one negative experience. One cannot afford this in times of a recession. When customers have a positive experience with a brand, they are likely to share it with others. Customer testimonials can be a powerful way to showcase positive customer experiences and build trust and credibility with potential customers.Stabilize cash flow Customer service can help businesses identify and resolve customer issues quickly and efficiently. This can increase customer satisfaction levels and help minimize the impact of customer churn on cash flow. Customers that are satisfied with a business' service and products engage in repeat purchases, which ensures continuous predictable cash flow. This helps a business examine its stability and future growth. The higher the customer lifetime value, the higher the business's standing in the market and the ability to get through uncertain times.Drive sales growth Customers are more likely to try new products from a brand they trust. Moreover, as your customer service agents are already aware of the specific needs and behaviors of your customers owing to past interactions, they can offer personalized recommendations, increasing the chances of customers trying out new products and, in return, increasing sales.Foster innovation Customer service helps identify customers' pain points of using a product, and in predicting their needs, and expectations. By taking into account this treasure of information, businesses can build products that resonate with customers' needs, and foster innovation, just like Starbucks did. Mitigate customer service operational costs with technology The complete potential of customer service can only be realized when businesses can manage their customer service operations in cost-effective ways. According to Gartner, 80% of business leaders consider automation an important contributor to cost optimization. Customer service software not only automates routine tasks, but also helps your business in the following ways.Improve productivity Often, customer service representatives find themselves juggling between applications, tracking tickets, prioritizing tasks, and losing customers in the process. Customer service platforms centralize customer information, unify interactions across channels, and streamline service operations with automation, offering greater insights, clarity, and knowledge about customers and customer service operations.Reduce operational costs Value-centric customer service software unifies communications coming across channels in one place, saving a business from spending on multiple platforms. Along with this, integrations with other business systems allow for better collaboration between teams and reduce miscommunication, further reducing customer service times to a great extent.Promote revenue growth Investing in technology is all about strategizing. Customer service platforms offer great insight into an organization's complete customer service operation through metrics. These metrics, when used during the strategizing process, allow managers to identify strengths and weaknesses, and allocate resources cost effectively. Additionally, with complete insight into customers' interactions with a business, agents are in a better position to gauge the needs of customers and push products that align with their needs. In a predictable environment of decreased consumer spending, lower production, and declining revenue, businesses should hold on to their customers. By prioritizing customer needs, fostering strong relationships, and leveraging customer service software, businesses can not only survive but thrive even during challenging economic times.
Recognition & Rewards System For The Remote Employees
Employees spend ample time of their day working for your company. So, it is very important that they get recognized for all the hard work they do. In a traditional office setting, it is fairly easy to communicate appreciation for a completed task. However, with the current remote work scenario, it has become tougher for managers to show appreciation. And there is a higher chance of employee satisfaction drop because of the lack of recognition. According to a study, an employee who has gotten recognition is 63% more likely to stay with you for long periods of time. Whereas another study says that productivity increases by 31% when employees are happy and well-engaged. All these study results only make it more obvious that we need to focus more on making the employees happy. We should also mention that implementation of Recognition and Reward programs has in itself has become a tedious process. This blog will detail all the things that you need to know about setting up an efficient Recognition and Rewards system for your remote workers. Steps to Implement a Recognition and Rewards Program Step #1: Assessment During this phase, you should take a look at the existing R&R program. For understanding the current program, reviews from your employees will be helpful. This is where the actual assessment starts. You will be running focus groups that aim to assess the effectiveness of the current R&R program. The focus groups you organize must enable your employees to voice their opinions. And hence, it is always better to have separate focus groups for the management level employees and others. Get to know what your employees feel about your current reward system and how you can improve them. The next step in assessing your current R&R is by conducting employee satisfaction surveys. These surveys must focus solely on asking questions about the appreciation they get in the remote workspace and how it affects their attitude. The final step in the assessment phase is writing a report on what changes you need to implement on the system. Furthermore, the report should also elaborate on the level of employees who would be directly impacted by the change in the system. For example, if you have remote employees working at different managerial levels, you should address level-specific issues in your report. Step #2: Design Ascertain which characteristics of employees will earn rewards and those that won’t. Your aim during this step is to design a model that offers benefits for the employees at the right time. Because, when it comes to remote work, late recognition is close to no recognition at all. In this step, you will also be concentrating on coming up with the types of rewards that you can give to your employees. For example, it may be incentives, or something as simple as gift cards. Step #3: Execution Now that you have completed designing the new Recognition and Rewards System, you must implement it in your organization. You can execute the program for your remote team by addressing the following factors: Eligibility Remember the eligibility criteria you set during the design process? Put that into action by setting up an employee rewards software solution. For a remote team, there’s a high chance of forgetting your back-end employees. Eligibility criteria will let you be more inclusive and make sure that a spectrum of employees gets rewarded through your newer system. Support from top management During the execution process, make sure that all the leaders approve of such a large-scale operation. Let them get involved and show their support for the program. For example, if you decide to recognize an employee’s talents through social media, a simple comment from the top management can make the employee’s day. And thus, improve their engagement. Measurement Ensure that before you reward an employee, they have met the criteria for completing a task. Remote working conditions can sometimes make it tough to effectively measure milestones. So, it is necessary that you implement a proper system that lets you gather all the required data. You can also use this data to determine the progress of a project. Training Training your employees to get accustomed to the new program is vital for its success. Employees should not feel forced to achieve the newly set goals for rewards. Instead, you should train to easily understand the benefits of the new Recognition and Rewards system. Communication is the only tool that will help make this process easier for you and your employees. Furthermore, assure them that the remote working condition will not in any way affect the rewarding system of the organization. That is how you get your employees to work with proper motivation. Step #4: Evaluation Like any other managerial process, this one also has an evaluation phase. This is a step overlooked by many failed reward program managers. The needs of employees constantly change, and so should the rewards. For instance, instead of just appreciating an employee on a Zoom call, post an appreciation post on your social media platforms. It will help them boast about their achievement among a bigger and more personal audience. You can start your evaluation by preparing a before and after document. Various Ways In Which You Can Encourage Remote Workers In this section of the blog, we will discuss the various ways in which you can show your appreciation for remote workers. If you give both onsite and remote workers, try to create a Recognition and Rewards system that prioritizes remote workers. There are many hurdles when it comes to implementing this for remote workers. But, everything is surmountable. Let us give you a few ideas for engaging your remote team. Provide technology allowance Technology plays an important part in making remote work possible. So, consider awarding your remote employees with an allowance to purchase better equipment. Offer workspace upgrades Assume that you got valuable new clients through the hard work of a single sales employee. Get them new upgrades for their home workspace. Buy them a comfortable chair as a symbol of appreciation. Let the other remote employees know about such benefits. Post this on social media to motivate others. Provide health insurance In these trying times, it is vital to take care of your employees’ health. Why not offer them healthcare benefits. There are many other things apart from health insurance that can interest your employees. For example, a gym membership, or a simple health drinks package. Provide access to further learning opportunities If you believe that an employee will be of more use after a certain academic program, why not enroll them in it. Fund them for research, course, or a training module that will help them progress in their field as well as in the organization. Offer them break time When a team of remote workers has completed a certain task successfully, give them a break from work. It may not be entirely productive at the moment. However, it will have a positive impact on the employees’ attitude towards your organization. Which eventually improves your employee retention rates. Conclusion Technology has made Recognition and Rewards systems easier to implement. Cloud solutions offer customizable options that let you have more control over your rewards program. It will help you provide timely rewards and recognition for your remote employees. Pro-tip: Communicate with your employees to arrive at the best decisions. More connection equals the success of the program. About Author: Hetvi works as a Product Associate at Refrens.com - Online Invoice Generator & India's most powerful platform for freelancer's growth. She has worked for some renowned companies as a Brand and Digital marketing associate. You can follow Refrens.com on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Recommendation systems for recruitment: an overview
Following the digitalization of the job market, including a growing reliance on free job posting sites for e-recruitment and the emergence of remote working models, the reach of the recruiting and job-hunting process has massively expanded. As a result, the traditional pool of candidates and job ads has turned into a vast ocean of potential recruits and open positions. Crafting a winning job post is one of the strategies for attracting top talents. For example, LinkedIn reports that 95 job applications are submitted every second on its platform and that each week, 50 million users access it to search for jobs. This certainly represents a tremendous opportunity for both hiring managers and job seekers. However, the ability to post your jobs on a platform with a virtually unlimited outreach would end up being counterproductive without proper tools to filter the most relevant options, as recruiters screening hundreds of candidates are well aware of. And that's where machine learning-based recommendation systems for recruitment come into play. The role of recommendation systems Recommendation systems for recruitment are powered by computer algorithms and designed to route professionals toward an open position matching their aspirations and expertise, or companies toward suitable candidates based on their business requirements. These tools, currently implemented by all major employment-oriented online platforms and social media, can perform a variety of HR-related duties, such as: Segmenting professionals into sub-categories or archetypes depending on their profile information (country, previous work experience, skills, certifications, and more) and behavioral patterns (such as likes, shares, comments, and browsing history). Segmenting employers and their respective job listings data based on the industry, location, current staff, open positions, requirements, and more. Providing employers with a list of potential candidates, sorted by relevance, while targeting job seekers with tailored recommendations regarding the most interesting job opportunities. Suggesting the best certifications and highlighting the core strengths to compete for a certain position. Thanks to their segmentation and matching capabilities, recommendation systems for recruitment can act as a catalyst to connect professionals and corporations on the job market. Furthermore, they can easily mitigate the so-called information overload suffered by HR departments when flooded with thousands (or millions, as for multinational corporations like Google) of applications. For example, a recruitment proposal can help you revolutionize the way you segment and attract top talent, making your hiring process efficient and engaging like never before. However, the above wouldn't be possible without the essential contribution of machine learning algorithms. So, let’s better frame this technology and its actual application in this field. Why apply machine learning in e-recruitment Nowadays, any advanced recommendation engine for recruitment relies on machine learning to peer into data and provide relevant suggestions. Specifically, this subset of AI strictly related to data science and analytics concerns the creation of self-learning algorithms that can process data, spot key variables and recurring patterns among them, and create models representing such relationships. As the name suggests, a core strength of machine learning algorithms is their ability to learn and improve through experience. Specifically, they can identify more and more correlations as they process new data and refine their models to provide a more truthful portrait of the scenarios and dynamics examined. Once a model has been trained with enough data, it will be leveraged by a machine learning system to process new datasets and provide valuable insights or predictions. For example, the ML algorithm powering a recommendation engine for recruitment can be "fed" with datasets collected through a professional networking platform. After proper training, the algorithm may observe that having a certain qualification or trait in the user profile generally results in a greater chance of being hired by a specific type of organization, be it a large IT corporation or a small business. Thus, the engine will start recommending properly qualified professionals to that employer and vice versa. ML algorithms for recruiting How the aforementioned routing process takes place depends on the algorithms used and the recommendation system design approach. Regarding the first point, researchers have tested several machine learning algorithms whose performance could actually range according to the operational scenario, including the number of platform users and relevant metrics to consider. To learn more about recruitment methods, download our ebook now. Download Now Among the algorithms typically implemented in this kind of software solution, we may count naive Bayes classifiers, K nearest neighbors, random forest, support vector classifiers, logistic regression, and gradient-boosted decision trees. The latter, for example, have also been adopted by LinkedIn for its well-known Recruiter feature. As for the design approach, this aspect of recommendation systems deserves its own section. Types of recommendation systems for recruitment Similarly to their eCommerce-focused versions, recommender systems for recruitment can be built according to three major design approaches defining the underlying mechanisms for providing recommendations. Collaborative filtering E-recruitment recommendation engines embracing this approach base their suggestions on similarities among users. Indeed, they recommend candidates that other companies with similar requirements have already expressed an interest in or suggest jobs that other professionals with common traits have previously applied for. Thanks to their ability to accurately frame users based on context-aware variables and identify non-linear relations between them, collaborative filtering engines currently represent the most successful segment of the recommendation system market, so much so that major hiring platforms such as LinkedIn and Indeed rely on similar tools. Content-based filtering The focus, in this case, is not on the relations among similar users, but on the convergence between similar items. In a real-world recruiting scenario, the “items” are online job ads or candidate profiles. The recommendation system will examine job seekers' preferences for certain ads and recommend new job listings sharing similar features with the previous ones. At the same time, it will assess recruiters’ interest in specific candidate archetypes and suggest other profiles with similar characteristics. This implies the analysis of features from user profiles, curricula, and cover letters (such as age, language, skills, education, and more) and job descriptions (including employer, industry, country, responsibilities, etc.). The aforementioned information is typically extracted by identifying specific keywords and concepts via natural language processing technologies. “Interim Healthcare SLC needed HR technology, and we’re pleased with the results we’ve gained from LIKE.TG’s solutions for recruiting, onboarding, and employee engagement. Yet it’s an opportunity for all Interim franchises. It would be so great if each franchise owner could implement similar solutions to replace legacy systems that might not work as well as they should.” Michael Hawkins Franchise Owner of Interim HealthCare SLC Learn More Hybrid approach This hot trend in recommendation system design is aimed at combining the key strengths of both approaches at the cost of creating a more complex architecture and requiring more computing power. Such systems rely on different hybridization techniques to provide job and candidate recommendations, including the creation of a single processing pipeline in which the result of the collaborative part becomes the input for the content-based phase. Reshaping the job market with algorithms While human relationships and networking will always remain staples of job search and recruiting, we can expect a growing role played by recommendation systems and machine learning algorithms in our professional lives. But if it's true that online recruitment and the possibility to post jobs for free on global platforms have turned the job market into an ocean of opportunities, ML-powered recommendation systems will act as a beacon to guide ships to a safe harbor, or skilled professionals toward a company ready to value their expertise.
Recruiting Made Simple - Five Tips for Faster and Easier Hiring
Recruiting is one of the most tedious tasks within a company. It can be a lengthy and complicated process if you don’t have the right tools for the job. You may have to sort through hundreds of resumes, and then you have to interview potential candidates, which can take weeks. But there are easier ways to hire new staff that won’t take up valuable time. With the right strategies and tools, you can streamline your hiring process and find top talent for your company. In this post, we’ve provided five valuable tips to make recruitment a breeze. 1. Improve Your Job Descriptions To attract and keep candidates engaged, who will hopefully go on to become good team members, make sure your job descriptions and job titles are accurate and attractive. Start your description with a catchy headline that stands out and shows exactly what the job is all about. Include a company description so that the candidate knows what your company does. Add a concise description of what the job entails and the responsibilities that the recruit will be expected to perform. Use a bullet form list for the responsibilities section instead of long sentences. Hiring managers need to be very detailed in their approach to this element of the process. This is where aspects such as soft skills, job requirements, and duties and responsibilities become key elements of your overall recruitment strategy. Include other attractive elements in your job description, such as perks or the salary you’re willing to offer. 2. Leverage Technology One of the reasons companies have slow recruitment processes is because they’re using outdated methods to hire new employees. They still manually sift through resumes and insist that candidates travel to the office for interviews. But if you leverage the right technology, you can streamline your hiring process. For example, you can search for the best background check site to verify past employment and check criminal records in a matter of minutes. Or use AI to screen resumes and use video calls to interview candidates. Additionally, you can also use Candidates Relationship Management (CRM) systems to improve or manage the candidate’s experience throughout the hiring process. You can also use social media sites like LinkedIn to find top talent in your industry. 3. Consider Pre-Screening There will be situations where you go through the entire hiring process with a candidate who’s actually not qualified for the job. This can waste time and money for the company. To avoid this mishap, consider pre-screening candidates before you interview them. The advantage of pre-screening new talent is that it weeds out unqualified candidates before the major interview stage. It helps you understand job applicants better by providing them with psychometric tests and skill assessments. 4. Use Structured Interview Questions Interviewing candidates is probably the longest part of the recruitment process. Some interviews may last 30 minutes, while others can go on for over an hour. However, an interview is the most crucial step because it allows you to assess a candidate’s motivation, skills, and their knowledge of the job. But your interview process can also turn out to be a waste of time if you’re not doing it correctly. You must follow a structured process to make it easier and faster to hire candidates. To do this, make sure you have a specific set of questions, and they must be the same for each candidate you interview. It’s also important to ask the right questions in an interview so you can get a better understanding of the type of employee a candidate is. Here is a list of questions you should ask in an interview: To learn more about recruitment methods, download our ebook now. Download now What are your interests in the job? How would your fellow colleagues describe you? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Do you prefer working on your own or in a team? How do you manage multiple projects? Do you work well under pressure? What are your long-term goals? How do you learn new skills? What is your ideal work environment? You can add more questions to the list depending on the information you want to analyze during the interview. 5. Consider Hiring Internally If you want to save time and money, then consider hiring internally. You’ll save money because you don’t have to post job descriptions and pay for advertising or use resume platforms to find talent. Internal employees already have the knowledge and skill set that you may be looking for to fulfill a role. Furthermore, if you regularly hire internally, it may increase employee retention because staff will aim to get promotions within your company. Employees may work harder to get noticed, so internal hires can also improve productivity, and they also offer the added bonus of being well across your company culture and could, therefore, already be a good fit to fill any relevant open positions. Final Thoughts Hiring new candidates doesn’t have to be a tedious process. All you need is the right strategies, like having structured questions or using the right platforms to perform certain tasks faster. If you’re struggling through the recruitment process, then use the tips in this article to help streamline the task. Try Workmates Interactive Demo Click trough it yourself withinteractive demo. Try It Now
Recruitment Tips For Startups: Hire From Day One
Hiring processes have evolved tremendously across all industries due to a global competition to attract the best talent. If you're new to the market, these startup recruiting tips are likely to be helpful. Usually, behind creating a startup, there is a unique value proposition; but to develop that unique proposition, you need to create a unique team. When a company is created, the founding team has a double challenge: making the startup profitable (in the shortest time possible) and building a team that helps fulfill the dream. Probably among the priorities of the first stage will be: Meeting minimum revenue to stay afloat. Keep customers happy as they come in. Develop a model that aims for profitability in a given period of time or accelerate the process in the next investment round. What will help you achieve these goals? Invest in building a great team This advice will most likely seem premature if you are a startup. Besides, if almost 80% of hiring teams capture the best talent, how do you stand out from the already positioned competition in the job market? We'll show you how to attract the candidates you need to boost your startup and fulfill your dream in this insight. Hire from day one If you are just launching into the entrepreneurial world, you and your founding team likely have an endless list of tasks. Maybe your proposal is still being validated in the market, you barely have clients, and you're focused on staying afloat. This is the scenario of almost all startups when they go to market. So how do you go about "hiring from day one"? It's just as hard as finding a quality research papers help service. Most startups don't think about hiring until they need to hire: they need to scale quickly after raising a round of investment, the product has been well received, and more people are needed for the sales team, or support, or customer success... or all of them. This type of situation forces you to accelerate processes and hire quickly, running the risk of spending a lot of resources and time identifying candidates. However, you can prepare the ground and start recruiting long before you have the conditions to hire. Here's how to do it! Build your employer brand from the start Just because you're not in a position to offer new jobs from day one doesn't mean you can't start your hiring process. When you have already set out to attract the right candidates, it will be easier to know each other. For his part, the candidate will already know your organization, its values, and how it works. From the company's point of view, you will have one or more profiles that you will have followed up, and it will be easier for you to attract them. There are many employer branding strategies that you can develop from the beginning with very economical actions. You can share the backstage of your company on social networks, the workspaces, testimonials from the team, useful content to build a community of followers (among whom your future hires may be found), etc. Work with talent pools "Hire all the time" is an idea that you should embrace and be able to convey to your team. It doesn't matter if you will be in a position to sign a contract in a few months. If you can identify early the people you want to add to your team and work strategically to attract that talent, you will be more likely to fill the available positions with the people you want. That's what working with a talent pipeline is all about. How can you do it? Participate and encourage your team to join online discussions and events in your industry. This will help them prepare, make the brand visible, and perhaps make the first contact with future hires. Also, if you want to go a step further, work from the beginning on your Career Site and use it as a priority channel to make your employer brand visible. Work on your web positioning and, even if you don't have vacancies available yet, share the offers you intend to publish soon. This way, future candidates will have an idea of the opportunities they can expect. Create a hiring plan Having a hiring plan can be very useful in setting goals and setting the course for your startup's growth. It helps to answer and map out actions based on these three basic questions: What needs to happen in the business to make a specific hire? How much time will you need to make that hire once the vacancy is posted? When should you start promoting the available vacancy? It is a common mistake for companies to start promoting their job openings just when they need to hire. As I said initially, this leads them to rush the process, and they do not always consider whether the new hire meets the candidate profile they need. Think of job offers as you think of your product It is likely that, even though you have generated a talent base from your employer branding strategies and other organic actions, you are considering running advertising campaigns to drive recruitment. This is where many companies "get carried away" and replicate traditional models for new hires: Contact with recruitment agencies, campaigns on every job board out there, endless requirements to fill the position, and so on. However, candidates now play a much more active role in the labor market, bringing new strategies to the table to attract the right candidates. Establish a starting point. If sales strategies are evolving and you are constantly considering new ways to make your product attractive, why not do the same when finding the ideal talent for your company? Define your "ideal candidate" profiles Should you have only one ideal candidate profile? In this insight, we offer you some ideas to don't limit yourself when assessing various candidate profiles. It might surprise you how valuable it is to bet on the diversity of talent in companies. However, just as it happens when you define your ideal client, you must segment and identify the profiles that fit your needs. To define your Candidate Persons and boost an effective recruitment campaign, you must take into account: What technical skills are indispensable? What soft skills will you take into account to consider them? Should they have previous experience in similar companies? What aspects do they value in an organization, and how can you satisfy them? What characteristics do they need to meet to be "compatible" with the company's culture? What social media platforms do they consume? What communication channels are most effective for contacting them? The answers to questions of this type will allow you to better focus your strategy and opt for techniques closer to inbound recruiting. Among the main advantages, two stand out: You will be able to identify the most effective channels to promote your offers. You will create ads better adapted to your target. Don't turn the job description into a list of requirements It's simple. If you are clear about who you are trying to hire, the description of your job offer and all the messages you use to promote it should be attractive to those profiles. Don't focus on the requirements. Instead, highlight what you offer your future employees and how they will benefit from joining your team. View onboarding as an investment You've probably read a lot about the importance of providing a good candidate experience. Most companies are very clear about this and strive to ensure it. However, contrary to what many think, the candidate journey does not end with the hire. The onboarding process is just as important to the success of new hires. Just as the recruitment and selection process focuses on attracting and hiring the best candidates, their retention depends largely on onboarding. The reason is very simple. Think about all the time and resources you have invested in hiring that person. Make sure you give them all the tools to do their job and facilitate their onboarding process. The new employee must have more than one reason to want to stay in your organization. Again, you must think the same way you do with your customers. Just as we trace a funnel to generate value around our product, new hires must go through a whole cycle until they can make significant contributions to your company. Taking care of the onboarding process will help you accelerate that process. Bring an onboarding plan and get results in the short term! About Author: This article is written by our marketing team at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee engagement, and intranet software. Our aim is to help your company improve employee engagement, employee productivity, and to save you valuable time!
Reimagining customer experience: An employee story
LIKE.TG Founder Fred Luddy once said, “If you have happy customers, the whole world takes care of itself.” It’s a sentiment LIKE.TG believes to this very day, and it’s why we introduced LIKE.TG Impact™—an industry-leading value acceleration solution that reimagines the customer experience.Launched in January 2022, LIKE.TG Impact combines human expertise with AI-powered insights to personalize customers’ digital transformation journeys and accelerate their results. It’s built on the Now Platform® and has positively impacted the customers who use it, as well as the LIKE.TG employees who developed and use it daily.It’s a story of the Now on Now spirit—finding value in our own platform technology so we can design and deliver a new experience that our employees and customers love.A customer-first approachFor Avishek D., senior manager of software engineering management, building LIKE.TG Impact changed his perception of how customers use our products. After hundreds of customer conversations, he helped create LIKE.TG Impact with customers in mind, developing a platform where they could personalize their experience based on their business needs and goals.The time spent talking with customers enabled Avishek and his team to construct a value acceleration solution that’s mobile-first, high-performing, and fueled by personalization. It’s “a product that is truly collaborative in nature, not just for customer needs, but to help them realize their goals,” he says. “That is how enterprise business development should be done.” Working on LIKE.TG Impact helped Avishek grow as a team leader, he adds. The experience allowed him to see and understand the big picture of what the global LIKE.TG Impact team was trying to create together. Once the 19 global workstreams started collaborating, it was smooth sailing.“It felt natural, like we’d been working together for many years toward something great,” Avishek explains. “I felt very privileged to work with such brilliant individuals.” This collaboration empowered Avishek to lead his team to do their best work and fulfill their mission to bring LIKE.TG Impact to life.Using our own technology internallyBrad H., product owner of customer interactions, believes LIKE.TG Impact could not have been possible without “putting our customers first.” After collecting customer feedback, Brad worked with various business units, including engineering and design, to help create a consumer-grade digital experience within a startup-like work environment.“Not only did we [internally] build this modern app from scratch, but we did it using our own platform,” he says. Customers asked, “How did you build this? Did you really use the LIKE.TG platform to build this?” Brad responds, “Here’s what we did with our platform. Imagine what you can do.”LIKE.TG Impact showcases the power of the Now Platform to automate and personalize the customer journey across our internal functions. It’s what Now on Now is all about: allowing employees to embrace our technology to solve internal challenges. Practitioners share their journeys and outcomes with our customers so they can see what’s possible for their organizations.To contribute to the launch of LIKE.TG Impact, Brad and his team made use of customer research, participated in design meetings and demos, and collaborated as one team to ensure everyone worked toward the same goal.“There's a saying my former coach, Jim Harbaugh, would say when I played football at Stanford: ‘Iron sharpens iron,’ meaning each person on the same team must work together to accomplish the same goal,” Brad explains. “I feel like on my team [at LIKE.TG], iron sharpens iron. Everyone is working together, gaining new skills. ...That’s great for the company culture.” Professional developmentPrincipal Success Architect Jennika E. learned much about her customers in the short time since LIKE.TG Impact went live. “My LIKE.TG Impact account was the first pilot account,” she says. “Anyone who decides to be the first pilot account says a lot about that customer's trust and confidence in what we do.”The pilot experience helped Jennika develop cross-functional partnerships internally and externally. It also gave her a chance to work with an exclusive product.“I was lucky enough to be a part of a small group of success architects who built out the engagement model for Impact,” she explains. Building and designing the engagement model made her an expert with the solution.“At LIKE.TG, there are always opportunities for you to further develop professionally,” Jennika adds. “Had you asked me two and a half years ago, when I first joined, [if I] would find myself in this position, I would tell you, ‘No way.’ It’s cool and crazy. Kudos to our leadership team.”These industry leaders are listening to customers and responding directly to their needs through advisory sessions and accelerators. They’ll keep innovating and driving greater personalization through feedback and recommendations, so we can further scale our customers’ digital transformation needs and businesses.Our work makes the world work.Join us. Explore job opportunities.
Reimagining the partner experience to drive mutual growth
Have you ever used a DNA genetic testing service such as 23andMe or Ancestry to learn more about your family heritage? That’s possible today thanks to a partnership between scientists James Watson and Francis Crick. The two discovered the double-helix structure of DNA that earned them the Nobel Prize and gave rise to the field of molecular biology.What you may not know is that a third partner, Rosalind Franklin, played an instrumental role in that discovery. As an expert in X-ray crystallography, Franklin was one of only a handful of people in the world who could produce hi-resolution images of DNA. Without Franklin, there’d likely be no double helix and no 23andme.Partnerships can change the world. That’s why, as the leader of our partner organization, I’m thrilled to unveil a completely transformed partner experience that puts our partners at the center of everything we do.
Reimagining training and certification: A customer zero story
Activity on Now Learning, LIKE.TG’s learning platform for training and certification, is on the rise. Total logins rose 25% between 2020 and 2021, and on-demand course completion increased 43%.As LIKE.TG revenue continues to grow at 30% per year, the demand for skilled administrators, developers, and architects is rapidly increasing. Rising demand, spurred in part by the move to virtual learning amid the pandemic, compelled the training and certification team to partner with IT in early 2021 to reimagine how it delivered training.“Our primary goal is to offer training that is engaging and easy to use so anyone can train and certify with LIKE.TG,” says Eric Martinez, director of digital learning at ServiceNow. “By making learning more enjoyable and accessible, we can help increase the number of job-ready LIKE.TG professionals. The best way to accomplish this is to embrace the Now Platform as the foundation. It shows our users the power of the platform.”Responding to changing demandsThe teams set out to transform the user experience, whether it was an on-demand course, live class, or hands-on lab. They wanted learners of all skill levels and backgrounds to: Easily find and complete courses, paths, and certifications Broaden their LIKE.TG expertise Accelerate their careers Clearly understand the paths to LIKE.TG certifications “Our priority was to replace the fragmented, clunky navigation with an intuitive user interface, better search, and consistent branding,” Martinez explains. “We needed to scale so we could broaden our training service capabilities. Plus, we had to make it easier for customers to manage their learning credits so their employees could enroll in and complete training and certifications without delay.” Using the Now Platform, a small development team quickly built a scalable, cost-effective solution with reduced infrastructure maintenance requirements. The Now Platform provided a single data model and automation engine, reduced native coding requirements, and offered an abundance of reusable code and API integrations.Critical part of customer value accelerationThe time and effort paid off. We can now help our customers manage their data and track learning usage with flexible workspaces, dashboards, and reporting. Additionally, we can easily expand our customer support capabilities with the Customer Service Management application.Few companies can say they use their own technology to deliver their training and certifications, especially a company that doesn’t specialize in training software. Delivering these services on the Now Platform is an achievement the training and certification organization takes pride in. The Now Learning platform is also a key component of LIKE.TG Impact™, a new value acceleration solution that helps customers accelerate their digital transformation with personalized recommendations and insights, premium technical support and preventive tools, role-based training and certifications, expert coaching, and prescriptive guidance. “Now Learning brings to life our shared vision of an amazing customer experience, opportunities to grow the market of LIKE.TG talent, and a chance for anyone to start building a career with LIKE.TG,” says Cat Lang, senior vice president of education at ServiceNow. “Now Learning is our number one enabler for expanding the community of job-capable Now Platform professionals in step with LIKE.TG’s growth.” Register for the Knowledge Digital Experience to learn more. (It’s free.) And check out Now Learning Live. You can also sign up for these sessions: Now on Now: Transforming training & certification to a truly digital experience (SES1262) Now on Now: How we built a great digital learning experience using our Platform (SES1273)
Reinventing an employee portal—a reason to dance
Deepika D. was presenting in a meeting when she found out that the newly created My LIKE.TG had been recognized as one of the 10 Best Intranets of 2023 by the Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g).“I got up and did a little victory dance right there in the meeting,” says the senior manager of My LIKE.TG products at LIKE.TG, in celebration of the award for revamping the company’s employee portal.“I pinged my team and leaders right away that our hard work had brought us industrywide recognition. And, yes, I finished my meeting with a huge grin.”Rahul V., senior staff user interface engineer at LIKE.TG, was returning from his son’s daycare when he saw the notification. “I felt like I was driving at 100 mph to get back and share the news with my family,” he says. “Woohoo! It was a dream-come-true moment.” More than a company intranetMost employee portals are a simple repository of links, making them more of a roadblock than an enabler. Employees put up with, ignore, or work around them until an outage or failure occurs. Then they complain about the issue.Ours is a different story altogether. Our digital technology team saw a huge opportunity to reinvent the company’s employee portal to create a central, intuitive, customizable, employee-first hub on the Now Platform using our Employee Center Pro product. They wanted a single place where people could find exactly what they were looking for 24/7.A focus on peopleThe team departed from a traditional intranet approach to design My LIKE.TG, a next-generation employee portal that’s easily accessible from a browser or a mobile app.“With My LIKE.TG,” Deepika explains, “we’ve moved from prioritizing the services we’re providing to focusing on our people and on meeting their needs more effectively.” Accessing important tools and resources? Check. Finding the best next course to take? Check. Seamlessly connecting with colleagues within the department or around the world? Check. Solving problems through intuitive self-service? Check.“Through My LIKE.TG, we’re making the employee experience even more seamless, intuitive, and efficient,” explains Kellie R., senior vice president of digital technology experience at ServiceNow.“We’re helping our employees find and action what they need quicker, which helps them live their best lives at work, saves time, and lowers our operational costs across the business.”Keys to a world-class intranet experienceFor the latest iteration of the portal, the team kept four key concepts in mind: An employee-first approach that prioritized scalability and human-centric design Alignment of all content to three core user needs: connect, work, and grow A cohesive employee experience for an increasingly hybrid and distributed workforce A seamless, intuitive user interface Eight months after the project began, LIKE.TG had a new portal. “We were able to create a place where the whole company can start their day with whatever’s important to them,” says Spandan C., director of application development at ServiceNow.My LIKE.TG was lauded by NN/g for reflecting the brand in the portal design, incorporating Virtual Agent and AI Search, and “prioritizing user needs and ensuring swift access to crucial information.” In fact, NN/g included a detailed LIKE.TG case study featuring best practices in its Intranet Design Annual: 2023. Amazing? Sure. But there’s more to the story.Using our own technologyMy LIKE.TG was built almost exclusively in-house with minimal external agency support using Employee Center Pro and other LIKE.TG products.Employee Center Pro provides the technology backbone of the employee portal experience. The team also used an enhanced complementary Now Mobile native app to offer popular functionality for employees on the go. Other important features for both desktop and mobile experiences include: Manager Success Center to help managers navigate the employee journey for their teams, including hiring, onboarding, and growth AI and machine learning algorithms for personalized content on the homepage, employee profile, and community pages Centralized approvals so users never have to log in to a multitude of systems to drive processes forward, from expenses to candidate offers to invoices Curated learning recommendations to support employee career development Single source for opening IT, HR, legal, and workplace services requests Kudos!, an employee recognition program to help promote the company’s culture of appreciation and collaboration Enhanced profiles for stronger connections between employees Workplace application integrations that surface important tasks, info, and events Rashmi G., senior staff user experience designer and the project’s design lead, is proud that the connect, work, and grow themes are strongly represented in the design of the portal itself. They help us “create a digital experience that makes work just flow more seamlessly and intuitively,” she says.With the Now Platform as its foundation, My LIKE.TG provides easy access to vital information, simplifies navigation and search, promotes open communication and collaboration, and curates and targets content to each employee—all from a central, customizable, single pane of glass.Find out more about how LIKE.TG technology helps enhance the employee experience.
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