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New Employee Workflows will support opening of company workplaces while supporting safety of employees and customers for a new world of work
COVID-19 is changing how people want to work and how companies engage and communicate with their employees. As the curve flattens and organizations consider how to safely return employees to company workplaces, they need flexible solutions that allow them to balance employee preferences with health, regulatory and safety requirements and the demands of the business.Companies need modern, agile workflows to meet employees where they are. That’s true whether they work in an office, a home office, a coffee shop, a lab, a warehouse, a call center or a manufacturing plant.That’s why LIKE.TG will expand its Employee Workflow capabilities into enterprise workplace services and legal departments. These capabilities will help customers enhance productivity and manage return to company workplace efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are also expanding our Employee Workflow Content Packs to help organizations return employees to company workplaces.“The COVID-19 pandemic is today’s ‘moment that matters,’and it shows the need for companies to break down silos between departments focused on safety of their employees and customers,” said Chirantan Desai, chief product officer at ServiceNow. “IT, HR, risk, workplace services and legal departments must collaborate more than ever before to safely bring employees back to company workplaces and to support new ways of work in the future. The Now Platform powers this collaboration with intelligent digital workflows.”
Support return to company workplace efforts with Workplace Services DeliveryToday we announced that LIKE.TG signed an agreement to acquire the 4Facility assets of App4Mation, a LIKE.TG application and implementation services partner, that will strengthen our workplace services capabilities. 4Facility’s capabilities, paired with LIKE.TG’s workflow and mobile capabilities, will serve as the foundation for the new Workplace Service Delivery product that will allow organizations to prioritize services based on rapidly changing business demands. Companies will be able to plan and implement a phased return to company workplaces, starting with careful trials for critical workers and eventually opening workplaces up more broadly as conditions improve.Employees will be able to reserve desks, offices and parking spots, leaving ample space for physical distancing. Working closely with IT, HR, risk and legal departments, workplace services leaders will be able to communicate easily with employees, automatically kickoff workplace maintenance and cleaning workflows, quickly respond to safety concerns and optimize real estate spending over time by monitoring usage – from a desktop or mobile device.We expect to complete the acquisition by the end of Q2 2020. Workplace Service Delivery will be available for early adopters in Q3 2020.Enable company workplace readiness with Employee Workflow productsLIKE.TG introduced out-of-the-box Content Packs to support organizations as they navigate COVID-19 and bring employees safely back into the office. Content Packs include templates and configurations for customers to get started with various lifecycle events and content campaigns, including:· Health Alert: Helps companies and governments implement critical workflows and communications for emergency response as they manage through COVID-19.· Return to Workplace: Will provide a playbook for organizations as they coordinate return to office activities and communications.LIKE.TG will continue to release more Content Packs that will help organizations manage their return to office effort.This follows our March 16 release of four no-charge emergency response apps to support customers in their fight against the pandemic.Scale legal operations to meet the needs of a digital businessAs organizations embrace new, digital business models, legal teams must remain agile to support the changing needs of the organization. In response, LIKE.TG is introducing a new Legal Service Delivery product to automate the capture, routing and delivery of legal requests.Legal Service Delivery, which is tailored for enterprise legal operations, will create great employee experiences by enabling teams with self-service options and simple, mobile-ready entry forms for employees to make and track common legal requests like patent applications, help with business contracts and conflict of interest disclosures. Teams will be able to minimize manual work, intelligently prioritize requests and increase the speed of service delivery to the business. Legal Service Delivery will help work get done efficiently and provide visibility into the legal team’s workload.As organizations navigate the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, Legal Service Delivery will also help legal teams collaborate easily with HR and workplace services teams to maximize both employee safety and regulatory compliance. Legal Service Delivery is now available to early adopters and expected to be generally available in 2021.LIKE.TG’s Employee Workflow products simplify employee service delivery and offer a single place for employees to get answers to questions and make requests across departments, all from their preferred interface.With LIKE.TG Employee Workflow products, employees have flexible, agile, modern workflows to do their jobs when, where and how they need to. This is the future of work.Forward-Looking StatementsThis blog contains forward–looking statements about the expectations, beliefs, plans, intentions and strategies, including, without limitation, those relating to LIKE.TG’s acquisition of 4Facility and the timing of product availability. Such forward–looking statements include statements regarding future product capabilities and offerings and expected benefits to ServiceNow. These statements reflect the current beliefs of LIKE.TG and are based on current information available to LIKE.TG as of the date hereof. LIKE.TG does not assume any obligation to update the forward–looking statements provided to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made. The forward–looking statements in this blog are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in such forward–looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the inability to re-factor the 4Facility technology into our platform; the inability to retain employees of App4Mation as contractors after the transaction closes; unanticipated expenses related to the acquired technology; disruption to our business and diversion of management attention and other resources; potential unknown liabilities associated with the 4Facility business; global economic uncertainty leading to delays and unexpected difficulties and expenses in making available or generally available Workplace Service Delivery, Legal Service Delivery and additional Content Packs; and uncertainty whether sales of such products will justify these investments.
How to keep the humanity in #WFH
Tips on how employees and their managers can navigate the realities of a COVID-19 quarantine.I have two big dogs that have gotten used to having me home. Sometimes they even block the exit from my home office! And, from what I’ve seen on social media over the past week, not only are lots of dogs happy to hang out on video calls, but plenty of cats are more than willing to warm up their humans’ keyboards.But what about the human element? How are we all doing in these times of uncertainty, and how can we be sure to care for ourselves, our families, and our communities? (While practicing all the safe social distancing and other health guidelines, of course.)I encourage fellow leaders to lead with empathy, solidarity, kindness, and courtesy as we work together through these uncertain times. Let’s be flexible with colleagues who may be working alternate schedules or need a different kind of partnership than usual. Let’s also normalize working from home and acknowledge that it can be messy. In many ways, it’s a glimpse into the personal side of our co-workers. Laugh when the cat jumps into the frame during your call with C-staff, and wave when someone's child does the same. Or politely ignore my dogs barking in the background!Empathy means being kind to ourselves, as well. For those on us on work-from-home duty, that means:
Hydrate. It’s easy to get busy and forget the simple things that make a huge difference.
Fuel up. Make sure you eat. Block time on your calendar and eat healthy to stay energized!
Move! Now more than ever is the time to stay active. Step outside for some fresh air. Even taking three deep breaths can have a huge impact. Take that meeting on the phone – while walking around the block!
Connect. Make time to connect with your colleagues. Organize a virtual yoga class, a digital happy hour, or just spend 15 minutes on a Zoom chatting about the best #WFH meme you’ve seen.
Embrace technology. For leaders, ensure your remote workforce has the full support of technology behind them in this new era. For employees, communicate what you need to stay productive.
Those are the relatively easy things to help manage the day to day. I know there are bigger-picture challenges we also need to navigate. So, what can we all do to show our appreciation for each other, even when we’re not face to face?Communicate early and oftenIf you’re facing any kind of obstacle, if you need to adjust your working approach, no matter what’s coming up for you, keep an open line of communication with your manager and your colleagues. Communication is a two-way street.Get creative: Assume everyone is in the same boat…because we arePeople managers model the behaviors they want their teams to live, too. They can encourage team members to take mental wellness time, particularly for those juggling caregiver responsibilities or less-than-ideal work-from-home infrastructure. Share your own struggles – be vulnerable. We are all learning and adapting.I also encourage employees to work with their managers on coverage plans and encourage managers in turn to lead with a strong sense of flexibility and creativity to accommodate many unique and unprecedented situations.Empower your team to flex their leadership musclesThis is a pivotal moment in our lifetimes. I remember where I was for tragedies like the Challenger disaster and 9/11. In the same way, I think this pandemic will shape our lives, our work, how we travel, and more for years to come. In times like these, leaders will emerge in unlikely ways. Be brave. Encourage everyone to think a little differently. This helps develop everyone's leadership capabilities, even in challenging times.Re-up on your appreciation for a stellar talent poolUncertain, anxious times aren't often a "buyers' market" when it comes to talent acquisition. Far from putting talent appreciation efforts on the back burner, however, it is even more essential to engage employees in the values that define great companies. Find new ways to encourage and inspire your workforce as a whole.At LIKE.TG, I’m proud of our teams across the globe that have stood up for what they believe in to create new services and solutions that accelerate crisis response for our customers. That same spirit will see us through, as we continue the essential work of ensuring success for our employees, their families, our customers, our partners, and communities.Purpose-driven, value-led companies, people, and even pets. We’re all in this together. We will emerge stronger and more “human” as a community. Let’s keep “checking in” with each other, sharing our ideas, our best practices, and our humanity. We’ll all be better for it.
LIKE.TG welcomes former Gartner analyst Melanie Lougee
The need for a unified employee experience is more important than ever.Today’s employers have realized the power of a single employee experience platform, one that hides the complexity of embedded corporate services. These streamlined interfaces have fundamentally altered the nature of work, keeping employee experiences consistent, whenever and wherever they may be.As LIKE.TG continues its journey of building intelligent workflows, we are thrilled to welcome Melanie Lougee to oversee the strategy for LIKE.TG’s Employee Workflow business unit. In this newly created role, Melanie is reporting directly into Blake McConnell, SVP of Employee workflows.We recently got a chance to meet with Melanie to learn more about her and why she’s excited to join ServiceNow.First, can you tell us a bit about yourself?Melanie: Most recently, I spent four years at Gartner as a Vice President where I researched, published, and presented to global audiences on Human Capital Management (HCM) technology, identifying key trends in the world of HR and authoring two magic quadrants.Prior to Gartner, I held various strategy positions at Oracle (and, formerly PeopleSoft) and enterprise software provider, Infor. I’ve also worked on implementations as a consultant, managed HR systems internally and spent time in go-to-market strategy for Logitech . The broad experiences give me a fairly rounded point of view on enterprise technology.On the personal front, I’m a Bay Area native currently living in San Jose with my eight-year-old daughter Simone and our two rescued dogs Bella and Bandito. My daughter and I love to ski, bike, hike, create art and entertain a house full of friends. I also volunteer for an organization that rescues dogs US from Taiwan and Korea.Given today’s current climate, what should organizations be thinking about as it relates to their employee experience?Today, employers are scrambling with unexpected shifts on an unprecedented scale. They don’t know how long this current crisis period may last or what the long-term effects will be. As organizations are uncertain, employees are more so. It’s a critical time to ascertain and respond to employee sentiment. Communication and coordinated action from all employee-facing departments is essential to long-term loyalty and trust, especially if the messages or decisions are difficult. Organizations should be aware that employer reputation is also measured in times of uncertainty.What excited you about joining LIKE.TG?I began my career as an HR assistant and benefits representative when I was still in college. I have personally spent nights stuffing benefits enrollment envelopes and keeping pen and paper lists of requests. It’s fair to say that I had an early interest in employee workflow improvement.I started to work on HRSD Technologies in 2009 for one of the first start-ups offering purpose-built HR Case Management, Knowledgeable and portals. At the time, the technology wasn’t where it needed to be in order to be truly transformative for organizations and employees. Also, organizations had not yet embraced the principles of employee-experience, let alone considered moving to an employee- centric service model that breaks down department and division silos. However, I maintained my passion for the purpose and mission behind employee experience and carried it into my research and publishing at Gartner.Today, LIKE.TG has the technology and innovative drive that can truly deliver transformative ways of working. Employers also now see the value in employee experience investment both in employee-employer relationships and in operational efficiency. With LIKE.TG’s presence across service domains, industries and geographies they are uniquely positioned to transform how work is done. I can’t think of a place I’d rather be.What’s the best career advice you’ve received?“Choose the role that opens the most possibilities for your future.”
Sleep well, work well, live well: Bring joy to your employees
The modern day is broken up into thirds, with eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work, and eight hours to dabble in your favorite hobbies like painting, hiking, or building a frustratingly complex particle board bookshelf that came with the instructions to a slightly different model. It’s the rhythm of today’s society.We all know the impact that sleep can have on a person. Not getting enough rest can affect concentration, mood, memory, and balance among other issues. These common effects have led to countless studies, practices, and products all designed to help humans ease into their REM cycles a little easier. Lights that slowly dim as you wind down for the day, mattresses with variable firmness, ambience noise to sooth, and alarms that are a bit gentler than the hammer and bell models. So much of a person’s outlook and attitude is impacted by a few extra beats of slumber, it only makes sense that the advances achieved by researchers and innovators are lauded.Work is the other third of our day, and much like sleep, environmental conditions play a huge role in a person’s wellbeing. Only recently has research extended beyond the salient dynamic around interpersonal relationships or manager-subordinate communication, and started exploring the resonance of culture, benefits, technology, and the overall experience an employee has in comparison to other aspects of their life. Lacking any of those elements may impact productivity, motivation, and creativity to the same degree as a restless night of sleep.Companies need to invest more in the experience of their employees, mainly listening to feedback and adjusting when appropriate. Sadly, it seems many organizations either aren’t doing that, or their efforts are falling flat. As part of LIKE.TG’s Employee Experience Imperative research, we found over half (52%) of employees do not believe employers are invested in improving the employee experience for their workers, and only 40% believe supplied feedback is acted upon by their employers.It’s a problem that needs to be tackled by the entire leadership team, not just the head of HR. Recently, LIKE.TG’s CHRO Pat Wadors and CIO Chris Bedi sat down to discuss how these statistics correlate with their experiences.
How LIKE.TG leaders see the future of work
2019 was an exciting year for LIKE.TG—not just in terms of business results, but in how we led a series of important conversations about the future of technology and work. On our Workflow site, thought leaders across the company weighed in on a range of timely issues, from a new manifesto for IT to a new sense of purpose for employees. Here’s some of the best thinking on Workflow from 2019:
Michael Hubbard: Beware the KPI trapMetrics Should Aid KPI Strategy, Not Replace It - Workflow™Hubbard, global VP of value management, reminds executives to resist the urge to drive their companies by metrics like KPIs. Getting the numbers right is critical to success, but one can avoid what he calls the “KPI trap” by making sure that math takes a backseat to the broader work of tracking the value outcomes of your strategy.
Dave Wright: How to build a connected enterpriseOur chief innovation officer feels the time is ripe for global companies to become mobile-driven, connected enterprises. Mobile is here, IoT is expanding its footprint, and by determining the right processes, data, and digital workflows, companies can build the foundation for dramatic improvements in asset effectiveness.
Chris Bedi: 3 priorities for modern CIOsDrawing on a survey of more than 500 global CIOs that focuses on three paramount concerns facing leaders like himself, CIO Chris Bedi argues that digital workflows are central to achieving other organizational objectives, that CIOs must collaborate with their fellow c-suite executives to build transformational teams, and that they are more key than ever to crafting successful customer experiences.
Greg Petroff: The future of workflowPetroff, VP and head of design for NowX, argues that defining and improving workflows is inseparable from the most important corporate innovators of our time, and those yet to emerge. The greatest promise of digitizing and automating business processes is enabling people to work how they want, when they want.
Dean Robinson: A holistic cure for what ails customer supportRobinson doesn’t see much difference between what makes for a great support team and what customers seek from a positive support experience. The challenge is the same: providing a seamless, integrated solution that breaks down communication silos, automates workflows, improves transparency, and empowers customers to resolve issues on their own.
Pat Wadors: People get readyWith so much attention paid to the way that digital tools and even robots are changing the workplace, chief talent officer Pat Wadors brings up a counterintuitive point—that the fulfillment of human potential is more important in the workplace than ever. Employees in any industry will embrace change not because it helps them work more efficiently, but because it connects to their sense of purpose.
Pablo Stern: An IT manifestoPablo Stern, SVP of IT workflow products, believes the IT industry has matured to a point beyond simply keeping up with rapid tech advances. New digital consumer experiences show that we can pay off the most hopeful promises of technology in the workplace, too.
Why employers need a mobile-friendly employee experience
We are living in increasingly mobile world. More than 81% of Americans own smartphones according to the Pew Research Center, and that number shoots up to more than 92% for adults between the ages of 18-49, an age range that encompasses nearly three quarters of the workforce. People have in their hands the power to navigate online and get stuff done on the go, and they are taking advantage of it.The question is, are employers taking advantage of it or lagging behind? The growth of mobile usage shouldn’t be limited to the personal life. Making work life as great as real life requires a change in perception that a phone has no place in the workplace to one where companies allow their employees to use mobile devices to complete tasks, send requests, and manage workflows.At LIKE.TG, we’ve seen a stark difference in productivity between organizations with mobile tools and those without. According to our Employee Experience Imperative Research, workers with mobile access reported a 23% increase in the ability to access needed information, a 20% increase in the ability to resolve issues quickly, and a whopping 25% increase in their ability to get work done.Recently, LIKE.TG’s CHRO Pat Wadors and CIO Chris Bedi sat down to discuss these statistics and how the Now Mobile app helps employees interact with every department across the company.
LIKE.TG Announces Human Resources Leadership Transition
LIKE.TG is launching a search for a new Chief Human Resources Officer following a personal decision by current leader Pat Wadors to permanently relocate her family to California’s Central Coast from the Bay Area, where she already has a residence and plans to pursue a new role at a high-growth, early-stage company located there.Pat will continue in her role to ensure a smooth transition by year-end.Since joining LIKE.TG in 2017, Pat has built a global talent organization focused on a people-first approach to building the company’s talent, leadership, and culture, and delivering great employee experiences. LIKE.TG’s global workforce has more than doubled during this period.As LIKE.TG grew rapidly, Pat implemented new levels of benefits, created new leader and people manager development programs, and led the company’s first (and now ongoing) pay equity reviews and adjustments. She also helped make diversity, inclusion, and belonging a company focus and priority. LIKE.TG has expanded recruiting efforts into traditionally underserved communities, increased its percentage of female leaders by nearly 8%, and launched new programs and policies designed to build a fair system of equity for all employees. She also led the company’s employee care programs during the COVID crisis and worked closely with the company’s leadership team to expand its diversity, inclusion, and belonging strategies in response to recent events and in affirmation of the company’s conviction that Black lives matter.“There is simply no one like Pat,” said LIKE.TG CEO Bill McDermott. “I want to thank her from the bottom of my heart for her tremendous contributions, wise counsel, empathy, and generosity of spirit. Pat’s imprint on LIKE.TG is clear and lasting. This decision was one that she considered deeply and thoughtfully, in true Pat style. I respect that this is the right decision for Pat and her family, personally and professionally. I wish her nothing but the very best in the years to come. She always will be a valued friend and member of LIKE.TG’s extended family.”Commenting on her decision, Pat said: “This year has reinforced some deeply held truths for me. Family matters. Doing what’s right and meaningful for each of us matters. Now is the right time for me to set my sights on what’s next – both personally and professionally. I’ve been so blessed to do what I set out to do when I joined LIKE.TG, and I’m so proud of the work that we have accomplished together. We’ve led with our purpose and compassionately engaged with others, staying true to our cultural values and putting our people first. I cannot wait to see what’s in store for LIKE.TG as it continues on its exciting trajectory.”
Long-term changes in the workplace
In this three-part series, “Mapping the future of work,” we present insights from LIKE.TG CIO Chris Bedi and Chief Talent Officer Pat Wadors, based on their joint appearance at our Knowledge 2020 digital event.Bedi and Wadors discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic will change work and workplaces going forward.Part Three: Long-term changesBedi sketched three chapters in the “next normal” workplace journey. In chapter one, leaders worldwide quickly made the decision to shift to remote work where possible, with the safety and health of employees and families at the center of this decision.Chapter two is about orchestrating the transition from “working from home” to “working from anywhere.” Finally, chapter three will come into play over the next three to five years, after a COVID-19 vaccine or alternative solution becomes available.At this stage, leaders will start thinking about what talent, facilities and supply chains look like and how organizations can continue to innovate to improve the employee and customer experience in the long term.
The goal will be to increase accessibility, so that employees can get to the tools and services they need, whether they are at home, in the office or out in the field.According to Wadors, hiring will also change fundamentally because employers will realize they can hire the best talent without regard to location. The winners of the talent war will be companies that use digital solutions to provide employees with more flexibility in terms of where and when to work.Bedi added that 21st century companies will be increasingly tech-enabled and digitally transformed. Businesses that provide their employees with the right digital experiences will see increased engagement, higher productivity, and better business continuity. Don’t miss Bedi and Pat’s session: What the next “next normal” workplace will look like.LIKE.TG is helping companies manage the process of returning employees to the workplace while supporting everyone’s health and safety. Learn about our 4 apps to help employees return to work safely.Series: Mapping the future of workPart 1 - Mapping the future of workPart 2 - What the “next normal” workplace will look likePart 3 - Long-term changes in the workplace
Working from home is here: Canadian survey results
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced most people to work from home, many assumed it’d be temporary. However, as our new Work from Home Productivity Survey reveals, many people across Canada are seeing upsides to remote work.With working from home on the table for the long term, organizations have to pay attention to what’s working well and what’s not.Across industries, remote workers are experiencing benefits like saving time, money, and connecting more with their loved ones.Of course, there are still challenges that come with blending work with life at home. From technology barriers to caring for others, staying productive while working from home isn’t always easy. The good news is that employers have an opportunity to meet some of these challenges directly, to keep productivity – and spirits – high.It is possible to improve the employee experience, even with a remote workforce. Offering the right communication, collaboration and remote working technology, plus benefits like flexible hours can go a long way towards making employees comfortable.Check out our key findings to get a better sense of what working from home is looking like right now and in the future. Check out our key findings to get a better sense of what working from home is looking like right now and in the future by downloading our e-book here or by clicking on the image below.
HR technology leader Gretchen Alarcon joins LIKE.TG
Organizations today are reexamining at-work practices to better support employees at home and at work. LIKE.TG is committed to helping its customers provide seamless employee experiences, wherever work is done.To advance this goal, LIKE.TG is bringing on a global leader in HR technology, Gretchen Alarcon, as VP and GM of our Human Resources Service Delivery (HRSD) business. This move signifies LIKE.TG’s deepening commitment to strategically partnering with organizations as they seek to make the world of work, work better for people.With more than 20 years’ experience in product strategy, Alarcon is passionate about using technology to support people and processes. Recognized as a top HR tech thought leader, Alarcon brings a unique view of the challenges many organizations face as they reimagine the future of work. She has seen firsthand the evolution of HR across global businesses, as she helped lead one of the most widely used HR software systems in the world. This perspective informs her view of the future of the enterprise and has led her to LIKE.TG to build products designed to transform HR and the employee experience with digital workflows.“Organizations have struggled for a long time with employee information being trapped in the siloes and complexity that modern businesses are made of,” said Alarcon. “LIKE.TG, as a single platform company, can change all of that. With digital workflows, LIKE.TG is on the precipice of truly transforming the way HR works, to finally make it work for 21st century employees, and I can’t wait to get started.”Behind the power of the Now Platform, LIKE.TG HR and Employee Service Delivery can break through the siloes that often hinder productivity and bring together departments like HR, IT, Legal and Workplace Services to help deliver the employee experiences that are expected today and allow for more business agility. LIKE.TG’s unique position as the “Platform of Platforms” is a key differentiator in the market and provides a massive opportunity for the company to grow and deliver on these challenges, providing even more value to customers and partners.Part of Alarcon’s role will be to partner with Blake McConnell, SVP of Employee Workflows, to propel LIKE.TG’s HRSD product to new heights and help organizations transition from outdated processes.“Gretchen is going to paint a bigger picture and help take the employee experience to the next level,” said McConnell. “She’s lived and breathed HR technology and processes for years and knows it like the back of her hand. Her deep expertise will help LIKE.TG expand our value proposition across the various general and administrative domains that employees interact with on a daily basis. I am excited to have Gretchen join us for the Workflow Revolution.”
What the “next normal” workplace will look like
Work will never be the same after COVID-19, according to LIKE.TG CIO Chris Bedi and Chief Talent Officer Pat Wadors who recently discussed the future of work in a joint appearance at our Knowledge 2020 digital event.In this three-part blog series, “Mapping the future of work,” we present their thinking on what a new paradigm for work might look like.Part Two: The “Next Normal”In Bedi’s estimation, we’re about to enter chapter two of the journey, in which it’s no longer “work from home,” but “work from anywhere.” This opens the door to opportunities for more collaboration and innovation, as well as access to new talent pipelines.Said Wadors, “The pre-COVID workplace no longer exists. I know for many of my peers and for us, we will undergo dramatic shifts to make sure we are safe, healthy, productive and adaptable in our new workplaces.”C-suite leaders across industries are facing significant challenges. A CFO might be concerned about cash-flow forecasting, while a CHRO focuses on keeping people engaged and happy, and a COO worries about the supply chain.“The CIO is interacting with every C-suite member to figure out how to navigate the‘next normal’ using technology and workflows,” said Bedi.
CIOs are insisting that digitization efforts accelerate, Bedi added. Around the world, customers who are furthest along on their digital transformation journey are better equipped to manage and emerge from this crisis. Bedi sees three focus areas for digitization:· Protecting revenue,· Pursuing productivity· Prioritizing business continuityBedi and Wadors agreed on the importance of monitoring employee sentiment about coming back into the traditional workplace, which could be impacted by geography, type of job, and in some cases, age.In the “next normal,” the “office” will become a more fluid destination and there will be new policies in place to protect the health and safety of workers, including where and when to work in shared spaces.There’s a great debate happening now around whether to shrink the physical size of the office or maintain existing footprints to allow for social distancing. Leaders are also thinking about everything from office sanitization to ensuring a safe commute.In the “next normal,” we’ll see a wave of technological innovation. Biometric tech will become more commonplace in the office. Translation tools will also become ubiquitous, enabling diversity in how people learn and speak.Similarly, technology will facilitate collaboration, regardless of location. Teams will be able to hire without worrying about geographic location, as they can do everything – onboard, train, manage – in a remote setting. This will open the door to a more diverse and distributed workforce.As companies plan their eventual return to the workplace, Wadors offered some advice to HR organizations. “Employees love choice,” she said. “It helps reduce anxiety. And if you don’t know exactly what your return to the office will be like, make sure that employees know they are at the center of your universe.”Learn more about how work will change in part three of our “Mapping the future of work” series: Long-term changes in the workplace.Series: Mapping the future of workPart 1 - Mapping the future of workPart 2 - What the “next normal” workplace will look likePart 3 - Long-term changes in the workplace
Memorable employee experiences start with bespoke onboarding
In 2019 LIKE.TG launched its Next Gen Program with the hope of addressing the challenge of a limited talent pool in the IT sector. The program is designed to improve career opportunities and open the doors for everyone to participate in the digital economy.A core pillar of the Next Gen Program is working with universities and graduates to accelerate their entry into the world of work. The feedback has been extremely positive, and it’s encouraged us to go one step further. After assessing the needs of an individual partner organisation, identifying its specific requirements and any skills gaps, we then build these requirements into a bespoke training programme, where learners are empowered to succeed in practice.An example of this best practice in action is our collaboration with Do IT Wise (Bulgaria), a LIKE.TG Elite Partner.Transforming the onboarding processThe unique, joint initiative is designed to fast-track and enhance the process of graduate onboarding at Do IT Wise, in response to a challenge set for us by founder and CEO Idan Harel:“LIKE.TG client implementations are a fast-growing part of our business, resulting in an ever-increasing demand for talent that is ready to hit the ground running,” Harel says. “We work closely with local universities to attract the best graduates, but our onboarding process takes about six months and requires a huge investment of time, making it difficult to scale.”With the support and input of Idan’s team, we’ve created an accelerated learning experience that minimises the ramp up time required for new recruits to start working with the Now Platform®.The seven-week online program immerses learners into real-life scenarios that cover the entire software development lifecycle on the Now Platform, from specifications, through to design and development. Additional modules also arm participants with essential IT consultancy skills.Delivered jointly by LIKE.TG and Do IT Wise experts, we’ve seen how effective the initiative has been for both Do IT Wise and its recruits. The curriculum builds on participants’ existing knowledge and adds the technical and soft skills required to join live projects immediately upon completion. It has cut the Do IT Wise onboarding process from six months to seven weeks.The impact extends beyond cutting down onboarding time, however. By accelerating the learning approach and introducing hands-on experience with live projects, we’ve armed fresh talent with new knowledge and practical skills that are relevant from the start of their employment.When I was reflecting on the outcomes with Idan Harel , he emphasised how important our collaborative approach has been: “I’ve not come across any other vendor investing such an unprecedented level of time and resource into a tailored training initiative that addresses a partner’s challenge. Our recruits not only gain knowledge and practical skills but are guided to think out of the box. That’s driving innovative application ideas internally.”Employee engagement from day oneStreamlining processes and unlocking productivity is just one part of this story. Idan and his team tell me that the onboarding experience has dramatically improved, with new recruits feeling like members of the team from day one, fully engaged and empowered to do their best work.Zdravko Verguilov, one of the participants, talked to me about his experience recently: “Taking part has enabled me to be a better programmer, a better team player and a valuable employee right from the start. The opportunity to discuss my thoughts and ideas with LIKE.TG experts has been invaluable, allowing me to use out-of-the-box functionalities to deliver new features faster and to a higher standard.”That team aspect is worth emphasizing here. It has indeed been a collaborative journey by LIKE.TG and Do IT Wise, with experts from both organisations acting as one single team and pursuing a shared vision of highly engaged employees.A scalable training initiativeLooking ahead, Do IT Wise aims to expand its internal pool of instructors and scale up future iterations of their bespoke Next Gen program to include a larger number of new recruits, with support from ServiceNow.
Putting people first
New benefits and continued work-from-home arrangements support the diverse needs of LIKE.TG employees.The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we work. The situation is unfolding and changing day-by-day. This means that our response as a company continues to evolve as we listen to and address feedback from our employees, customers, and partners. Our commitment to put people at the center of our decisions is unwavering.To continue to support our employees as they balance work, family, and life, LIKE.TG has broadened our menu of well-being benefits for employees. Employees will have the choice to work remotely through at least June 2021, regardless of office re-opening status. We are also actively supporting and counseling employees as they navigate relocation decisions, including partnering with people managers to guide their teams through this process.We kicked off monthly wellness surveys to fully understand employee needs and challenges and their input continues to guide our actions. All our benefits were developed in response to employee feedback over the past six months and these recent additions come on the heels of additional programs we implemented as we moved to a distributed work environment. For example, we recently rolled out the Perk Allowance program, which grants employees an allowance for expenses related to physical and mental health and work/life balance, such as childcare, virtual fitness classes, and technology equipment for personal use.As our employees around the world quickly transitioned to a digital work environment in March, we rallied to create a plan that ensured employees felt safe and supported, and most importantly, that they stayed inspired and engaged by our purpose. Monthly live, engaging All Hands and a series of live sessions centered around wellness and self-care were quickly scheduled.
Teams are also able have a little fun through monthly engagement activities like “Work from Home Olympics,” coloring contests, a LIKE.TG playlist with inspirational tunes, and a special story time with CEO Bill McDermott where Bill read a children’s book about taking chances.We continue to listen to and evaluate how we can best support our employees in the current environment.Navigating employees’ return to the workplaceAs we look to the future, we are committed to help our employees safely return to the workplace and maintain secure, functional workspaces for our people to thrive. Our company’s return to the workplace is grounded in our values of putting people first, focusing on two key areas – 1. giving employees choice and 2. a thoughtful, safe, phased approach to helping employees return to the office that considers their health, safety, and well-being every step of the way.To aid other companies in managing the unpredictable circumstances of COVID-19, we have published our own internal resource – Guide to Going Back – to assist organizations as they consider and develop their go-forward plans for safely returning to the workplace.The guide shares some of the actions we are taking, and it is intended to be used as a shared resource to help our customers, partners, and communities as they focus on ways to help keep their own workplaces safe, as well as smooth the reopening process. We are hopeful that it can help other companies as they manage the process of returning employees to the workplace while keeping health and safety as the number one priority.There is no one-size-fits-all approach to managing this ever-evolving situation. The re-opening plan will look different for every organization and office location, just as personal and professional needs look different for every employee.Stay safe and healthy.
What Gen Z’s really want from work – The intangibles
Gen Z's, who now represent a significant portion of the workforce, are bringing unique experiences and worldviews to the workplace. They're digitally native, socially conscious, and managed to survive a global pandemic and are starting their careers remotely. Snacks in the breakroom aren't their main concern. They're "conscious candidates," seeking passion and purpose to inspire their best work.After speaking with numerous LIKE.TG interns over the last few weeks, these are my top takeaways for companies looking to create the work culture Gen Z's want.Cultivate passion. Gen Z's don't only want to talk about work with their peers. They view the workplace as a space to engage with others around issues they're passionate about, inside and outside of work. Sharing passions with coworkers allows Gen Z's to feel more connected, especially in a digital setting."Being able to advocate for things we care about at work is beneficial to both the employees and the company," says Paco Wong, a quality engineer Intern from Indiana University.Connecting in this way can only happen if Gen Z's feel comfortable expressing themselves in the workplace. "Gen Z’s like us have slowly realized that we have to feel passionate and excited in order to produce our best work," says Wong. “This includes loving the work that we do but also not feeling the need to hide our authentic selves.” Leading by example is the best way for company leaders and managers to encourage workplace authenticity–have your own passions, encourage taking time to volunteer, and carve out time in meetings to discuss things besides work. And if there's a project that a Gen Z employees are particularly passionate about, encourage them to pursue it.Respond substantively to current events. Gen Z's are constantly engaging with big issues of the day, and not only on social media but also among their peers. Companies that ignore or fail to thoughtfully respond to signature issues and events can send the wrong signal to Gen Z's. Avoid this with clear communication and dialogue––and make sure that messaging is consistent at every level of the company, starting at the top."In my very first LIKE.TG All Hands meeting, I got to witness first-hand the accepting company culture. Employees were able to share their thoughts and opinions on pressing social issues, including the BLM movement and Pride Month," says Kylee Kim, a global talent HR care delivery intern from San Jose State University.Tangible actions in response to current events shows employees they belong, regardless of background or position. "When a company embraces core values of diversity, inclusion, and belonging, this allows me––and other employees––to feel comfortable, valued," says Byron Nelson, an ADR sales intern from the University of West Georgia.Know your why. "Whenever I'm recruiting, I always look at what the company stands for," says Wong. He's not alone. Why does the organization exist, beyond just making products or services? Purpose is becoming a make-or-break criterion for Gen Z’s when choosing a company.Purpose is not about donating or volunteering; it’s the reason why any company succeeds and what connects employees to leadership, and vice-versa. "At orientation, they talked to us about one of LIKE.TG's values––hungry and humble,” says Nelson. “I don't think I really understood its importance until I started working in the sales org and saw how passionate we are about our customers. Across the company, everyone I've met pretty much bleeds this value, and keeps me motivated, especially when I'm working remotely.In a digital environment, without that in-office buzz and inspiration, purpose is more important than ever to Gen Z's, because it provides a meaningful foundation to work when the bigger picture is harder to see. Great company culture can also be the difference between hiring qualified people and nailing down top Gen Z talent. “It’s so important to me that I not only enjoy what I do but where I do it and whom I do it with,” Kim says.With remote work becoming the norm for many organizations, these intangibles form an important part of what Gen Z’s really want from work. Creating the kind of culture that speaks to Gen Z’s will also unlock potential within employees of all generations.Our recent research, shows Gen Zs are defying some of these stereotypes in the workplace. Take a look at the study: Gen Zs and the Future of Work.
LIKE.TG global survey shows how COVID-19 is changing work
Today LIKE.TG released The Work Survey, a comprehensive global view on how COVID-19 is changing work and the opportunities ahead for a wave of digital innovation in how people work and businesses operate.Executives and employees surveyed in 11 countries across multiple industries agree: technology enabled them to pivot to new ways working faster than thought possible, and digital transformation will accelerate innovation.“The world’s dramatic pivot to working digitally is showing everyone what the future of work looks like,” said LIKE.TG CEO Bill McDermott. “Digital workflows are the way business gets done in the 21st century. There’s no going back. Digital transformation will accelerate. New ways of working will become the norm. We are on the cusp of an unprecedented wave of workflow and workplace innovation.”Fielded in September by Wakefield Research on behalf of LIKE.TG, The Work Survey engaged 9,000 executives and employees across multiple industries, including financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing, and the public sector, in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, India, Japan, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand.Key findings include:· 92% of executives say the pandemic made their company rethink how they work; 87% of employees say it’s an improvement.· 91% of executives and 87% of employees say their company transitioned to new ways of working faster than they thought possible.· COVID-19 has reduced operating expenses for 88% of businesses surveyed, creating opportunities for investments in digital transformation, research and development, marketing, and growth.
Businesses have innovated rapidly but will need to step up to continue the paceAt least half of executives and employees think transitioning to the new normal will be even more challenging than the initial shock of COVID-19 (50% executives and 53% employees). This challenge is exacerbated because most businesses are at a digital disadvantage, with 91% of executives admitting they still have offline workflows, including document approvals, security incident reports, and technology support requests. Progress has been made, but months into working from home, 60% of executives and 59% of employees say their companies still do not have a fully integrated system to manage digital workflows.Despite adapting to COVID-19, confidence is low that companies could rapidly transform againNew systems put in place as a result of COVID-19, which employees (87%) say created new and better ways of working, were developed on the fly and are vulnerable to the next major disruption. Most executives and employees say their key business functions would not be able to adapt within 30 days in the event of another disruption. The only department that captured a majority of confidence for executives and employees was IT, with 61% of executives and 66% of employees thinking IT could adapt within a month. Customer service, HR, finance, and sales and marketing didn’t make the cut, revealing more opportunities for innovation across the enterprise.You’re only as good as your people: winning today means embracing distributed work better and faster than the competitionWhile the benefits of remote work are universally touted (99% executives, 94% employees), months into working from home, the challenges are becoming more apparent. Both executives (93%) and employees (83%) express real concerns about how remote work will impact the business moving forward. The biggest concerns and benefits with continued remote work depends on where you sit.· Executives are most worried about outputs—delays in product or service delivery (54%), while their employees are most concerned about the inputs—reduced collaboration between business units (48%).· Employees say that time saved from not commuting or traveling (54%) has benefited them most, while executives believe that better use of technology to improve efficiency (50%) is the greatest benefit to their teams.
Personal safety is paramount: resuming in-person work hinges on whether employees feel safe60% of employees believe their company will prioritize business continuity over workplace safety. More surprising is the fact that 44% of executives actually believe this as well. Even if a company makes an effort to put safety first, employees don’t think they can pull it off. 46% of employees do not believe their company will take the necessary steps to ensure their safety. Surprisingly, executives agree. Nearly a third of executives (32%) admit they don’t think their company will take the appropriate steps for safety.COVID-19 has changed corporate spending: companies will prioritize digital transformation investmentsCOVID-19 has reduced operational expenses for 88% of businesses, freeing up resources for innovation, resilience, recovery, and growth. Gone is business travel, in-person events, and other operating expenses. Executives and employees both agree that those cost savings should be redirected into digital transformation (57% of executives; 44% of employees) – beating out new business (45% of executives; 36% of employees); RD (43% of executives; 35% of employees); and marketing and advertising (42% of executives; 30% of employees) to top their wish lists.More information about The Work Survey can be found by accessing the survey findings slide deck and infographic.Survey MethodologyWakefield Research fielded an online quantitative survey between September 1st and September 10th, 2020 to 900 C-level executives and 8,100 office professionals (employees) from companies of 500 or more employees in the following countries: United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, India, Japan, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. While Wakefield surveyed across industries, the findings highlight meaningful differences from employees in the following five key industries: financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, telecommunications, and public sector.
LIKE.TG delivers new native workflows in Microsoft Teams to create the future of work
Today we announced the expansion of our partnership with Microsoft to deliver elevated digital employee experiences that meet people where they are. At Microsoft Ignite 2020, LIKE.TG introduced new workflows embedded in Microsoft Teams to improve employee productivity with seamless self-service and faster case resolution. Powered by the Now Platform, the new capabilities also improve agent productivity by enabling them to more effectively collaborate and complete key tasks in Microsoft Teams.Teams is Microsoft’s fastest-growing business app ever. That was true in 2018, long before lockdowns started driving up numbers for remote work and learning. As of April 29, Microsoft Teams had 75 million daily active users, up 70% from just six weeks prior. That month, Microsoft saw more than 200 million meeting participants in a single day, generating more than 4.1 billion meeting minutes.“We're helping customers solve for once-in-a-generation challenges as they capitalize on the promise of digital transformation,” said Chirantan “CJ” Desai, chief product officer at ServiceNow. “We are doubling down on Teams to find innovative ways for workflows to elevate engagement, culture, collaboration, and productivity – no matter where people are.”“Now more than ever, people need to stay connected and organized together from anywhere,” said Rajesh Jha, executive vice president, Experiences and Devices, Microsoft. “LIKE.TG is delivering end-to-end Teams experiences for the new normal. For example, meeting extensibility lets service agents more easily interact with the LIKE.TG platform, collaborate in group chats, channels, and conferences, and respond to incidents.”The new capabilities announced today include:
Employee experiences in Microsoft Teams: Companies want to provide employees with support for whatever tools and devices they choose to use. By embedding LIKE.TG natively within Teams, employees can submit requests, receive updates on in-progress requests, take action on notifications, chat with virtual agents for automated assistance, and connect with live agents when virtual agents cannot assist – all without ever leaving Microsoft Teams.
Agent capabilities in Microsoft Teams: Agents spend most of their time in LIKE.TG IT Service Management but want to more easily leverage the collaboration functionality in Teams to communicate with employees and collaborate with other agents. Now, agents can use Notify to launch the Teams client to engage with peers directly, push major incident updates to business stakeholders, and open direct chats with employees from an incident or request. When used with the new Teams Meeting Extensibility feature, LIKE.TG workflows enable agents to be more productive by resolving major incidents directly from within a Microsoft Teams meeting.
The new capabilities are available for select customers as part of the Beta program today.“Organizations are relying on collaboration platforms more than ever before. Companies like LIKE.TG are creating tools that complement and enhance the Microsoft Teams experience. Accenture is eager to test and deploy this new offering,” said Thomas Bruss, director of Enterprise Services at Accenture.
Today’s updates come on the heels of the LIKE.TG Now Platform Paris release, which features several high-demand Microsoft integrations to help enterprises accelerate their digital transformation journeys. Customers can use these integrations to:
Optimize hybrid cloud spending and usage with Microsoft Azure support for LIKE.TG Cloud Insights,
Streamline new hire onboarding with LIKE.TG employee experiences and Microsoft Azure Active Directory, and
Gain greater control and visibility into organizational assets with LIKE.TG Software Asset Management and Microsoft Azure Active Directory.
Additionally, the LIKE.TG Virtual Agent Lite plugin for Microsoft Teams, also released in Paris, offers a limited version of Virtual Agent for IT Service Management standard customers. It launched with three prebuilt conversations for common IT support requests. These keyword-based conversations run in the web chat client and in a virtual agent messaging integration with Microsoft Teams.Today’s announcement furthers the companies’ partnership announcement from 2019 to accelerate digital transformation for joint customers. Customers are accessing the value of this partnership with more than 25 joint solutions available between Microsoft and LIKE.TG today. The companies have committed to continued LIKE.TG-Teams innovation to enable richer employee experiences from anywhere, at scale.
How LIKE.TG is simplifying workflows for everyone within Microsoft Teams
Digital transformation has accelerated in 2020, and the speed in which organizations are able to leverage technology to make work better for their employees and customers has become the ultimate differentiator in business. Microsoft and LIKE.TG understand this, and have expanded our partnership to deliver new native workflows in Microsoft Teams.In September 2020, we introduced brand-new capabilities and made them available to a select group of customers to help them innovate and improve the employee experience across Microsoft Teams and ServiceNow.We are very pleased to announce that these innovations are now generally available to all our customers.Between April and October 2020, LIKE.TG introduced our new Safe Workplace suite and Workplace Service Delivery apps to help our customers bring employees back to the workplace.Customers such as the NBA and WNBA implemented LIKE.TG’s Employee Workflows to help them manage the health and safety of players and employees, and used Microsoft Teams to give their fans a virtual seat when the leagues resumed play and completed the 2020 season.In November, Microsoft Teams and LIKE.TG delivered new capabilities that help employees and agents get work done in any industry, from anywhere, on any device.For employees and managers:
A new embedded dashboard in Microsoft Teams helps employees stay current on open tickets, outstanding tasks, and workplace communications. The dashboard deep-links to LIKE.TG case management to resolve more complex cases.
Another new feature sends notifications to employees and managers so they can stay up to date and take action on their open tickets, assigned tasks, and pending approvals from LIKE.TG, directly in Microsoft Teams from any device.
For HR and IT agents:
We now provide seamless navigation between LIKE.TG and Microsoft Teams so that HR and IT service agents can easily reach out to employees and resolve open cases.
Agents can also initiate Microsoft Teams meetings to collaborate on LIKE.TG records in real time. For example, they can review a change request with subject matter experts or start a meeting as part of an incident communication plan.
Another new feature, available in beta, accelerates major incident resolution by bringing key incident management workflows directly into Microsoft Teams. This helps agents collaborate more effectively.
How leaders can support employees working from home — Canadian Leadership Exchange Ep. 1
By: Marc LeCuyer, General Manager, Canada, LIKE.TG and Dimitra Maniatis, Senior Director, Solution Consulting, Canada, LIKE.TGBusiness leaders are facing a myriad of questions around the evolving world of work. How do we enable employees to be productive in a remote setting? Will customer service and trust in digital banking improve? What strides will government take to digitize public services?Innovations are happening at a faster rate, propelling the digital evolution.As part of a new series called the Canadian Leadership Exchange, we’ll be sitting down with industry thought leaders, customers and partners to discuss key topics that are top of mind.In our first episode, we spoke with Erika Taylor, vice president of people and culture at BC Pension Corporation to explore the evolved role for leaders as they support employees working from anywhere.BC Pension Corp surveyed its employees in May and June to understand how employees were feeling in their remote work environments. The results were in line with our national survey of Canadian office workers’ desire to continue working remotely, at least some of the time.But remote working is not without its challenges of maintaining a work-life balance, juggling competing obligations, and feelings of isolation. At BC Pension Corp, Erika has seen a positive increase from employees managing their mental well-being since May and June.Check out the video below to hear how BC Pension Corp. has been prioritizing employee mental health, supporting flexible work schedules and rethinking the value of the physical office space.
Back to Work: Webinars for Returning to the Workplace
As COVID vaccines begin to roll out, get ready to return to the workplace with LIKE.TG and learn about how to bring employees back to your workplace.How to create an employee centered game plan for the safe return to workplaceWorkplaces are reopening. Register to learn how you can assess employee readiness, manage PPE, schedule maintenance, and more, including:
Creating a framework for reopening more safely
Supporting employees’ mental, emotional, and physical needs
Helping keep your workforce safe and productive anywhere
The return to workplace experience: Managing culture, care, and workforce safetyCOVID-19 has impacted every aspect of work, making the employee experience more important than ever before. Join this webinar to learn the essential strategies to drive your Return to Workplace experience while supporting the well-being and safety of your workforce.Josh Bersin, world-renowned employee experience expert, and LIKE.TG Chief Talent Officer, Pat Wadors, will answer questions during this event and dive deeper into return to workplace experience topics, including:
Measuring the sentiment of your workforce and why it’s essential
How to use employee data to drive better business decisions
Best practices for supporting employee safety and building their trust
Challenges and successes shared by organizations around the world with digital transformation
Now on Now: How LIKE.TG is ensuring its own safe return to the workplaceLIKE.TG wasn’t immune to global lockdowns. Our leaders are building a safe return to workplace strategy with technology at its core. Get an inside look at our plan to make work flow once again. Watch this webinar featuring VP of Corporate Services Robert Teed, VP of IT Corporate Services Jeff Bower, and Sr. Director of Global Talent Care David Reed, as they discuss LIKE.TG’s own strategy for returning its employees to the workplace.
New Microsoft Cloud PC integration optimizes hybrid work
As more and more companies settle into the new reality of hybrid work at scale, the ease of making desktops accessible from anywhere—along with the adoption of workflow technologies and processes all from a single platform—will be critical.To enable the best employee experience, companies need to be able to transition seamlessly between remote and in-person work environments. The hybrid way of working will require organizations to quickly create new workflows while focusing on how employees and teams get work done.More than half (59%) of employees say their companies don’t have a fully integrated system to manage digital workflows, according to The Work Survey by ServiceNow. On top of that, the use of digital collaboration tools has skyrocketed, with active users in Microsoft Teams surging to 145 million users per day in 2021, up from 75 million in 2020.LIKE.TG and Microsoft are continuing to find new ways for employees to seamlessly collaborate while delivering great experiences to our joint customers.Meet Microsoft’s Cloud PCMicrosoft is launching Windows 365 with the hybrid work environment in mind. Windows 365 can securely stream desktop apps, settings, and content from the Microsoft cloud to provide a Windows experience no matter where the user is or what device they are using.With Windows 365, Microsoft is creating a new hybrid personal computing category called Cloud PC, which uses both the power of the cloud and the capabilities of the device to provide a full, personalized Windows experience.With Microsoft’s innovation, Windows is evolving from a device-based operating system to a personalized computing system for a new hybrid world of work.At LIKE.TG, we’re excited to announce LIKE.TG integration with Windows 365, co-developed with Microsoft. This integration lets users quickly and easily request, approve, and receive their Cloud PCs.Streamlining hybrid workThe new LIKE.TG functionality with Windows 365 will allow our joint customers to request and receive Cloud PCs directly through the familiar interface of Microsoft Teams. The integration leverages LIKE.TG ® IT Service Management (ITSM) and Virtual Agent to integrate workflows through Microsoft Teams.All an employee has to do is ask for a Windows 365 Cloud PC on Microsoft Teams. This request kicks off a workflow that’s sent to LIKE.TG ITSM to gather the necessary approvals. ITSM then leverages Microsoft Azure Active Directory to add the requested user to the appropriate security grid, which automatically assigns the user a Windows 365 license.When the Windows 365 Cloud PC is ready, ITSM notifies the user in Microsoft Teams and provides access to the Cloud PC(s) they’ve requested. What once took days or weeks with a manual process is now delivered in minutes, providing a powerful end-to-end employee experience.For existing ITSM customers, the Windows 365 integration is expected to be available as a free app in the LIKE.TG Store starting this fall.Driving the future of workLIKE.TG is thrilled to be deepening our strategic partnership with Microsoft by integrating with a groundbreaking new product. Together, we’re driving the future of hybrid work.Learn more about how LIKE.TG and Microsoft are working together to boost collaboration, productivity, and employee satisfaction:
Watch the Microsoft Teams, LIKE.TG and Levi’s partner-customer success video
Download our ebook: Making hybrid work, work for you
Read our related blog: How LIKE.TG and Microsoft Teams improve the employee experience
Visit our LIKE.TG page at the Microsoft Inspire Event Site and be sure to check out these Microsoft Inspire sessions:
What’s next in end-user computing – July 15, 10:30 – 11 am PDT
Seizing the employee experience opportunity with Microsoft Viva
How LIKE.TG and Microsoft Teams improve the employee experience
Today, employees are consumers of the workplace. Just as companies compete for customers, they compete for candidates and to retain their existing workforce.Employees want a sense of belonging and to feel engaged in their everyday work. When employee happiness and engagement is lacking, it impacts the satisfaction and quality of work—and could mean missed business growth.[Transform employee experience.]According to Gallup, highly engaged business units can result in:
23% greater profitability
10% higher customer loyalty
18% more in sales
Because of this, the focus on employee engagement and satisfaction continues to grow. At the root is the desire for simplified workflows that allow employees to solve common everyday problems quickly on their own. That way, they can get back to actively contributing to business goals, where they feel most engaged.Together, LIKE.TG® workflows and Microsoft Teams provide a modern and simple user experience. By optimizing workflows for IT, HR, facilities, and other departments, you can save employees time and frustration—and improve collaboration, productivity, and employee satisfaction.Work from anywhereThe pandemic spurred a rapid shift to remote and hybrid working. With more employees working from home, there’s a need for easy access to virtual agent support without requiring employees to call, send emails, or visit in person. The LIKE.TG Virtual Agent does exactly that.Powered by natural language understanding (NLU), Virtual Agent simulates an in-person service desk experience from anywhere. The result is a simplified workflow where employees can self-serve for the most common issues and questions. Using the integration between Microsoft Teams and LIKE.TG, employees can:
Automatically resolve the most common IT request and HR tasks.
Quickly receive answers to frequently asked questions.
Seamlessly access a live agent for more complex issues.
Meet employees where they areWhen there are pain points in the existing workflow process, it’s important to meet employees where they are—and avoid adding fuel to the fire.“We didn't want to spin up a whole bunch of new technologies that they had to learn,” explains Dave Hellman, director of IT service management at Levi Strauss Co. “We wanted to put it in their hands. That meant leveraging things like Microsoft Teams, that meant leveraging our corporate intranet, and that meant leveraging ServiceNow.”With 145 million daily active users, nearly twice as many as at the start of 2020, Microsoft Teams has become second nature to most of us in the virtual environment to connect and collaborate. So, rather than having employees go elsewhere for IT and HR support, why not bring the support to them?LIKE.TG’s integration harnesses the familiarity of the Microsoft Teams platform and tools, smoothing the employee experience and taking collaboration and conversations to another level.Work better togetherThe multifaceted makeup of a good employee experience requires easy-to-use, accessible, and simple processes. It’s not enough to develop a workflow that meets one of these requirements and not the others.When businesses commit to improving employee experiences through simplified workflows, they often see an increase in Net Promoter Score® (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT). The results from LIKE.TG Virtual Agent and Microsoft Teams customers show a shift in employee satisfaction and business efficiency. Our on-demand customer sessions from Knowledge 2021 highlight these benefits:
Itau Unibanco saw an 87% improvement in NPS and achieved a 40% reduction in IT tickers per month.
Levi Strauss saw its CSAT move to 100% for the very first time in more than 14 years due to improved trends in call volume SLAs.
Heineken found it 2x faster for employees to create tickets using Predictive Intelligence.
Integrating Microsoft plus LIKE.TG in your workflows and processes can improve business value.
The partnership between LIKE.TG and Microsoft makes this seamless experience possible. By combining employee comfortability, collaboration, and communication in Microsoft Teams with the predictive intelligence and AI capabilities of Virtual Agent, IT and HR departments can transform the employee experience and improve business outcomes.Learn more about how LIKE.TG and Microsoft Teams make engaging employee interactions possible from anywhere.©2021 LIKE.TG, Inc. All right reserved. LIKE.TG, the LIKE.TG logo, Now, and other LIKE.TG marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of LIKE.TG, Inc. in the United State and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
LIKE.TG and Microsoft power virtual agent collaboration on Teams for the new distributed world of work
On-demand collaboration happens fast nowadays. Service agents, from IT, HR and other departments, need to collaborate quickly to resolve employee needs before they become larger issues. Great employee experiences demand end-to-end integration and execution at scale.No longer a nice-to-have, productive collaboration has become essential for business continuity and enterprise resilience, as some workers start to return to the physical workplace.Today, we’re announcing the general availability of integrated capabilities with Microsoft that allow HR and IT agents to collaborate more effectively and resolve issues directly within Microsoft Teams—continuing the companies’ deep commitment to accelerating digital transformation for their joint customers and to creating great service experiences for employees within their suite of productivity tools.As we’ve seen throughout the pandemic, the combined power of business agility and collaboration has never been more critical. Enabling collaboration within workflows in Microsoft Teams, agents can tackle complex issues together and swarm resources to ensure that incidents are taken care of as quickly as possible.These breakthrough capabilities, available now, include:
Chat-to-Call: Agents can invite an employee to a Teams call directly from a live chat to quickly understand and resolve an issue. Chat-to-Call also enables video calling and screen sharing, allowing agents to significantly reduce time to resolution by quickly diagnosing an incident. In more complex situations, agents can join employees via video to provide a more human touch.
Major Incident Management, including meeting extensions: Agents can rapidly collaborate in a group setting to address organization-wide incidents through a structured process. With meeting extensions, key information can be shared from the Now Platform® directly into a Teams meeting to give agents a shared understanding of the incident at hand and enable more rapid responses.
The innovations announced today support agents through the distributed workforce model by facilitating rapid and direct lines of communications within Microsoft Teams to meet employees where they are. Simultaneously, agents now have the resources to prepare for increased incidents and requests as employees return to the physical workplace and require assistance in their transitions back to the office. Once an incident is resolved, all of the activity is captured in the Now Platform so that in the future, others can also benefit from the interaction.During the pandemic, customers have found that virtual agents provide employees answers and drive agent productivity so they can focus on the most complex issues. At LIKE.TG, we have seen substantial growth in customers rolling out intelligent chatbot experiences. In 2020, Virtual Agent deployments increased 300%, and self-service usage by employees grew 15-fold.You can learn more about our continued efforts with Microsoft to enhance the employee service experience and agent collaboration in Teams in an upcoming session at Microsoft Ignite digital experience, on March 2-4 and on-going here on the Digital Hub.Check out our latest capabilities in the LIKE.TG store:
IT Service Management Integration with Microsoft Teams
HR Service Delivery Integration with Microsoft Teams
Notify Connector for Microsoft Teams
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New Employee Workflow Solutions Keep Workforces Safe
2020 was a year of reckoning for companies across all industries. Businesses were challenged with adjusting to the new realities of work and life brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and many organizations quickly responded to help meet evolving employee needs.At LIKE.TG, we’re proud that we were able to bring our Emergency Response apps and Safe Workplace suite to market within a matter of weeks to help our customers respond to COVID-19 while helping to keep their employees safe and productive. More than 900 enterprises globally have downloaded our Safe Workplace apps, with more than 9,500 app installations to date.We will continue to enable a safe and efficient workplace, releasing new workflow solutions and capabilities twice a month to support organizations – regardless of when and where their employees work.Today, we’re pleased to announce an out-of-the-box integration with Twilio to streamline return to workplace processes and communications. The integration enables organizations to send and receive SMS text messages regarding daily health updates and verifications, adding yet another communication method beyond email and push notifications for organizations to engage with their workforce.
“Today’s distributed workforce requires solutions that meet employees where they are, on the device of their choice,” said Zack Smocha, Senior Director Product at Twilio. “We’re thrilled that our integration with LIKE.TG further helps employers connect with employees at the most critical times, on their mobile device using SMS.”We also released an integration for Workplace Service Delivery with Mappedin, a leading indoor mapping SaaS platform. Together with Mappedin, we will deliver interactive indoor mapping and wayfinding experiences to employees, making day-to-day navigation, room reservation and discovery within the office simple.
In an increasingly distributed work environment, digital solutions must enable simple and flexible experiences, including the ability to easily find and book desks, collaboration spaces and meeting rooms, and navigate facilities.With this integration, facility and workplace teams using LIKE.TG can leverage a robust map editor suite to assist with keeping floor plans up to date. Property managers can edit floor plans in real time and publish those changes to their wayfinding and mapping experiences. And employees can reserve any space using an interactive floor map that shows reserved, unavailable and available spaces for booking."We’re seeing offices and other indoor spaces change constantly,” said Hongwei Liu, CEO of Mappedin. “Accurate digital maps and simple tools to keep them up to date help everyone stay on top of that change and focus on what they do best. This, paired with the LIKE.TG Workplace Service Delivery solution, provides a meaningful employee experience.”As we look to a new year, we know that providing organizations with solutions and tools to help bring employees safely back to workplaces – and enable productivity in a new distributed work environment – is essential. We’ll continue to innovate to help customers effectively manage workplace and workforce readiness, making work, work better for everyone.
LIKE.TG hires Gabrielle Toledano as chief talent officer
LIKE.TG announced today that Gabrielle “Gaby” Toledano is joining the company as chief talent officer.“Gaby is the perfect choice to attract and retain the industry’s very best talent,” said LIKE.TG CEO Bill McDermott. “She has my total confidence to strengthen the people power of ServiceNow. Gaby is a phenomenal, purpose-driven leader, with a deep passion for developing people and building a strong culture of diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Gaby will keep us at our best by ensuring the best work at ServiceNow.”Toledano begins her new role in January and will report to McDermott. She brings to LIKE.TG nearly 30 years of leadership experience in human resources and operations at both enterprise and consumer companies. Most recently, she led human resources, finance, IT, marketing, and facilities as chief operating officer of Keystone Strategy LLC. Previously, Toledano was executive in residence for Comcast Ventures and its portfolio companies. Prior to Comcast, she served as chief people officer at Tesla, and before that spent more than 10 years as chief talent officer at Electronic Arts. She also served as chief human resources officer for Siebel Systems.“LIKE.TG is a purpose-driven company with that magical combination of strong values, a unique, ‘hungry and humble’ culture, and world-class talent,” Toledano said. “To be a part of a high-growth company that cares so deeply about creating great employee experiences, developing and cultivating talent, and fostering a culture that is inclusive and diverse is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”Toledano holds a B.A. in modern thought and literature and an M.A. in education from Stanford University. She serves on the board of directors at Bose Corporation and Glu Mobile.She succeeds Pat Wadors, who is stepping down to pursue a new role at an early-stage company.
How to prepare for changes in the workplace
Transitioning back to the office is becoming more of a possibility with each coming day. But managing the transition can leave you feeling overwhelmed. Where do you start? How will work be different after a year of working remotely? And how will you balance management of a remote and in-person workforce?The LIKE.TG on-demand Back to Work webinar series can help you prepare for changes in the workplace post-COVID-19 in four key ways.Digital transitionIt’s important to remain risk-averse to COVID-19 and keep employees safe as we begin returning to the workplace. Our Digital Options to Work Flexibly webinar with KPMG will help you think through crucial considerations for returning to in-person work.Digital solutions such as the LIKE.TG Safe Workplace Suite can help you support the safety and productivity of your workforce. Discover how integrating digital solutions with in-office and virtual work will help you through this transitional time. The webinar includes customer use cases.Human resources impactIt’s no secret that COVID-19 and remote work have changed the employee experience. As you shift your scope toward migrating employees back to the office, you might find our HR’s Role in Business Transformation webinar helpful.Industry analyst Josh Bersin and Telstra Group’s HR leader Alex Badenoch will walk you through issues and changes to address as you prepare to bring your workforce back to the workplace. You’ll also learn HR strategies you can implement to support your workplace transformation.Hybrid workforceIt’s not likely you’ll have all employees on-site all the time post-COVID-19. Learn how to reinvent your workplace with your employees top of mind in our Goodbye Reopening, Hello Reinvention webinar. LIKE.TG experts will discuss strategies to effectively support a hybrid workforce of remote and in-person workers.Keep in mind trust is a critical ingredient to bringing people back to the workplace. Workers want to know they’re safe. Discover how to adequately innovate and support your workforce, regardless of where they work.Shifting prioritiesYou likely have an idea of what this year’s corporate HR landscape will look like. See how it compares to HR industry consultant Josh Bersin’s in our Challenges and Priorities for 2021 webinar. Bersin will reveal his predictions for the year and help you explore ways to increase employee engagement.Returning to the office doesn’t have to be daunting. LIKE.TG will help you support your employees and adapt to changes in the workplace.
