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Navigating the new challenges of hybrid work
Work changed in 2020, but not just for the lockdown period—it changed forever. It’s become increasingly clear that we won’t return to the old working model.Workers have become accustomed to the autonomy of a remote environment. The 2021 Employee Experience Imperative found that six in 10 employees prefer some amount of remote work. As vaccine rollouts make office work possible again, employers are realizing hybrid is the future.However, hybrid work comes with a new set of challenges. Organizations must put effort into creating the collaboration, experiences, and efficiency the business and its workforce demand.Hybrid work: Avoiding a two-tier experienceMany organizations are thinking about the space challenges of supporting hybrid work. Where will everyone sit? Will there be enough meeting rooms?But there are some other big challenges to consider as well, such as inclusivity. Hybrid environments create a risk of uneven power dynamics between remote and in-person employees—a two-tier dilemma.According to Harvard Business Review, the creation of these power differentials within teams can “damage relationships, impede effective collaboration, and ultimately result in reduced performance.” So, organizations must ensure all workers, whether remote or in person, get a consistent employee experience.5 ways to deliver a consistent experienceAvoiding a two-tier system starts with ensuring all employees—no matter where they work—have the same opportunities for support and collaboration. LIKE.TG and Microsoft Teams are committed to bridging that gap. As of July 2021, Microsoft Teams has 250 million monthly active users.Here are five things we’re doing together to help organizations deliver consistent experiences in this new world of work, for employees and the teams that support them:
Through the LIKE.TG and Microsoft Teams integration, employees can get help in the collaboration tools they use most frequently—from home or the office.
Within the familiar and convenient Microsoft Teams environment, employees can submit and follow up on tickets from anywhere.
With AI-powered recommendations, the LIKE.TG Virtual Agent can provide answers to frequently asked questions by employees, and the power of Predictive Intelligence can help agents efficiently resolve cases as needed.
For more urgent issues, employees and agents can simulate an in-person experience by initiating a video call, chat, or meeting directly in Microsoft Teams.
With always-on virtual agents running in Teams, employees are able to get help from a single place, and in the tools they already use. They don’t need to toggle between apps or waste time finding whom to contact. The Virtual Agent deflects common service requests such as “How much was my last paycheck?” or “When will my benefits kick in?”—reducing the workload for IT, HR, and facilities teams and freeing them to focus on more strategic tasks.
Uniting peopleAs work changes, employees and businesses need tools that bring people together even when they’re apart. By integrating LIKE.TG and Microsoft Teams, you meet employees where they are and increase employee collaboration and satisfaction—lessening the potential of a two-tier experience.Learn more about how LIKE.TG and Microsoft Teams are making hybrid work, work for you in our ebook.
LIKE.TG a Strategic Leader in the 2021 Fosway 9-Grid™ for Cloud HR
Although parts of life have been put on pause due to the pandemic, our relationship with work hasn’t stalled away from the office. But working from home has profoundly changed the structure and flow of work. Employers and employees are collaborating to define what “workplace” means in 2022 and beyond.One of the biggest challenges facing organizations today is how to prepare leaders and teams to succeed in this new world of hybrid work while balancing safety, well-being, and productivity.Leaders are wrestling with floor space reconfigurations to accommodate fewer people at any given time. Some have given up on the notion of a physical office altogether. Others are dealing with diverse workforces, where “return to work” means transitioning employees back into customer-facing environments while navigating COVID-safe requirements.Everyone is trying to create more moments of human connection and figure out how to better collaborate within and across teams—all while balancing the safety requirements a post-pandemic environment demands.Work is taking shape in new waysOver the next decade, organizations across the Asia-Pacific region will face significant skills shortages. But it’s the immediate threat of a mass talent exodus driven by a desire for change and rising job dissatisfaction that has put employee experience (EX) front and center.Burnout and stress are among the top reasons employees say they’ll look for a new job. Asana’s Anatomy of Work Index 2021 found 77% of employees in Australia and New Zealand experienced burnout in 2020. With many struggling, organizations are challenged to keep teams productive and engaged.It’s worth remembering that productivity, at the center of every hybrid discussion, is a two-way street. Managers must be able to trust their people to work effectively, regardless of location. At the same time, employees can’t keep pace if much of their day is spent performing low-value tasks, dealing with bottlenecks, and trying to find information in fragmented systems.The data is clear: Engaged employees contribute more, according to a Human Resources Director article. Whatever the industry, this has a direct impact on customers, patients, and citizens.The “Great Resignation” is timely recognition that employees thrive when they’re empowered to choose how and where their work gets done. It’s a reminder that the post-pandemic landscape isn’t about solving a binary-location equation of either return to work or work from home—it’s about being empathetic to employee needs, wherever they are.
Meet your people where they areWhen the near-universal shift to working from home took place at the beginning of 2020, it revealed significant gaps for many organizations. Even companies that had been flexibility front-runners before the pandemic had to rethink their practices and perspectives.At a Trans-Tasman Business Circle roundtable, Hisham El-Ansary, CEO of Bupa Asia Pacific, explained the past 18 months confirmed his belief: Employers must respond to these new expectations to get the best out of their people—and to attract and retain great talent in a tight labor market.With 85% of Bupa’s 22,000 employees operating in front-line roles—including aged care homes, medical centers, dental clinics, and optical stores—working from the spare bedroom or kitchen table is not an option for everyone. But maintaining connection to the company and to fellow employees wherever they are has never been more vital.Employees expect managers to support individual needs. Parents are desperate to separate home and work life. Employees who’ve flourished while working from home are wary about returning to office distraction. That’s no surprise, given it takes more than 23 minutes to get back to work after any kind of interruption, according to the University of California, Irvine.Roundtable attendees across public and private sectors agreed: The future of work requires businesses to foster greater levels of trust in their people and embrace different ways of working as a competitive advantage to recruit, retain, and motivate.Build from a place of trustIt’s not uncommon for companies to find themselves implementing rules to “police” and manage risks for noncompliance while unintentionally stifling contribution and innovation from others. It’s an old script that hybrid working has flipped. The majority of workers want to show up to work each day and do meaningful work—it’s up to leaders to lay the right foundation to make that happen.The post-pandemic workplace requires a unified experience across all functions—from IT to HR, facilities to legal, and the hundreds of connecting processes in between. It means accommodating contractors and partners with the same level of support and focus.Digital workflows are the not-so-secret sauce in hybrid models, seamlessly blending virtual and physical interaction to deliver brilliant experiences. Employees should be able to access information, systems, and support from anywhere: at home, on the go, or in a workplace.Government agencies around the world have revealed new roadmaps to reopening, including guidance for employees returning to the office. However, the onus is on businesses to keep their people safe. Workers are counting on their employers to put the necessary tools and workflows in place to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 transmission.Data-driven contact tracing and a real-time view of workplace readiness will be prerequisites for many businesses. Some, like Uber, are already using Safe Workplace apps to reopen offices globally.“In the future, workplace apps will become widespread to manage flexible working,” says Eric Swift, vice president and managing director at LIKE.TG Australia and New Zealand. “These will include features like interactive maps so people can navigate around any work site or office they visit, and the ability to let colleagues know what days they will be in and what desk they will sit at, so it’s easier for teams to come together.”Hybrid work is here to stayAccording to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, more than 12 million Aussies have taken part in the great work-from-home experiment, triggering the biggest social shift in the nature of work since World War II. Now, as we prepare to leave lockdown restrictions behind, a clearer view of the new world of work is emerging.Employees are looking for seamless, easy-to-use workplace experiences that mirror the best consumer-facing apps they use in their lives every day. The right tools not only make it easier to get things done, but they also:
Empower people.
Promote well-being and safety.
Actively fuel productivity.
Whether you’re all-in remote, trying a mix, or balancing the complexities of front-line, fieldwork, or head office environments, digital tools will be the foundation for any successful hybrid workplace. By adopting the best of what we’ve learned during the pandemic, leaders can create healthier, safer environments where employees really can do their best work.Learn more about the new world of hybrid work.
LIKE.TG and Adobe: Reimagining employee experience in HR and legal
Responsibilities have increased for many employees over the last year. The combination of job pressures, new virtual work environments, and personal responsibilities has caused employees to feel overwhelmed. In a 2021 Indeed survey, 52% of employees reported feeling burned out, up from 43% a year earlier.For individuals in roles that serve the entire enterprise—such as human resources and legal—this administrative work compounds quickly. Teams can’t be bogged down by mundane, administrative, siloed tasks. The old paper-based and manual administrative processes that served organizations for years have become especially challenging as more work has shifted remotely.LIKE.TG and Adobe are transforming the employee experience using the Now Platform® and Adobe Sign. Let’s take a closer look at how this integration is improving work in HR and legal.Making legal work flowNearly every business process has a legal touchpoint and involves multiple teams and systems—from managing a compliance audit to vendor and employee contracts. As organizations grow, the legal workload only intensifies, and teams need to figure out how to deliver fast results, reduce risk, and meet new demands. Ensuring the right security and compliance obligations are built into legal processes is key.Consider the steps involved in a new vendor contract, for example. This normally requires a great deal of coordination between the department, procurement, legal, and the vendor—waiting for email responses and paper-based signatures.With digitized templates and workflows, the department head can directly access and complete a preapproved contract template online, which is automatically sent to the right people on the procurement and legal teams. E-signatures are securely collected online using an intelligent form that guides people where to sign. Through the entire process, digital workflows provide a clear audit trail and prompts to ensure all compliance boxes are checked.“With LIKE.TG Simple Contracts for Legal Service Delivery, we empower employees to request simple but high-volume contracts with minimal legal intervention,” says Product Manager Nagib Tharani. “The workflow assembles a template contract and routes it with Adobe Sign for signature. It can optionally store the contract in the legal team’s preferred storage system of choice.”According to a Forrester study, Adobe Sign delivers high return on investment, with up to 28 times faster average time to get a signature.Empowering HR processes with digital workflowsHR plays a critical role in supporting business growth, yet the team is often buried deep in repetitive, transactional work. Coordinating everything remotely has made things even more complicated.By digitizing paper-related tasks, such as employee onboarding, LIKE.TG and Adobe are making it easier for employees to get what they need fast while freeing HR workers from mundane tasks so they can focus on the work that matters most.With digital workflows from LIKE.TG HR Service Delivery integrated with Adobe Sign, new hires can fill out paperwork online from anywhere, on any device. Every aspect of the onboarding process is handled digitally—from completing forms to securing e-signatures to routing documents to the right HR team members. The status of every form is automatically tracked in one place, providing simplicity and visibility while ensuring compliance.This same approach can be replicated across nearly every paper-intensive HR interaction—nondisclosure agreements, benefits enrollment, and other standard forms.Boosting employee productivity and engagementHR and legal are ripe with opportunities to unlock greater agility and efficiency by eliminating silos and manual processes. The integration of Adobe Sign and the Now Platform:
Speeds workflows
Ensures business continuity
Unlocks productivity
Enables employees to spend more time on meaningful work that drives growth and revenue
Learn more about how LIKE.TG and Adobe can help digitally transform your organization. You can also sign up for a free 30-day trial of Adobe Sign for LIKE.TG.
Creating a connected, engaging employee experience
The biggest business story of last year was how suddenly and completely the COVID-19 pandemic changed the ways we work and live. Organizations had to look at how they operate, adjust to a hybrid workforce, and further embrace digital transformation.LIKE.TG has been at the forefront of the employee experience awakening. As new challenges emerge, our platform is perfectly suited to respond quickly to market-shifting events so that your workforce can stay productive.Improving business agilityPalo Alto Networks aims to make each day safer and more secure for its 80,000 customers in more than 150 countries. The global security organization deals with a range of regulatory requirements, so making changes and being agile can be complex. Its legal team had multiple systems of record and lacked a streamlined way to engage with employees.The company turned to LIKE.TG® Legal Service Delivery to organize and automate its processes, guided by three main principles: simplicity, transparency, and automation. Within a tight 12-week timeline, the enterprise replaced its existing tool and moved into LIKE.TG in what its experience management director called a seamless move.Reacting to changing business requirementsUber Technologies turned to LIKE.TG when reopening its more than 400 physical locations in 70 countries became a top priority. The first draft of the company’s three-phase return to the workplace was expected to take three to four weeks per site.Instead, Uber worked with LIKE.TG® Safe Workplace Suite to automate and streamline its approach. In two weeks, the company developed an application that protected workers and met changing regulatory requirements. That reduced Uber’s reopening time to only two to three days per location.General Mills, which already used LIKE.TG® HR Service Delivery for its 38,000 employees in 30 countries, got back up to speed quickly when it adopted the LIKE.TG Safe Workplace Suite.The organization gained visibility into the entire lifecycle of its employees’ COVID-19 cases around the globe and created new automations and reporting to make its return-to-workplace efforts more efficient. The mobile enablement also let the company reach employees no matter where they chose to work.Transforming employee services across key momentsDell Technologies found LIKE.TG® Virtual Agent was a great fit when it wanted to create a chatbot. In the first quarter, Virtual Agent serviced about 50,000 chats. With 17 topics, Dell saw 47% deflection, which surpassed the company’s expectations. Interactions that did get transferred to a live representative received a 97% satisfaction rate by callers.Global biopharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb used LIKE.TG® Enterprise Onboarding and Transitions to completely retool its digital onboarding experience. It created a combined portal on its Employee Service Center to provide one-stop-shop access to IT- and HR-related services and knowledge base articles.Download our Employee Workflows Book of Knowledge to learn more about how you can create connected and engaging employee experiences. Whether you want to boost engagement and productivity, manage a safe and efficient workplace, or increase operational efficiencies, you’ll discover how other enterprises are using LIKE.TG to keep employees in hybrid workplaces connected, engaged, efficient, and supported.
Keeping employees safe, well, and productive in hybrid work
Although parts of life have been put on pause due to the pandemic, our relationship with work hasn’t stalled away from the office. But working from home has profoundly changed the structure and flow of work. Employers and employees are collaborating to define what “workplace” means in 2022 and beyond.One of the biggest challenges facing organizations today is how to prepare leaders and teams to succeed in this new world of hybrid work while balancing safety, well-being, and productivity.Leaders are wrestling with floor space reconfigurations to accommodate fewer people at any given time. Some have given up on the notion of a physical office altogether. Others are dealing with diverse workforces, where “return to work” means transitioning employees back into customer-facing environments while navigating COVID-safe requirements.Everyone is trying to create more moments of human connection and figure out how to better collaborate within and across teams—all while balancing the safety requirements a post-pandemic environment demands.Work is taking shape in new waysOver the next decade, organizations across the Asia-Pacific region will face significant skills shortages. But it’s the immediate threat of a mass talent exodus driven by a desire for change and rising job dissatisfaction that has put employee experience (EX) front and center.Burnout and stress are among the top reasons employees say they’ll look for a new job. Asana’s Anatomy of Work Index 2021 found 77% of employees in Australia and New Zealand experienced burnout in 2020. With many struggling, organizations are challenged to keep teams productive and engaged.It’s worth remembering that productivity, at the center of every hybrid discussion, is a two-way street. Managers must be able to trust their people to work effectively, regardless of location. At the same time, employees can’t keep pace if much of their day is spent performing low-value tasks, dealing with bottlenecks, and trying to find information in fragmented systems.The data is clear: Engaged employees contribute more, according to a Human Resources Director article. Whatever the industry, this has a direct impact on customers, patients, and citizens.The “Great Resignation” is timely recognition that employees thrive when they’re empowered to choose how and where their work gets done. It’s a reminder that the post-pandemic landscape isn’t about solving a binary-location equation of either return to work or work from home—it’s about being empathetic to employee needs, wherever they are.
Meet your people where they areWhen the near-universal shift to working from home took place at the beginning of 2020, it revealed significant gaps for many organizations. Even companies that had been flexibility front-runners before the pandemic had to rethink their practices and perspectives.At a Trans-Tasman Business Circle roundtable, Hisham El-Ansary, CEO of Bupa Asia Pacific, explained the past 18 months confirmed his belief: Employers must respond to these new expectations to get the best out of their people—and to attract and retain great talent in a tight labor market.With 85% of Bupa’s 22,000 employees operating in front-line roles—including aged care homes, medical centers, dental clinics, and optical stores—working from the spare bedroom or kitchen table is not an option for everyone. But maintaining connection to the company and to fellow employees wherever they are has never been more vital.Employees expect managers to support individual needs. Parents are desperate to separate home and work life. Employees who’ve flourished while working from home are wary about returning to office distraction. That’s no surprise, given it takes more than 23 minutes to get back to work after any kind of interruption, according to the University of California, Irvine.Roundtable attendees across public and private sectors agreed: The future of work requires businesses to foster greater levels of trust in their people and embrace different ways of working as a competitive advantage to recruit, retain, and motivate.Build from a place of trustIt’s not uncommon for companies to find themselves implementing rules to “police” and manage risks for noncompliance while unintentionally stifling contribution and innovation from others. It’s an old script that hybrid working has flipped. The majority of workers want to show up to work each day and do meaningful work—it’s up to leaders to lay the right foundation to make that happen.The post-pandemic workplace requires a unified experience across all functions—from IT to HR, facilities to legal, and the hundreds of connecting processes in between. It means accommodating contractors and partners with the same level of support and focus.Digital workflows are the not-so-secret sauce in hybrid models, seamlessly blending virtual and physical interaction to deliver brilliant experiences. Employees should be able to access information, systems, and support from anywhere: at home, on the go, or in a workplace.Government agencies around the world have revealed new roadmaps to reopening, including guidance for employees returning to the office. However, the onus is on businesses to keep their people safe. Workers are counting on their employers to put the necessary tools and workflows in place to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 transmission.Data-driven contact tracing and a real-time view of workplace readiness will be prerequisites for many businesses. Some, like Uber, are already using Safe Workplace apps to reopen offices globally.“In the future, workplace apps will become widespread to manage flexible working,” says Eric Swift, vice president and managing director at LIKE.TG Australia and New Zealand. “These will include features like interactive maps so people can navigate around any work site or office they visit, and the ability to let colleagues know what days they will be in and what desk they will sit at, so it’s easier for teams to come together.”Hybrid work is here to stayAccording to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, more than 12 million Aussies have taken part in the great work-from-home experiment, triggering the biggest social shift in the nature of work since World War II. Now, as we prepare to leave lockdown restrictions behind, a clearer view of the new world of work is emerging.Employees are looking for seamless, easy-to-use workplace experiences that mirror the best consumer-facing apps they use in their lives every day. The right tools not only make it easier to get things done, but they also:
Empower people.
Promote well-being and safety.
Actively fuel productivity.
Whether you’re all-in remote, trying a mix, or balancing the complexities of front-line, fieldwork, or head office environments, digital tools will be the foundation for any successful hybrid workplace. By adopting the best of what we’ve learned during the pandemic, leaders can create healthier, safer environments where employees really can do their best work.Learn more about the new world of hybrid work.
New Virtual Agent integration automates time-consuming IT issues
Like much of the workforce, IT help desk teams have spent the past year implementing new tools and processes to adapt to the new world of hybrid work.Many, for example, have turned to virtual agents, AI-powered enterprise chatbot tools that allow employees to quickly resolve common IT issues. Yet, despite the promise of virtual agents, many IT teams still find themselves manually handling everyday incidents. Some of the most common are virtual application and desktop session “resets.”These resets can be caused by a variety of factors, such as networking issues, forgotten passwords, or misalignment with the IT organization’s chosen authentication policies. However, they all have one thing in common: They can be managed by virtual agents but are often still resolved by a slow, manual, IT help desk process.Relieving IT and empowering employeesToday, LIKE.TG and Citrix are introducing a new Virtual Agent integration to help relieve this burden for IT teams. Leveraging LIKE.TG® ITSM and powered by LIKE.TG IntegrationHub, the new solution plugs into the Citrix ITSM Connector app, allowing IT to automate the necessary reset actions within Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service.With this integration, reset incidents can be resolved in a matter of minutes rather than hours, empowering teams to deliver fast, AI-powered, self-service experiences to all employees—regardless of their location or even what personal productivity tools they use. From mobile devices to collaboration tools and regular browsers, LIKE.TG virtual agents are available when employees need them.The new integration helps solve a significant problem for IT organizations. Reset incidents are not only time-consuming, but they’re also expensive. For example, IT service desks at organizations may get more than 10,000 reset incidents per year that need to be resolved manually, draining productivity and taking hours to resolve.
Powering productivityThrough this integration with Citrix, LIKE.TG is building on its commitment to advance automated self-service across the enterprise, powering employee productivity and reducing costs for enterprises.Poor employee experiences can have a dramatic downstream impact on customer experiences. Workers at healthcare providers, for example, need simple, secure, and consistent access to software for viewing authorized private patient records and appointment schedules. Slow resolution of IT incidents can impede patients’ ability to receive care, particularly when employees are working from home without access to another device.Brian Nuernberg, manager of IT service delivery at North Carolina-based healthcare network Novant Health, says the organization has been challenged by the IT demands generated by remote work, particularly given the broader healthcare delivery challenges created by the pandemic.“Secure and consistent access to Citrix Virtual Applications and Desktops so that employees have the appropriate level of access to key information is mission-critical,” he notes.“With the Citrix ITSM Connector, we’ve been able to reduce the number of incidents resolved manually by 25%. We expect to more than double that number initially with the new Virtual Agent integration and see it increase as adoption spreads across the organization to unlock more productivity for our employees and provide the best patient experiences.”The new integration is available now in ITSM Virtual Agent Conversations and the Citrix ITSM Connector from the LIKE.TG Store.
Celebrating women’s achievements and reimagining the world of work
On International Women’s Day, we celebrate the extraordinary achievements of women and our collective effort to create a more gender-equal world. The occasion also offers an opportunity to reimagine progress. How can we make our communities more diverse, equitable, and inclusive? How can we make sure women can thrive where we live and work?These are critical questions at a moment of seismic shifts for all of us: navigating the “Great Reshuffling,” exploring new ways to work, reckoning with longstanding social injustice, and many more. The pandemic has changed all our lives in ways we never could have predicted. It has taken an especially heavy toll on women, including working mothers and women of color.According to the Women in the Workplace 2021 study from McKinsey in partnership with LeanIn.Org, 40% of women have considered leaving their organization or changing jobs. “Women are now significantly more burned out—and increasingly more so than men,” the report found.This kind of honest look at our current state shows just how much work remains. It also shows that women are leading and creating innovative paths forward.Helping women thriveFrom my point of view as a chief people officer, fostering an inclusive culture is the future of work and the key to growth for any company. That’s why we’re creating bridges of opportunity for women who dream of careers in the historically male-dominated tech industry.We’re partnering with organizations such as Women Back to Work, PowerToFly, and Fairygodboss—all to help women thrive. From returnship programs to supporting women after a career break to leadership development programs, we want to help women grow into their dream roles.I’m deeply proud of the extraordinary women on our team driving an inclusive people strategy at the core of LIKE.TG’s tremendous growth. This is a team that wants to lead a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make work better for everyone.We’ve made a pact to help our people live their best lives, do their best work, and fulfill our purpose together. When we follow through on that commitment, we help our customers simplify life for their employees and customers. These leaders help us put people at the center of everything we do. They recognize that women at all levels of our company make us stronger.In honor of International Women’s Day, I connected with a few of our many amazing female employees to gain their insights as we reimagine the new world of work.
Creating inclusionKaren Pavlin, chief equity and inclusion officer“The pandemic hasn’t just forced us to work differently. We’re also thinking about work differently. In my role, I want to make sure that people can explore those issues and get support. People will need different things. Everyone has experienced the pandemic in their own way. A large share of women—one in four according to a McKinsey study—are considering leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers because of the impact of COVID-19.“I try to remember that people we work with every day are going through different things all the time. Some are feeling anxious and burned out. Some are feeling liberated by not having a commute or spending more time with their dog. Chances are you’ve had some of these experiences or know someone intimately who has.”Building a better workplace for parentsErica Volini, SVP, partner go-to-market operations“We know that women and moms have been hit especially hard during the pandemic, with 42% of women saying they felt burned out in 2021, compared with 32% who said so in 2020, according to research from McKinsey. As a mother of a young child, I’m committed to changing the workplace and supporting working parents now more than ever.“Employees need to have the resources and built-in support during every moment that matters in their personal and career journeys—from taking leave to supporting a growing family to transitioning to a new position and taking on more responsibility in their careers.”Employee experience innovationsGretchen Alarcon, VP and GM, HR Service Delivery“As a working mom, the demands on my time change frequently (yes, even now that my kids are in college). So, I'm very sensitive to making sure employees can get access to the information they need, whenever they need it, and on any channel—because 11 pm is when someone might need to know about insurance coverage, not the next day.“But the employee experience has often had too much friction—with clunky, manual, and outdated processes that make it difficult to find information and get help. Businesses today must act with empathy to keep employees productive, happy, and engaged. This is especially true as many people reassess their role in favor of opportunities that align with their own personal goals and values. A people-centered employee experience, supported by technology that simplifies work, is critical.”
The evolving role of managersMelanie Lougee, head of Employee Workflow strategy“Over the last two years, managers have been on the front lines of so much change and uncertainty. Their role has evolved into a coach and career adviser, and they’re being challenged to balance their own work, their team’s work, and deadlines while finding new ways to build and inspire culture among a distributed team.“This has been an acute challenge faced by many women in the workforce who, along with navigating the manager balancing act, are balancing more responsibilities at home. Amid this shift, organizations need to create a culture of continuous learning, and they must implement technology that’s personalized to each employee’s needs. A single platform that supports managers in their evolved role will go a long way in the new world of work.”Tech transformationVanessa Smith, senior VP, industries and solution sales“A shift in power between employers and employees means technology is both a driver of productivity and business growth and a tool to support employees wherever and whenever they choose to work. But implementing technology for technology’s sake isn’t enough.“IDC estimates that more than $3 trillion have been invested in digital transformation initiatives globally over the past three years, but less than half of organizations implementing those projects have yet to achieve the expected outcomes.1 A relentless focus on adoption, and partnership across the organization, is what will make digital transformation work for businesses and their employees.”Meaningful workKelly Kent, chief transformation officer"In today’s increasingly competitive talent market, a maniacal focus on the top priorities impacting the business is vital. No one feels invigorated by working on low-value tasks. We need to reframe goal setting with this in mind.“Empowering employees to do more meaningful work and more clearly track their performance against business objectives can have a powerful impact on employee retention and satisfaction. We all want to feel connected and know that our daily work matters. And when we accomplish this alignment, we’re off to a great start enabling employees to also provide great customer experiences.”Find out more about the new world of work.1 IDC Worldwide Digital Transformation Spending Guide, V2 2021; The C-Suite Tech Agenda for 2021: Business Priorities, Hurdles, and Tech Investments, Doc #EUR147497321, March 2021.
LIKE.TG deepens commitment to hybrid work with new wayfinding technology
Companies shifting to permanent hybrid work environments are up against major challenges, including additional investment in new physical experiences for employees. This is complex and expensive. It involves bringing together systems, technology, and teams that have historically been siloed.But with every challenge comes an incredible opportunity to make work better. That’s why we’re excited to announce that we’ve re-platformed Mapwize indoor mapping technology into the Now Platform® in less than a year.Available today, LIKE.TG® Indoor Mapping helps businesses create great employee experiences. Say goodbye to investment in disparate systems and point solutions that don’t work together. Mapwize integrated into LIKE.TG will enhance our already-powerful workplace solutions.Built for the hybrid workplaceIDC estimates that, globally, 20% of organizations with 500 or more employees have either already invested in wayfinding technology or are planning to do so.We’re giving companies the technology they need with our first LIKE.TG Indoor Mapping use case, Workplace Indoor Mapping, an app available in our Workplace Service Delivery solution that makes desk hoteling and wayfinding simple.Workplace Indoor Mapping also offers multi-building wayfinding, which makes it easy and efficient for employees to go from building to building. This means they can focus on the work that matters most with minimal interruptions.Wayfinding technology is only effective when floor plans are accurately captured and kept up to date. Workplace Indoor Mapping helps employees work more efficiently, and it helps workplace managers design functional, accurate, and easy-to-follow floor plans.With Indoor Mapping Studio, also available today, teams can:
Create, edit, and deploy maps in real time to help ensure they’re updated consistently.
Manage surroundings beyond the indoor space to identify points of interest (restaurants, train stations, government buildings) or design elements (trees or logos).
Customize map design for a more personalized style that matches a company’s brand and identity.
Automate most of the map creation process to streamline tasks that don’t need to be monitored or controlled.
“When I joined the LIKE.TG team less than a year ago, I was excited about the potential to help global organizations navigate hybrid work environments,” says Mederic Morel, director of product management at LIKE.TG and former CEO and co-founder of Mapwize.“Today, I’m thrilled to see this vision come to life more fully. With mapping capabilities built into the Now Platform, we have a unique opportunity to empower employees and drive productivity. These solutions will help organizations stay nimble in the ever-changing hybrid work environment.”The hybrid work technology evolutionAs hybrid work becomes the norm, companies know they need to support employees wherever they work. Workplace Indoor Mapping, alongside other new Workplace Service Delivery enhancements, empowers employees to do their jobs effectively from wherever they choose to work.Additional updates help ensure the mundane logistics or tasks associated with going into the workplace fade into the background, enabling employees to easily:
Invite specific attendees and visitors to a reservation and add services such as catering or equipment.
Set preferences and bookmark favorites for locations.
Create hybrid meetings with Zoom or Microsoft Teams alongside reserving a physical space to help engage all meeting attendees.
Hybrid work comes to lifeCustomers across industries and sectors are already benefiting from Workplace Service Delivery to improve the workplace experience and meet employees where and how they work best.As Uber planned for a safe and voluntary return of employees to the physical workspace, it knew technology could help it better respond to changing regulations and uncertainty. Uber used LIKE.TG Workplace Service Delivery and Safe Workplace solutions for self-service workspace reservations, mobile health checks, and more. This helped ensure a seamless transition for employees returning to the office while helping people feel safe and supported.Find out more about how LIKE.TG is helping organizations reimagine the workplace for the future.
Bringing more flexibility to hybrid work
Amid a worldwide surge in COVID-19 cases, many businesses are postponing their return-to-workplace plans once again. As we kick off 2022, for many, a hybrid workplace may be the best solution.Organizations have embraced digital transformation to enable employee productivity from anywhere. Employees have thrived under flexible work arrangements. Today, we’re proud to announce updates to our Workplace Service Delivery solution that enable further flexibility and safety to support the future of hybrid work.The workplace reimaginedAlthough companies may eventually reopen their offices in earnest, the fundamental role of the office is evolving. The workplace is no longer the default location where most employees go every day. Instead, it’s becoming a destination for collaboration and brainstorming, as well as for key meetings.Employees want access to the workplace for this purpose, but only if the experience doesn’t add more hassle, stress, and frustration. They’re making decisions about where and how they work based on their personal comfort levels and needs.4 ways to simplify the employee experienceThe Workplace Service Delivery updates announced today enable flexibility, helping to make it simple and safe for employees to visit the workplace—when and how they feel comfortable. Employees can:1. Book cross-office events. As the office becomes an event center for company meetings and town halls, many meetings will involve teams across various offices. New group reservation capabilities make it easy to book room and desk reservations on behalf of team members or create reservations for workspaces and rooms across multiple locations at once, from desktop and mobile.
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.
Survey says: Total experience-focused companies outperform
Now, more than ever, the employee experience (EX) and customer experience (CX) are intertwined. Improving CX has a positive impact on EX, and vice versa.“Companies that excel at experience delivery don’t think of the two as separate,” notes Dave Wright, chief innovation officer at LIKE.TG, in the Summer 2022 issue of Workflow Quarterly. “Instead, they align EX and CX to multiply the effects of each. Rather than tracking and improving one or the other, they’re looking for ways to do both at once.”Indeed, organizations are aligning the two to create a positive total experience. To that end, 69% of 1,000 executives surveyed by LIKE.TG and ThoughtLab have modernized their IT platforms. According to our respondents, this was the single most effective move to align customer and employee experience.Other steps include collecting customer and employee feedback, digitizing customer processes to boost employee productivity, and measuring how employee engagement affects customer retention (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Top steps organizations have taken to drive total experience effectivenessTotal experience benefitsGreater revenue is the No. 1 advantage of aligning CX and EX, according to 60% of respondents. In addition, organizations benefit from better products and services, new business models, and improved reputation.More specifically, organizations that embrace total experience tend to see:
Greater customer retention
Higher-quality customer service
Heightened ability to attract customers
Improved data security and privacy for customers
Interestingly, these organizations also benefit from improved:
Worker health and safety
Employee data privacy
Teamwork and collaboration
Staff loyalty and retention
4 steps to optimize a hybrid work environment
Work is no longer a place. It’s an activity that can and does happen anywhere. As such, it’s given rise to hybrid work, which combines the collaborative atmosphere offices provide with the perks of working remotely. This model gives employees flexibility in their workdays and better work-life balance.It also has the potential to positively affect diversity, equity, and inclusion, according to McKinsey. That’s because underrepresented groups are the most likely to desire flexibility, the 2022 Future Forum Pulse Summer Snapshot reveals. By race or ethnicity, the report identifies Americans who prefer hybrid or fully remote work as:
88% Asian/Asian American
83% Black
81% Hispanic/Latinx
79% White
A flexible or hybrid work environment fosters inclusion. And an inclusive company culture is seven times more likely to be rated high-performing by its employees, McKinsey finds. Let’s explore four ways your organization can effectively manage a flexible work environment.1. Maximize the potential of hybrid workHybrid work isn’t going away. Managing it requires a fresh approach to project management. Traditional, project-based delivery methods fail to meet today’s business needs. The key to success is aligning investments to business value, but how?Watch our Hybrid work management webinar to find out how forming teams around products can facilitate favorable outcomes. Adopting a product-centric rather than project-based delivery method can help you identify and overcome bottlenecks to focus on providing the highest customer value.2. Put employees firstThe employee experience directly affects the customer experience, so it makes good business sense for organizations to prioritize their employees. Do your employees have the resources they need to do their best work? Empower them at every touch point, from onboarding all the way through offboarding.In Reimagine the workplace and support the hybrid workforce, leaders from NielsenIQ and the UK’s Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs discuss various aspects of hybrid work. Gain insights on the future of the workplace, real estate management, and employee productivity.3. Connect people, places, and technologyKeeping employees connected while enabling their flexibility can be a challenge. They rely on you to provide the services they need, whether they’re navigating an office space, collaborating with co-workers, or looking for answers to questions. And they want seamless experiences both virtually and in person.Empowering your hybrid workforce requires transparency to effectively nurture people and increase employee engagement. Get tips from human resources innovation partner Leapgen and biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.4. Plan for successA winning hybrid work strategy at any organization comes down to the policies and practices in place. In Hybrid work: Planning for what comes next, HR industry leader Josh Bersin shares findings from his The Hybrid Work Playbook to help inform organizational policies.You’ll learn how companies are redesigning their workspaces, the significance of employee feedback, how to help managers of remote and hybrid teams, and ways to upskill workers.
LIKE.TG named a Leader in Enterprise Service Management
We’re thrilled to announce that LIKE.TG has been named a Leader in the Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Service Management (ESM), Q4 2021. We believe this recognition validates our industry position and continued investment in workflow automation and capabilities addressing employee service delivery across the enterprise.Modernizing service deliveryLIKE.TG helps drive efficiency and collaboration to improve service experiences by providing a digital foundation that connects end-to-end process flows. Instead of delivering services separately by functional domain, services can be delivered in a manner that:
Connects systems and departments
Provides shared visibility across all services
Gives enterprises the ability to continuously improve services and processes using low-code tools
For example, the global business services team at Equinor, an international energy company, wanted to modernize service delivery, but its departments used different systems. Workflows could involve as many as seven departments for any request.To unify its fragmented environment and improve speed and quality of service, Equinor switched to ServiceNow. This move enabled Equinor to deliver global business services to approximately 49,000 stakeholders. They now have one centralized place to go to raise a request, with an experience that’s efficient and seamless.Improving employee satisfactionLIKE.TG also provides a modern employee experience platform for the new world of hybrid work. Instead of facing the complexity of threading together siloed processes, the Employee Center helps employees navigate to the right information, support, and systems at the right time from wherever they are.Experiences are personalized, and everything the employee needs is at their fingertips in one connected experience. When employees feel supported, they’re more likely to remain engaged, provide better customer service, and be loyal to the company.For example, Sanford Health strives to produce a five-star service delivery experience for its 50,000 employees so they can focus on taking care of patients.With the help of LIKE.TG, the organization created a unified service portal—a single source for employees to go to for answers to questions. As a result, 97% of cases were completed within service-level agreements, and employee satisfaction improved due to the case resolution rate.Empowering employeesTo accelerate digital innovation, LIKE.TG helps organizations build new applications with low-code at speed and scale so employees can get the services they need. With skilled developers in short supply, organizations can meet the demand for faster application development and rapid automation by looking to business users, or citizen developers, to digitize new services or extend existing ones with low-code tools.Canadian energy company Suncor brought in LIKE.TG to replace its aging IT ticketing system. As strong interest in the platform arose from other parts of the business, including HR and supply chain, the organization built a dedicated development team to extend LIKE.TG capabilities.Using low-code, that team developed an application in just a few days, with a 90% reduction in application development effort.
Turning a vision for better employee engagement into reality
When you visit the About section of a company’s website, you probably expect to find information about the company’s culture and values. In how many cases are those statements more hype than reality? Does the company do the things it needs to do to help its employees be their best?It’s never been more critical to foster employee engagement and productivity. Attracting, nurturing, and retaining the best and brightest talent has always been a challenge—regardless of the economy’s ebbs and flows. More human resources leaders are recognizing the employee experience is a crucial component to success.Changing employee expectationsA big part of the challenge is that employees are bringing new expectations to the workplace. Their experience as digital consumers has shifted their ideas about how work should function.Today’s employees want self-service tools that allow them to find answers fast. They expect easy access to information. They want an intuitive way to request the resources and tools they need to do their jobs. In other words, work shouldn’t be a lot of work.LIKE.TG is helping companies create compelling, seamless, and consistent employee experiences with a single, holistic platform. It provides the foundation that allows organizations to streamline and optimize the employee experience in three areas: people, places, and global business services.
Empowering workersA great employee experience can do a lot more than make work easier for employees. It can free them to focus on high-value tasks instead of administrative minutiae. It also confirms an employer’s message that its people are its most valuable asset.Great employee experiences prove a company is willing to invest in talented workers and give them what they need to thrive.Rethinking workspacesToday’s workplaces aren’t just locations to plug in devices and attend meetings. They’re places to connect and collaborate virtually or face to face.Organizations that want to improve employee engagement in this age of hybrid work need a fresh perspective on what it means to be an employee—a definition that’s constantly evolving. Employers must bring together people and places safely with the digital tools to reserve and redefine workspaces, support visitor processes, and enable creativity and productivity.Promoting efficienciesModern enterprises aren’t confined by borders. Their employees can work from almost anywhere.To maintain the consistency that’s essential to a great employee experience—and keep the cost of employee services in check—many businesses are embracing global business services. These services help innovative organizations seamlessly deliver standards and quality no matter where or how employees choose to work.Numerous LIKE.TG customers are already reimagining the employee experience and creating the type of workplace that empowers their people to reach new heights. Read their stories in our Book of Knowledge: Employee Experience.
Employee experience: How we can tackle the Australian skills shortage
The Australian IT sector is at a crossroads. The industry is rapidly growing, with the demand for new technology services and projects at an all-time high, according to Deloitte and the Australian Computer Society (ACS). But the ongoing shortage of workers is impacting the employee experience and the sector’s ability to deliver.COVID-19, border closures, and limited immigration have combined into a perfect storm for employers seeking the right skills. The IT industry is no exception. But, unlike many industries whose workforces have been upended as a result of the pandemic, the tech sector has long been plagued by labor supply issues.Broader talent opportunitiesDomestically, a small population and long-term underinvestment in the right education, skills development programs, and training opportunities have left the Aussie technology industry struggling to sustain itself. As a result, many firms look further afield for the right talent. Yet, national immigration policies continue to materially impact the ability of many organizations to quickly acquire skills from the global job market.Australian businesses are now battling many countries facing similar challenges. Reopening the nation’s borders will provide some welcome relief, reducing pressure on local workers and delayed projects. Opening new skilled labor pathways, broadening fast-track schemes, and reducing immigration requirements can further ease pressure—especially as the global talent war heats up.The industry also needs to change its expectations around minimum skills requirements and be open to upskilling non-traditional candidates to fill in-demand roles. Structured, career hire programs should focus on attracting people from diverse groups, including a range of socio-economic backgrounds, educational experiences, and mature workers looking for new opportunities.
The power of partnershipAn overall rethink on how Australia’s governments and industry come together to build skills—and reskill—is also needed to solve the sector’s skills shortage. A focused, strategic approach is required, with governments, industry, and education providers coming together to evolve and implement coordinated policies that ramp up the nation’s skill base.Good progress has been made, as evidenced by the Skill Finder Platform and the Victorian Government’s Digital Jobs program. But there’s still plenty of room for growth and increased investment in more state and national programs.At LIKE.TG, we’ve been proactive in developing initiatives to increase our own local workforce. We combined with our partner ecosystem, training provider MEGT, and TAFE NSW for the NextGen Program. This offers candidates at any career stage a pathway into the tech industry, without requiring a degree.Through our partner network, we provide candidates with on-the-job training alongside structured learning at TAFE. This year, we plan to significantly scale the initiative to make a real dent in our supply shortage.The employee experience equationRetaining IT staff in a post-pandemic world will be top of mind for many businesses in 2022. COVID-19 has created a new breed of worker who’s more interested in flexibility and a family-friendly workplace, with streamlined processes for working anywhere, anytime.Shaping a winning employee experience can help ensure greater loyalty, reduce turnover, and pay long-term dividends. Even better, a great employee experience has been shown to improve customer experience too.Employers with a culture that supports hybrid and remote work and an ethos that focuses on outcomes versus time in the office will have the most success in attracting talent. Hybrid work is here to stay, and businesses need to look at how they integrate this model into their long-term plans.
At LIKE.TG, we’ve invested heavily in reinventing our office space, creating more collaboration areas and including key amenities, such as a game room, barista-café, and gym. This helps our teams work more creatively while improving employee well-being.Key areas for organizations to improve include work-life balance, training and development, and benefits. The Australian IT sector can only continue to grow if the industry and government step up to focus on employee development and skilling initiatives.The approach must be multifaceted and include:
More partnerships between government, industry, and training providers
Faster, simpler immigration requirements
Broader pathways to enter the industry
Employee experiences that attract and retain workers for the long-term
The future of the industry—and its workforce—depend on it.Find out how LIKE.TG helps organizations improve the employee experience.
New world of work: The great re-evaluation
The “Great Resignation” put employees in the driver’s seat. A new LIKE.TG-commissioned survey suggests that Canadian workers are re-evaluating their workplace priorities.This has led to a shift in what Canadian workers demand from potential workplaces, forcing employers to reconsider their overall experience offerings.Canadian office workers now expect something more fulfilling and meaningful than a paycheck. In order to attract and retain talent in the new world of work, local employers must look beyond traditional workplace policies and compensations.In search of greater flexibility and fulfillmentAs companies move toward a hybrid work model, many employees are weary of the challenges caused by work-from-home (WFH) culture. Difficulty unplugging and increased burnout continue to be issues for many Canadians and are some of the top reasons office employees considered leaving their jobs. Despite that, employees did enjoy some of the perks of WFH, especially the freedom to work their preferred hours.Beyond the desire for more flexibility, Canadian office workers want digital tools that make everyday work simpler, easier, and faster. Specifically, they’d like machine learning to handle the tasks they find tedious.As artificial intelligence (AI) technology becomes more available and convenient, employees are looking to AI to automate their menial work tasks. AI offers the potential to decrease stress and burnout while freeing employees to focus on the more essential and fulfilling aspects of their jobs.Click the image below to see an infographic of our key findings from an online survey in Canada.Accessibility note: The infographic is transcribed at the end of this blog.
The Great Re-Evaluation is underway. Canadian employers must evolve with employee expectations to attract top talent. Find out how LIKE.TG helps organizations prepare for and embrace the new world of work.Transcript of infographicThe Great Re-Evaluation Has BegunEmployee experience matters more than ever.Find out why employers need to meet evolved employee expectations to attract and retain talent.Cash is not kingIn the battle for talent, high salaries do not trump tedious work.71% of Canadian office workers would never take a frustrating or unrewarding job, even for higher pay.And...they also want purpose.In a time when people are rethinking what matters to them, there is an increasing trend to do work that is more meaningful and contributes to larger societal goals.Flexibility is desiredThe most attractive thing an employer could offer Canadian office workers is flexibility in work hours.48% of office employees say the freedom to work preferred hours would inspire them to move to a new organization.But...they also want to keep those hours reasonable.Increased burnout (32%) and increased work hours (28%) are the top reasons office workers would leave their current jobs.Let them unplugThe pandemic has created many challenges that continue two years later.41% – Difficulty unplugging is one of the top challenges of working remotely.27% – This is one of the top reasons Canadian office workers would leave their current job.Canadians are looking to AI to reduce stress and burnout and free up time.Canadian office workers feel the benefits of artificial intelligence include the potential to:
Reduce stress – 46%
Free up time – 33%
Reduce burnout – 23%
Solutions that help employees unplug are one of the most attractive things an employer could offer office workers.2 in 3 want their employers to invest more in solutions that reduce menial tasks.82% - 8 in 10 Canadian office workers see automation as the most beneficial application of AI at work, especially when used for IT services, computer backups, analytics and reporting, routine tasks, spreadsheet-based processes, and more.Good news—change is at your fingertipsIn 2022, AI is an accessible and powerful tool to make an employee’s work faster, easier, and more accurate.Discover how LIKE.TG can help drive the change Canadian office workers want to see.Start nowThis online survey was facilitated by Asking Canadians. The study was in field between Jan. 10 and 18, 2022, and surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,501 English and French-Canadian office workers working in companies with 500 or more employees.
3 ways to supercharge HR digital transformation
Human resources (HR) digital transformation isn’t just a switch you can flip. It’s a never-ending process that starts at different points for every organization and team. When I meet with HR leaders across industries, I’m always excited to learn about their unique, complex challenges.As we stare down a new wave of economic uncertainty, it’s never been more important for HR leaders to make a strong business case for HR digital transformation, whether for our CEOs, boards, or investors.In a survey by Fortune and Deloitte, 76% of CEOs said they have a “pessimistic” 12-month outlook for the global economy. Especially in this climate, business leaders want to know what kind of value they’re getting from their technology investments. They also want to improve productivity and efficiency across the workforce.I know from experience how difficult it is to implement massive HR changes at a global organization, no matter the global economic pressures. That’s why I joined LIKE.TG: We offer a world-class platform that delivers tremendous value for our employees, managers, and company. We do this for our customers too.HR leaders need new ways to deliver for their people and drive business success. As an HR business leader, I want to share three ways a company can supercharge its HR digital transformation.1. Integrate HR and digital technology teamsHR and digital technology (DT) teams need to integrate their functions and rewire their partnership to be more strategic, predictive, and proactive.People already have consumer-grade technology that simplifies their lives in radical ways every day—from ordering a ride to filling a prescription. They expect the same at work. HR and DT teams need to align to deliver that experience, which unlocks their talent advantage and business growth.With that integrated vision and partnership at the top of our company, our HR and DT teams can set achievable key performance indicators and better understand our processes. Together, we focus on three imperatives to measure our progress:
Velocity: Innovate quickly to remain competitive and drive ongoing success.
Intelligence: Move away from manual reporting to real-time predictive analytics.
Experience: Create great employee and customer experiences that minimize both costs and inefficiencies.
Years ago, when a LIKE.TG employee had an issue—anything from requesting a cellphone to getting an approval for business travel—our self-service tool only handled a fraction of those transactions.HR and DT worked together to improve the AI and machine learning for our digital self-service tool. In 2022, it handled about 80% of employee questions and issues, even at higher volume, for our growing, global workforce.
2. Invest in the right technologyWhen companies cut costs, some leaders think they can’t prioritize the employee experience. This is a misconception. An exceptional employee experience doesn’t need to be expensive. Thoughtfully curating experiences for employees and managers can boost employee productivity and engagement while saving time and resources for organizations.HR leaders need digital solutions that automate tasks and insights to help them predict what their people need. When customers work with LIKE.TG to streamline the employee experience with HR Service Delivery, they don’t have to spend a fortune upgrading or buying new systems. They can simply connect their existing systems to the Now Platform for an improved experience.This simplifies enterprisewide activity into a single, integrated view. Then we offer great experiences across the platform, integrating tools in one place for employees.For example, when Delta Air Lines needed to launch a one-stop shop to support its 75,000 people during the pandemic, LIKE.TG helped build it in just 48 hours.Beyond the experience, the Now Platform offers tremendous return on investment (ROI). In 2021, Forrester Consulting studied the potential ROI of deploying LIKE.TG HR Service Delivery at several companies. The study showed that organizations aiming to improve workplace productivity could see:
Increased ROI (up to 254%) and savings (up to $7.62 million) over a three-year span
More than 10,000 hours saved by using self-service for up to 80% of repeat inquiries
Up to a 30% boost in productivity during onboarding and offboarding
3. Create a single viewHR teams have a similar set of daily questions, ranging from how to attract and retain great talent to how to progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.HR leaders are looking for ways to make those decisions based on the data and insights available to them. They want to distinguish the signal from the noise, and they need to visualize data in real time rather than waiting for lagging reports.That’s why LIKE.TG built the CHRO Dashboard on the Now Platform. The dashboard offers a control tower view with easy access to insights, from the enterprise level to functions, down to teams and individuals.Within a few minutes and clicks, I can gather data on an emerging issue—a bump in the attrition rate in a particular location, for example—and take action to resolve it in real time, on the go. It helps us make data-driven decisions quickly using the most relevant, timely insights—all to create a better experience for our people.Find out more about how LIKE.TG helps HR digital transformation.
4 ways Manager Hub simplifies the role of the manager
The workforce is facing massive disruption. A skills shortage is challenging leaders to rethink their talent strategy. And 81% of workers feel at risk of burning out, according to a study by Mercer.At the same time, employees are reevaluating what they want from work. A lack of flexibility and limited opportunities for advancement are among the top 10 reasons U.S. workers left their jobs in 2021, according to Pew Research. Business leaders today know that the employee experience will remain critical amid every workforce challenge they face now and in the future.The evolving role of the managerManagers sit at the center of this workforce disruption. As the connective tissue between an organization and its employees, their role is more complex, and more important, than ever before.Over the last few years, the function of the manager has evolved from a driver of deadlines to a coach who connects employees to the right projects, roles, and resources. People leaders need to focus on team well-being, ensuring employees have the right tools and opportunities to be successful from anywhere.Unfortunately, the technology managers use every day wasn’t built for them. They deal with too many point solutions that don’t work together. A study of Fortune 500 companies revealed U.S. employees toggle between apps and websites roughly 1,200 times each day. What if we could change all that?Introducing Manager HubLIKE.TG® Manager Hub is a purpose-built destination that provides personalized resources to help people leaders stay informed and engaged with their teams. It streamlines work so managers can focus on their people, not processes.We launched Manager Hub as part of the Now Platform® Tokyo release. Based on hundreds of hours listening to the unique needs of our customers and their employees, it’s a single platform that powers the entire manager experience.
Unlock AI-powered efficiency with HR shared services
Updated Oct. 5, 2023More than two decades ago, organizational theorist Dave Ulrich recognized a problem: Most businesses were underusing human resources by treating it like an administrative function rather than a strategic powerhouse.UIrich introduced the concept of HR shared services, a model that aims to boost the strategic impact of HR teams by streamlining legacy systems to drive greater agility for employees and improved cost savings for the bottom line.An uncertain labor market, inflation, and increasing pressure to cut costs have raised the stakes for HR. As a result, executives are showing renewed interest in Ulrich’s model. Let's look at how unleashing an HR shared services strategy can transform your HR function and team.From chaos to clarityAs Ulrich discovered, navigating HR services can be an arduous task for employees. Agents and users must grapple with fragmented service centers and outdated systems while facing a lack of transparency throughout their processes.In the realm of HR service, visibility remains a considerable challenge. Service teams often find themselves operating in silos, impeding their ability to gain comprehensive insights into their service operations. This leads to a cumbersome experience for employees, who must navigate multiple portals, often with limited self-service capabilities.In this complex landscape, both sides of the service request process crave an improved and seamless experience. Solving this is about more than enhancing efficiency; it's about streamlining operations, reducing costs, and saving time for HR organizations.AI for better self-serviceIn Ulrich’s original vision for HR shared services, the three branches of HR—Centers of Excellence, service centers, and business partners—could share resources and best practices. AI wasn’t part of the mix.Today, however, HR teams can automate many repetitive tasks with AI capabilities to create a smarter, more connected experience for the whole organization. Modern digital platforms can perform microlevel tasks, such as automatically:
Handling a new hire’s onboarding experience
Serving up a quick how-to guide to a manager after a stressful meeting
Unlocking AI to make it easy for users to get what they need with a 24/7 Virtual Agent that understands their requests in natural language
With the power of AI, organizations can deliver relevant information, make predictions and recommendations, and automate repetitive tasks. These outcomes enable employees and customers to focus on areas humans excel at: creative thinking, customer interactions, and unpredictable work.
How teams benefitAdopting AI as part of your HR shared services plan can deliver the capabilities, security, and analytics you need to help people work easier, faster, and smarter. When businesses switch to a shared services model, the whole organization can benefit in four ways:
Supercharged productivity – Embracing a shared services strategy creates new opportunities to inject productivity into all areas of the organization. Using AI to elevate solutions, products, and employee workflows can free employees to focus on the work that's most important and rewarding.
Automation and consolidation – Using automation can simplify the number of tools and systems that need to be maintained. Content governance can help ensure self-service information is continuously relevant and effective.
Business resilience – Under a shared services model, HR uses its resources more efficiently, allowing teams to respond faster. AI and automation help free HR decision-makers for high-level planning, meaning no conversation happens without HR’s input.
Cost and time savings – Streamlining processes helps reduce costs and save time for employees. The division of labor is more efficient since experienced HR professionals can handle strategic decisions while other teams take care of lower-hanging fruit.
AI-powered HR shared services in actionAs a company dedicated to fostering connections and delivering happiness, Zoom embarked on a journey to enhance its employee and customer experiences. The company partnered with LIKE.TG to optimize its internal processes and provide exceptional support for its 8,000 employees, affectionately known as "Zoomies."With historical growth, Zoom had acquired various disconnected tools. The company realized it needed to better connect its employees to align with its culture of delivering happiness. LIKE.TG AI-powered HR and IT solutions enabled Zoom to consolidate all its employee services and support into a unified service portal called AskZoomPX.Offering consumer-grade self-service, AskZoomPX became a one-stop shop for HR services and knowledge base articles, averaging 2,000 monthly tickets. This empowered Zoom employees, especially new hires eager for self-service info, to find what they needed when they needed it.By centralizing support, LIKE.TG helped Zoom reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR), resulting in significant annual cost savings. Zoom reduced simple queries by 75%, freeing agents to focus on strategic tasks. Providing a single source of truth, this centralization also led to more resilient IT and HR services and better-informed decision-making.Partnering with LIKE.TG, Zoom upgraded its employee experience and improved its IT service efficiency while maintaining its dedication to connecting people and delivering happiness.Find out more about building an HR shared services strategy to drive productivity while boosting bottom-line benefits.
4 steps to an engaging employee experience
Businesses face tough competition for employees in today’s job market. According to McKinsey research, 89% of employees want to feel they’re living their purpose. For 70% of survey respondents, that sense of purpose is largely tied to their work. If an employer doesn’t meet that need, many workers will flee to a company that does.Cultivating a climate that helps workers fulfill their purpose is vital—and can lead to increased employee satisfaction and decreased turnover. Here are four steps to help you create an attractive, engaging employee experience.1. Know what doesn’t workPromoting an inviting atmosphere is as much about knowing what doesn’t work as it is about knowing what does. Research firm UNLEASH surveyed 1,000 organizations to glean insights about unsuccessful human resources (HR) projects.Discover the findings in our Why HR projects succeed webinar. You’ll also learn the steps NASA, DHL, and Amazon took to elevate their employee experiences.2. Meet employees where they areIn today’s hybrid world of work, some employees work in the office, while others work remotely. Managing both personas can be challenging. How do you meet the needs of one group without isolating the other?Gain insights in Managing a dual workforce. The panel discussion of HR experts includes global HR analyst Josh Bersin, as well as HR leaders from McDonald’s, food company Mondelez, and transportation company Ryder System. Get up to speed on the latest trends and discover the benefits of an omnichannel employee experience.3. Create connected experiencesSixty percent of remote workers feel disconnected from their co-workers, according to Pew Research Center. Less connection can lead to less engagement and commitment and, ultimately, employee departures. Your workers depend on you to create experiences that help them feel connected to their colleagues and the company.In Redesigning work, two LIKE.TG transformation officers give pointers on how to start thinking differently about hybrid work. Learn ways to:
Attract and retain talent
Drive worker productivity
Personalize the employee journey
Support managers
Find out how LIKE.TG unified the employee experience internally using our HR Service Delivery and Workplace Service Delivery solutions.4. Simplify employee exitsTurnover is inescapable, no matter how connected and engaging your employee experience might be. Help departing workers exit with grace by streamlining offboarding. Watch our Managing employee exits webinar for tips. A LIKE.TG business analyst and a people product director detail how we simplified the LIKE.TG offboarding experience through automation.
LIKE.TG and Zoom expand partnership to deliver great experiences
In today’s complex, hybrid world of work, collaboration and productivity can quickly give way to chaos and silos if organizations don’t prioritize digital business transformation.At LIKE.TG, our solutions help companies make the most of their digital business efforts by connecting teams, processes, and silos. Zoom has a similar goal: to help people connect, collaborate, and work together. Our shared commitment to our customers means we’re constantly innovating together to create great experiences that help make the world work better.Today at Zoomtopia, Zoom’s annual customer event, I was thrilled to join Zoom Founder and CEO Eric Yuan on stage to announce our expanded partnership. The announcement highlighted new integrations, available immediately, that will help our joint customers elevate productivity and improve collaboration across their organizations.Meeting employees where they areThe pandemic permanently altered how businesses view work and the employee experience. With dispersed teams and changing workplaces, digital services need to be accessible, consistent, and available at employees’ fingertips—regardless of where they’re working.We’re introducing LIKE.TG® Employee Center for Zoom so that employees can access the benefits of Employee Center directly within Zoom. This is a game changer, freeing employees from spending time and cycles toggling between apps to get work done.
This solution builds on the LIKE.TG Virtual Agent integration with Zoom Team Chat we announced earlier this year to deliver self-service to employees when and where they need it. Without ever leaving Zoom, employees can:
Get help across departments
Make desk reservations
Find company news and resources
Access personalized tools and information
Simplifying the service agent experienceWith 58% of customers saying they’ll pay for better customer service, according to Forbes, building cohesive, connected experiences isn’t a choice for companies; it’s an imperative. We’re taking our integrations with Zoom one step further to simplify the experience as agents provide service and support.Zoom Contact Center for LIKE.TG gives service agents a single place to get work done. It brings Zoom Contact Center interactions—such as inbound and outbound calling, click-to-dial capabilities, call logging, and call notes—directly into LIKE.TG so agents can effectively manage customer communications and resolve issues fast.
Incoming calls from Zoom Contact Center are automatically matched with customer records in ServiceNow. Providing critical customer information, such as the products owned and preferred language, allows agents to route customers to the most qualified agent to provide more personalized service. Call details are automatically logged, reducing manual data entry and driving agent productivity.We’re also enabling Ticket Collaboration with Zoom Team Chat so that service agents can resolve issues fast with live collaboration in Zoom. Agents can convene and collaborate across multiple teams on open tickets, helping to ensure they have the right information and resources to quickly solve requests.Empowering your greatest assetsAs work continues to evolve, the ability to collaborate and communicate quickly and effectively will be a critical differentiator.I’m incredibly proud that, together with Zoom, we’ll help organizations simplify workflows, boost employee productivity, and create great customer experiences to make work better for everyone.The innovations are available today in the LIKE.TG Store.
How prebuilt ERP workflows tame unruly source-to-pay operations
Legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are good at executing transactions and producing document-based outputs, such as purchase orders. But they fall short when it comes to connecting the work of users across departments and functions. Prebuilt ERP workflows can help.Having spent more than 25 years in the ERP space, I’ve seen only a handful of customers with a single ERP instance. Most have heterogenous landscapes with many ERP instances of different release levels with point solutions bolted on top.Faced with challenging economic conditions and system landscapes that are expensive and difficult to maintain, organizations are looking for ways to reduce costs and create efficiencies. At the same time, they’re wondering how to provide better experiences for their employees and external stakeholders, such as suppliers.Should they innovate or reduce risk? Should they drive down costs or focus on building mutually beneficial supplier relationships? The answer to both questions is a resounding yes. Organizations can manage and control spend, scale business, and reach risk and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals with prebuilt ERP workflows.Addressing ERP implementation challengesERP system landscapes have typically grown over decades, often through mergers and acquisitions. They tend to be burdened by customizations, add-ons, and extensions. As a result, teams work from multiple sources of truth that provide limited visibility and create silos. This inhibits integration and cross-functional collaboration.Lack of appropriate system support can lead to considerable “noise” in the procurement process. For example: Employees are frustrated with difficult-to-use specialist systems, so they resort to ordering online. They circumvent established purchasing processes, choosing to expense their purchases rather than using existing suppliers and contracts. This complicates spend management, resulting in fewer discount opportunities.In turn, already-taxed procurement and finance specialists are burdened with tasks that generate zero value, such as responding to employee and supplier requests about nondelivery, incorrect delivery of an order, or nonpayment of invoices, to name a few.According to LIKE.TG customer benchmarking,1 procurement and finance teams spend more than 50% of their time managing this noise. What if there were an easier way to provide a better overall purchasing experience for employees through self-service and automated guidance?
Enter prebuilt ERP workflowsPrebuilt ERP workflows can help organizations solve problems that elude point solutions and underlying ERP systems. They deliver out-of-the-box functionality that provides a single engagement layer for:
Enhanced user experience
Improved process orchestration
Automated, self-service tasks
LIKE.TG prebuilt workflows don’t replace transactional systems. Rather, they help organizations connect silos between those systems to enable innovation in user experience, work orchestration, and automation. In this way, they can help organizations achieve fast and high returns on the investments they’ve already made.How fast? Average deployment of LIKE.TG Source-to-Pay workflow takes about 11 weeks. It allows organizations to quickly run spend through the system, onboard thousands of suppliers in a matter of weeks, and use sophisticated task management to automate issue resolution.Boosting procurement team productivityThe AI-powered Sourcing and Procurement Operations workflow boosts procurement team productivity. At the same time, it increases spend under management and employee engagement with multichannel, guided experiences.By deploying Sourcing and Procurement Operations, a global sports apparel company estimates it will save $1 billion on procurement by fiscal year 2025. The company went from more than 24 systems and more than 12 ways to start a requisition to a single starting point for any kind of procurement.Unifying all systems into automated workflows has helped the company increase spend under management and its ability to monitor and increase diversity, equity, and inclusion spending to reach its sustainability goals.Onboarding, engaging, and offboarding suppliersThe Supplier Lifecycle Operations workflow onboards, engages, and offboards suppliers with integrated risk management to help organizations create a more sustainable and ethical supply base.A leading aerospace manufacturer realized a 300% return on investment by using a global standard supplier workflow platform. The manufacturer consolidated processes that span finance, supply chain, and legal departments and business systems, from ERP and email to spreadsheets and contracts.As a result, the company can engage with its business partners across a variety of channels, all orchestrated in a single environment that helps reduce part stock-outs and ensure compliance with export requirements.
Reaping the benefits of ERP workflowsLIKE.TG prebuilt workflows aren’t limited to procurement or supply chain. They extend to adjacent business areas such as finance, ESG, and risk and compliance operations. In a true better-together play, we ensure that experiences, data, and process flows are integrated across those offerings.ERP workflows connect people, processes, and data, improving efficiency and productivity. They help provide:
One delightful experience for everyone: casual users, department specialists, and suppliers across devices
Multichannel access, meeting users where they are
Increased process efficiencies
Decreased cost and churn
Shortened procurement cycle times
Fast supplier onboarding
Prebuilt workflows can typically address 80% to 90% of an organization’s ERP requirements, helping resolve process breaks. To address the other 10% to 20%, LIKE.TG App Engine provides no-code and low-code capabilities to build custom solutions and fill any remaining white spaces in a controlled and scalable manner.Line-of-business stakeholders often have the creativity and subject matter expertise to optimize ERP systems, but not the technical knowledge. Low-code and no-code technologies put easy-to-use tools in the hands of the people who best understand these processes, while offering the necessary guidance and control by IT to monitor the development and deployment of such applications.Saving time and moneyA global agrochemical manufacturing company struggled with data consistency, accuracy, and integrity in its core business processes. Employees manually retrieved and aggregated data from their ERP environment and various point solutions, leading to delays and data inaccuracies.The company turned to App Engine and built workflow extensions to accommodate the master data and task interactions with these transactional systems. Export and post-shipment documentation processes have dramatically accelerated—from one week to less than one day—while order fulfillment processes have shrunk from three hours to 30 minutes.Automating and eliminating the noise of nonvalue-adding tasks translates into real savings—measured in work hours, the ability to repurpose valuable resources, cost reduction through discounts, or improved supplier relationships. That money in the bank goes a long way to help with supply assurance, brand recognition, and achievement of ESG goals.LIKE.TG ERP workflows transform what’s possible, at every point on the cost and risk curve. It’s time to say yes to both employee satisfaction and spend control.Find out more about how LIKE.TG helps organizations modernize ERP workflows.1 Benchmarking data from current LIKE.TG Source-to-Pay Operations customers
Using real-time data and insights in the competition for talent
In today’s job market, competition for talent is fierce. According to a survey by Fortune and Deloitte, 71% of CEOs said they “expect talent shortages to continue.”People are reevaluating their priorities by quitting (or quiet quitting), starting their own businesses, retiring early, searching for a renewed sense of purpose at work, or taking advantage of more opportunities given the flexibility remote work provides.High employee turnover means the talent skills gap remains a major risk for companies. HR leaders are looking for new ways to attract and retain people with the skills to adapt to evolving business needs.New maps for talent acquisition (TA) leadersI know from experience how daunting these challenges are. Before I joined LIKE.TG, I helped lead and centralize the talent acquisition strategy at The Walt Disney Company. Disney’s reach is vast. It’s a massive, global conglomerate that owns more than 200 companies, covering movies, resorts, cruise lines, TV networks, consumer products, video games, and more.With 200,000 employees across brands, we had a wide variety of talent needs. When you imagine the skills required to work as a “cast member” at Disneyland Paris, it’s a very different profile from a news analyst at ABC News, an animator at Pixar, or a producer at ESPN.Every TA leader has their own, unique set of issues. As the competition for talent intensifies, recruiting and retaining workers remains the common pain point for all TA leaders—not just at companies with Disney’s reach. Taking one look at this uncertain economic landscape, TA leaders can see they need new road maps.That’s why I joined ServiceNow. For a TA leader who wants to power her talent strategy with smart technology and insights, this is the company with the platform and technology to design those solutions—for our people and our customers.Recruitment has become one of the most important strategic levers for companies. It’s shifted from being viewed as a transactional lever to one that requires a sophisticated approach, grounded in data. With the rising importance of people strategy within companies, TA leaders have a seat at the table. TA teams need the right data and insights to help C-suite leaders make smart decisions and navigate the turbulent talent market.
3 ways we use the power of our people and techAt LIKE.TG, we provide leaders with the data and insights they need in three key ways:1. Gaining a single view for quick actionThe LIKE.TG CHRO dashboard gives HR and TA leaders a single view of real-time data and insights across the enterprise. We filter the most important information to make data-driven decisions and can solve problems quickly.If we see that a team in a specific location is struggling to recruit diverse talent, we can take immediate action that day. We don’t have to chase a moving target with monthly or quarterly reports.2. Crowdsourcing the best talentFor TA teams in today’s market, it’s not enough to use data and insights. At LIKE.TG, we want to go further and use the scale of our 20,000-person workforce to map the best talent.That’s why we’re developing new ways to identify top achievers across the talent landscape—all based on crowdsourcing from our employees and their professional networks. We’re also working on new ways to better quantify and innovate our “quality of hire” measures so that we can focus on recruiting and developing the best talent at all levels.3. Simplifying the hiring process and reducing biasNo matter the size or industry of the organization, we all want our TA teams to be more productive and efficient. We also want to automate transactional processes for our hiring managers and recruiters so that they can do more of the strategic work they enjoy.We’re using our own platform to create workflows that support TA teams. For example, we needed a tool to model candidate offers quickly and easily. One of our team members got to help build the Offer Calculator in just three weeks. This helps recruiters quickly check a candidate’s offer based on anonymous comparisons and local market data.Recruiters love this tool because they can get real-time data on how the offer stacks up, rather than scrolling through different spreadsheets and systems. Most important, it helps ensure equitable, objective offer packages.These are just a few of the ways LIKE.TG harnesses the power of our technology to simplify work and create new workflows for HR and TA teams. With solutions like these, our company and customers can feel confident competing for the best talent, no matter how tough the competition is.Find out more about how LIKE.TG helps create a unified employee experience from end to end.
How to boost employee efficiency in the new world of work
In modern organizations, employee efficiency matters just as much as—if not more than—productivity. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, they capture different phenomena. Productivity measures how much work an employee gets done overall. Efficiency refers to an employee’s ability to get more done in less time, with fewer resources.Executives who focus on one at the expense of the other could be missing out on a crucial part of the employee experience and hampering their ability to innovate.Why employee efficiency?Although employees spend hours attending meetings and answering emails, many feel like they’re not accomplishing anything. Even if they are productive, they’re not necessarily efficient.Completing tasks might require unnecessary steps, pose avoidable roadblocks, or force workers to seek help or approval from outside teams such as engineering or human resources (HR). About half of employees report spending two hours or more on repetitive tasks, according to the Formstack 2022 State of Digital Maturity report.The majority of executives (80%) are open to changing key workplace processes such as meeting structure and cadence to avoid wasting time on pointless activities, McKinsey found. The problem, executives say, is that their current processes often create silos and foster poor communication. As a result, it takes much longer to get work done than it should.Inefficiency has consequences beyond missed deadlines and delayed product launches. Workplace inefficiency can lead to attrition and reduced morale. This is especially crucial right now, when companies are struggling to retain employees.A striking 40% of workers say they’re likely to leave their job within the next three to six months, even if they don’t have another job lined up, according to another McKinsey study. When employees feel like their efforts are futile, they get frustrated. The downstream effects include unhappy customers and less innovative products.An inefficient employee is a disengaged employee. That’s hugely important: Gallup’s 2022 State of the Global Workplace Report found that only 21% of employees feel engaged at work. Employee engagement is particularly important at a time when so many companies are short-staffed.
Efficiency drives engagementEngaged employees who are able to get work done quickly and enthusiastically tend to be willing to go the extra mile at work, seek out new opportunities to learn, and take on more responsibilities. They also experience less stress, less anger, and fewer health issues.Let’s look at an example of how efficiency can drive engagement. Traditionally, marketing teams have needed help from development teams to create new web landing pages. While marketing handles the content, development makes sure everything works on the back end.Rather than quickly spinning up a new page to reach new audiences, marketing must go through a lengthy process to secure the resources needed. This inefficiency creates opportunities for miscommunication and diverts valuable development resources from high-stakes projects.New technologies have emerged that can mitigate this problem. Specifically, many teams are now using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to turn this cumbersome process into a quick, repeatable workflow. Smart technologies can automate the process or serve up quick pointers on how to create a landing page.Real-life examplesAutomation is playing a key role in driving efficiency and engagement for many organizations.Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab used LIKE.TG Enterprise Onboarding and Transitions to digitize its paper-based onboarding process, saving 12,000 hours per year and boosting employee satisfaction by 25%. Automated workflows connect the departments and functions involved in onboarding, so new hires start with all the tools, services, and information they need to stay engaged from day one.The University of California, Irvine automated and centralized its payroll system, connecting 24,000 employees across 400 departments and 38 divisions. The university used LIKE.TG HR Service Delivery to create the Employee Experience Center, a single destination for all things HR and payroll, resulting in an 87% ease-of-use score.Boosting employee efficiency is good for business and people. By enabling more efficient work, organizations can foster innovation while helping people do the work they enjoy.Find out more about how LIKE.TG helps improve employee efficiency.
Source-to-Pay Operations: The key to cutting costs and boosting satisfaction
Since we launched Finance and Supply Chain Workflows in May, I've had a lot of conversations with LIKE.TG customers. They want to know how we're applying the Now Platform to address the challenges their business stakeholders have been facing across the source-to-pay process.LIKE.TG Source-to-Pay Operations automates and organizes the work of procurement—from onboarding suppliers and managing indirect procurement requests to confirming receipt and paying suppliers for products or services delivered. It bridges systems, teams, and data sources, and even brings external stakeholders onto a single platform to simplify and accelerate processes.An easier, more efficient way to workAlmost all companies today rely on a patchwork of systems to address the various needs and tasks in the source-to-pay process. Navigating different systems and figuring out processes or statuses can be frustrating for employees and suppliers.For procurement professionals, it involves too many manual processes, especially around data entry. Every manual step slows your current process and introduces opportunities for workarounds. It’s no wonder companies struggle to increase the amount of spend under management.There’s an easier, more efficient way for your employees to work. Source-to-Pay Operations consists of three products:
Sourcing and Procurement Operations automates the source-to-receipt process for seamless purchasing and case management across teams, allowing sourcing and procurement to focus on strategic priorities such as building a higher-quality supplier base and negotiating more favorable contracts.
Supplier Lifecycle Operations enables you to quickly onboard suppliers, effortlessly manage supplier data, add key supplier contacts, monitor supplier performance, and enhance productivity of the teams that engage with suppliers so your teams can do more, more easily, without a corresponding increase in headcount.
Accounts Payable Operations helps finance departments simplify and coordinate the activities required to pay suppliers accurately—from matching invoices to purchase orders and goods receipts to approvals and payment release—so your organization can pay confidently and improve supplier relations.
Empowering employeesSource-to-pay stakeholders, such as procurement, receiving, and accounts payable, can now focus on more strategic activities:
Optimizing spend
Achieving more responsible sourcing and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals
Forming a higher-quality, more resilient supplier base
Confidently paying suppliers accurately and on time
This is the intended work of teams across the source-to-pay process. It’s why you hired them, and it’s what they want to do. Too often, though, employees are overwhelmed with status request emails or manual data entry tasks that burn time and energy without adding value to the business.Source-to-Pay Operations alleviates the tedium so that your employees want to follow established procurement processes, procurement professionals have more time to focus on value-adding activities, and suppliers are kept in the loop. With Source-to-Pay Operations, you can:
Double the number of requests and suppliers handled by your procurement team
Uncover discounting opportunities by consolidating spend and taking advantage of early-payment discounts
Raise supplier quality and reduce fraud with embedded ESG and risk management
Create a better experience for all with one easy-to-use environment for getting work done
Connecting systems and increasing valueIf you're a Now Platform owner, this may sound familiar. We use the core technologies from the platform—workflows, case management, AI—and apply them to the procurement space.If you're a procurement professional, think of LIKE.TG as a one-stop shop to help an employee get work done. Source-to-Pay Operations connects to and augments underlying systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) or sourcing solutions so you get more value from existing investments while simultaneously making life easier for your employees.LIKE.TG Finance and Supply Chain Workflows are a recognition of and response to the idea that we need new and better ways to compose the business systems that span teams, applications, and data streams. Now you can say yes to both cutting costs and increasing employee satisfaction.Find out more about Finance and Supply Chain Workflows.
