CIOs, Your Employees are Talking – Nobody is Listening

Many CIOs are facing loss of control as best-of-breed point solutions ‘mushroom’ into the business. Combine that with an acceleration of innovation in technology, a dynamic operating environment for businesses with a lack of time and resources, and the loss of control only fast-tracks this downward spiral. I suggest IT should start some serious listening to get back in the driver’s seat.

Back in the day you could run a more stringent top-down approach to IT in the workplace. Now – for a million reasons – this is impossible. You cannot guard the system landscape, the investments, the support and the project with the strategy plan from last year based on operational metrics. You need to know more about what your end users think, the experiences they have and the why behind their behavior. Did you know that 90% of C-suite executives say they pay attention to employee needs when introducing new technology? However only 53% of employees would agree. This data surrounding experiences (X-data) captures a side of the coin that I believe many of you are being challenged by your CEOs and what other departments are demanding, if not now they soon will.

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Centralizing Experience Data Creates Value

The metrics on the average dashboard are usually based on operational data for things like application down time, usage and performance, issue tickets, turn-around time (TAT) and support satisfaction (CSAT) reported periodically and in a highly aggregated form. It is like being a pilot with no visibility. The X-data allows IT leaders to move away from reviewing anecdotal stories from the vocally motivated sitting as outliers on a satisfaction scale, towards an accessible “in the moment” always on listening platform capturing all sentiments and bringing color to an otherwise grey-scale operating KPI dashboard. If it is not your team listening and acting on the needs of the end user, another part of the business will. When the departments are forced to do their own measurements of end user sentiments, the organization will always be restricted and held back. Only when you begin correlating operating data, experience –  or cross experience data (e.g. customer feedback revealing employee experience gaps) and apply the insight back into the business is the true knowledge of how to drive productivity realized.

Impact of Intelligent Listening

The reality is that keeping employees happy, engaged, and productive cannot be owned by HR alone especially in times of disruption and uncertainty. A business focusing just on the technology and not the cultural or process changes can be a trap and lead to inevitable project failure, missed expectations, blown out budgets, and disappointing user adoption. Honeywell IT for instance, were able to obtain more comprehensive feedback for their employees, including technology experience which allows them to significantly reduce roll-out time by standardizing their approach. Embedding comprehensive and intelligent ‘listening’ tools as part of everyday business processes and behaviors could be the fast track for you to overcome the challenges related to user adoption of running applications, success with major transformative projects and running support for users. A better digital employee experience is shown to have the impact of

1. An increase in employee engagement – Heightened levels of pride, advocacy, and achievement at work.
2. Improvements in employee effectiveness – Employees will have the necessary tools and technology to get their work done effectively.
3. Accelerated employee impact – Their technology experience lets them better serve their customers and work more productively.
4. Increase in employer branding – Employees have a greater sense of feeling valued by their company as a result of their technology experience.

When this process is typically outsourced, reported back in a PowerPoint driven discussion based on a static report outlining a single snapshot of your reality, you are limited for obvious reasons. Those who approach their technology experiences through an employee-centric lens, interlacing together with the insights from their operating systems will differentiate their business and come out the other side ahead of their competition. That’s because better technology experiences will ultimately lead to higher productivity, more engaged and loyal employees, and better external customer experiences. It is time for you to look not only at what is happening, but to also understand and act on why it is happening. Chances are your people are speaking.

Want to know more?

Watch our Qualtrics EmployeeXM for IT Webinar