Traditionally, this approach was siloed, with departments such as product, customer service, sales staff, or marketing looking at only their part in the customer’s journey. This compartmentalized approach to individual touchpoints overlooks the bigger—and more important—picture: the customer’s overall experience. You can only begin to comprehend how to meaningfully increase performance by looking at the customer’s experience through his or her own eyes.

For example, when popular audio streaming service ��wanted to improve its customers’ musical experience, it hired a marketing company to map its customers’ journeys. The goal of this customer journey map was to:

• Increase number of users
• Improve the experience of sharing music for current users
• Improving the music sharing feature and increasing its adoption

The map included all the user experiences — from the moment they start using Spotify on a mobile device to asking if they like a song shared by a friend. At each step, data is collected on what the customer is interested in, what they are thinking about, and what they are feeling.

Based on this, Spotify made changes to its functionality, tweaked the interface to make the music sharing experience smoother and more seamless and thus encouraged more users to share music with their friends and acquaintances. Needless to say, this also led to an����for Spotify.��

Why does Every Business Need a Customer Journey Map?

According toa����conducted by Salesforce, customer experience strategies are more significant than ever. The UK-based research revealed that:��

• 80% of new-gen customers placed as much weightage on their interactions with companies as on the products offered.
• 69% of customers wanted to communicate with a firm in real-time.
• 60% of consumers expected their customer experience to be connected.

By using a customer journey map to analyze user behavior, an enterprise can better understand how their customers travel through the sales process and how they feel at each step. If organizations provide the customer with the finest experience from start to finish, it will lead to increased customer satisfaction, higher sales and retention, lower end-to-end service costs, and improved employee morale. Thus, customer journey maps help:

• Increase consumer engagement��
• Remove ineffective touchpoints from the equation
• Shift from a company-centric to a customer-centric mindset
• Bridge interdepartmental gaps.
• Target specific client personas with marketing initiatives that are appropriate to their identities
• Recognize circumstances that may have resulted in quantitative data abnormalities
• Assign ownership of multiple client touchpoints
• Make it feasible to calculate the return on investment for future UX/CX investments
• Optimize a client’s onboarding process through the feedback shared by customers
• Convert prospects to loyal customers in a faster and easier manner

How to Create Customer Journey Maps?

To leverage the benefits of customer journey mapping, it is advisable to start as early as possible. This can prevent the possibility of customer dissatisfaction at the later stages (which are more complex) of the journey.

However, there is no ‘standard map’ that can represent every consumer’s journey, simply because there is no such thing as a ‘standard’ client experience. An ideal journey map must be completely personalized, aligned with the customer’s profile and created from the customer’s perspective. This enables the organization to determine the focus points for future modifications as well as evaluate the efficacy of the current experience strategies.

Here is what��organizations must do to create a truly customer-centric journey map:

1. Understand your customer’s perspective:��

Listening to your customers is essential. The best customer journey maps represent the customer’s perspective — regarding the kind of service they want, the problems they face with the current product, what they expect from the company, etc.

For example, suppose your potential customers look for you at trade fairs, and you keep on advertising in the newspapers. In that case, the advertising budget is unlikely to deliver the kind of results the company is targeting. Representing the customer’s perspective permits the organization to focus on more successful relationship-building initiatives rather than squandering resources on programs that weren’t truly benefiting their results – or their bottom line.

2. Conduct Research and Analysis:��

Extensive and qualitative customer research is required to prepare your customer journey map. To figure out what’s really going on, you’ll need interviews, ethnographies, focus group discussions, surveys, and/or other sorts of customer research, depending on the extent of the journey. In some specific cases, employees can also be asked to interact with customers to build the map. This strategy works best for B2B organizations that focus on a specific process. Some companies hire consumers to develop maps, but in this case, efforts are needed to avoid any bias related to sample size. Brands can also identify areas of improvement through customer ratings and feedback.

A company can get genuine feedback about consumer experiences through face-to-face interaction at multiple checkpoints. Apart from obtaining accurate data, this exercise also helps make the brand’s customers understand that the enterprise is going the extra mile to fulfill their requirements.��

3. Identify and Represent Customer Personas:��

When we talk about creating personas, we do not mean micro-segmentation; instead, we’re looking for the top two to four core consumer personas that the brand serves. Marketers can design a customer journey map for each persona and customers will then be segmented based on their demographics, lifestyle, and interests.

For example, while evaluating how customers spend on health insurance, a customer mapping exercise discovered two different types of users. While one group spent only a few hours researching, the second set of customers spent six weeks for the same, on average, and came up with several methods or options for spending on health insurance. A good customer journey map cannot combine the two segments as the outcome would not adequately reflect each segment’s experience.

4. Include Customer Objectives:��

A good journey map represents what the customer wants or is looking for and also whether these goals change over the course of the journey.��

For example, if the organization in question is a supermarket chain, it can have two different types of customers:��

1. Brings a list and sticks to it- This kind of customer does not want to be disturbed and wants to just find the goods as per the list.
2. Open-minded- This customer might want to explore the supermarket and try out new goods.

Both sets of customers have different expectations from the company. Creating a journey map lets you develop cost-effective strategies to suit the demands of each group.

5. Concentrate on Emotions:��

Customer sentiments are essential to any corporate organization, whether small, medium, or large. It has been proved that emotionally connected customers are much more valuable than highly satisfied customers. These emotionally connected customers buy more of your products and services, visit you more often, exhibit less price sensitivity, pay more attention to your communications, follow your advice, and recommend you more. Conversely, if the customers develop negative emotional connections with the offered products or services, it’s hard for them to forget these problems, which affects the rest of their journey. One of the primary purposes of journey mapping is to eliminate or mitigate such issues.

6. Map all interactions:��

Each time the customer interacts with your brand, you get new information to add to your customer journey map. Planning the journey at every stage of your customer’s experience — including gaining brand awareness, acting on buying motivation, displaying loyalty and advocacy – lets the organization maintain records of, and gain insights from, each interaction. Not only does this help to understand the customer’s point of view, both positive and negative, it also allows the prediction of their future reactions towards the organization’s products or services.��

7. Recognize Moments of Truth that Stand Out:��

Moments of truth are important moments in a customer’s journey when a significant event occurs and a brand opinion is established. Simply said, these are the points at which your clients will either fall in love with your product or reject it and depart. They are vital to an organization since they can represent the weakest part of the customer journey and fix it. Not every touchpoint is a moment of truth- some touchpoints are more critical than others. For example, if a supermarket chain does not offer parking, it is highly possible that the customer chooses not to visit the supermarket at all. In this case, parking is much more important than other touchpoints. Thus, an organization needs to understand crucial touchpoints and incorporate these in the customer journey maps. This helps ensure the customer has a positive experience at those touchpoints.��

8. Measure the flow of time:��

The length of a customer’s experience is crucial information. Is a normal customer call taking 2 minutes or 10 minutes? Did the customer think about the product for 20 minutes or 40 hours before making a purchase? Time is an important factor in customer journey mapping.��

Remember, it’s critical research to learn more about customer motivations and hurdles. If you do not have the data to answer these questions, you might need to make assumptions that may lead to inadequate strategic planning later. A good customer journey map recognizes the importance of every bit of information.

9. Revisions based on new information:��

When it comes to improving the customer experience, the process is iterative and there is always room for improvement. One of the main customer experience strategies is to continue to learn about your customers. Reassess your data, receive feedback, leverage the insights and adapt and improve. Regardless of how big or small they are, the changes you make will be crucial because they are directly related to the pain points that the customers flagged.

10. Map the current and future state:��

Start organizing your data and touchpoints to map the current state of your customer experience. Mapping the current state will also help you identify gaps or red flags in the experience, information duplication, inadequate transitions between phases, and any significant weaknesses and obstacles in your customer’s journey. You can then easily map potential solutions and compare the current state of the customer journey to the ideal future state. Present your results to the entire organization to keep everyone informed about the areas that need to be improved, as well as a clear roadmap for planned change and how their responsibilities will contribute to improving the customer journey.

Customer Journey Maps are valuable for understanding what brand consumers are doing and experiencing as they traverse each point of interaction. It allows businesses to minimize bottlenecks and optimize customer journeys while simultaneously enhancing their consumers’ satisfaction levels. Several customer mapping tools introduced by����aim to assist with your customer experience and make the necessary adjustments to attract and retain customers.

The post Customer Journey Mapping: Insights for the Modern Organization appeared first on �鶹ԭ�� India News Center.

2020 ushered us into a new way of working. Organizations are now moving to investing and setting up infrastructures to provide a superior work experience to their people– Hybrid 2.0. �鶹ԭ�� organized the �鶹ԭ�� HR Connect 2021 to throw some much-needed light on how we can design employee experiences for the hybrid 2.0 world that are holistic, progressive, agile, technology-driven, and most importantly, more human!��

Jason Averbook, CEO & Co-Founder, Leapgen, conducted a workshop��delving��into the ideal way��of carving a winning employee experience strategy. Where he provided a step-by-step guide to��planning a pandemic-proof EX strategy that��transforms��employees into growth partners��as we transition to newer work models��for our brave, evolving hybrid world of work.��

The last couple of years has changed the world of work, forever.��HR has had to greatly accelerate its pace of developing and implementing experience strategies and tools��for employee experiences��that have��become critical to driving impact for organizations.����

Getting to Hybrid 2.0��

Transformation is a word that people bring up a lot, but not many truly understand what it means. The word “trans” means radical change and “formation” means how we do things, in this case, ‘how we work’. In��the world where we have lived in��there are 2 types of “trans” – there is technology transition and there is true transformation. True transformation comes only by following three��key��steps –��Strategy, Deployment & ROI (Run, Optimize, Innovate).��

The��concept of Hybrid 2.0 needs to be attacked in a very systemic way. And that starts with developing the right Digital People Strategy. Deploying the strategy is the next step and requires a very large effort that includes programs, change, adaptation, unlearning, organizational��model��and it may also at some point involve the implementation of technology.����

Implementation is a part of the deployment. A lot of organizations are great at implementation but not deployment and that’s where a lot of strategies fall apart.����

Once the strategy has been deployed, the third step is to think about how to sustain the value we get from it. This is where ROI or RUN, OPTIMIZE, INNOVATE comes into play.����

The World��of Work��in��2021��

In the world we live in today, building strategies is��really hard.��Previously, there was a point in time where we could make 5 –��3 year��strategies/plans. But in today’s day��and age of��uncertainty, there is a much higher need for agile strategies – one’s that can shift, flex, contract based on the things happening around us.����

We are human inside of work as much as we are outside of it. In the world of HXM, this means that we need to be��listening at all times��to the signals and the people and react with our strategies intact.������

We need to respond by going to our core –��one that makes us all��human, and��think about recovery��by focusing on��being human-centered.��Because people are our most important assets and how we make them feel is what is going to allow us to get through these changing times.����

Some of the impacts we��are seeing on the NOW of work:��

• Human-centered recovery strategy��

• Need for systems and tools to drive efficacy��
• Hybrid work is not a fad and will be here forever��
• HR��to act��with agility and response-ability��
• Digital & distributed models of work��
• Concerted policy efforts��to drive systemic change��

• Optimism��and��uncertainty��at the same time��
• Attracting and retaining labor now looks vastly different��

Right now, HR has the largest opportunity that it has ever had – to shape the NOW of work.����

Digital��Equation for Success��

Remarking on the pandemic’s effect on every aspect of work and life, Satya Nadella, CEO��of, Microsoft said, “We saw two years of digital transformation in two months”. The question that now remains is if this is also the case with the HR function?��

Digital transformation is meant to touch everything from marketing to sales to everything done in Human Resources. The shift from HCM to HXM is essentially about transformation and the need for every HR organization in the world to digitally transform.��Most people think that digital��is all about��technology, but that’s not true. Digital is not��just technology, rather��it��is a component of��it.����

It is time we rethink how to better design and deliver services. This��starts��by bringing back��the focus on understanding the purpose of our organization and how we want to serve with it.��HR leaders have put this purpose into action by digitally transforming their functions. They can do this by focusing on 4 key areas:��

1. 35% of digital success comes from ensuring��you have a clear, concise, understood��mindset��that is��aligned to the purpose��and has strong measures of success.��

1. 30%��is��designing for the audience��of NOW.��This comes from truly��knowing��your people- not just skills and qualifications but��what allows them to bring their best selves to work.��

1. 25%��comes from��designing��journeys.��Processes generate data, but journeys create feelings and connections��between people and their purpose.��

1. 10% of success comes from the technology��deployed (not just implemented) to support the people and processes.��Essentially acting��as��the��fuel needed to create journeys.��

Digital transformation is made up of each of these components. Leaving out even one of these reduces the effectiveness��of��the overall transformation.��

Ultimately when we think about HXM, what we need to do is LISTEN & ACT. Listen to the people and act on it immediately – not once a year on an engagement survey, but NOW! As organizations and HR leaders we need to do a better job at listening, to truly understand the human side of our workforce.����

Experience Needs to��be:��Shift to B to Me��

The��real goal of HXM and true transformation is the shift from a B2B focus (where the tools��used��are in place to make��the��HR��function��more efficient) to a B2Me focus. This shift will enable employees and managers with tools that make them successful – not the HR but the organization.����

B2Me means personalization, the kind that can only be achieved by truly knowing our people. We need to build workforce tools that not only connect people but build connections between the people. And we need to do this with a concept called –��Hands, Heads & Hearts.��

��

The formula that defines experience is simple:��

Transaction + Interaction = Experience��

Adding��interaction to transactions enriches it to create an experience. The interaction is where the trust is built. The Hands, Heads & Hearts concept is a simple way to think about how we need to shift work as part of the digital transformation.����

Machines are exceptional at hands work, or what is called RAD (Repeatable, Auditable & Documented) work and that is where we should leverage technology. People, on the other hand, are good at the heart’s work – at building connections. It is time we start building functions in a way where the machines are doing the transactional work, while people focus on building stories around the data provided by the machines.����

The True Value of Digital��

Digital is not about eliminating the human element, rather it enhances it.����Work no longer looks the way it used to 2 years ago, and that’s why HR can’t act the same way it did previously.��HR��needs��to become��agile in these fragile times.����

In a recent survey, Future Workforce found that if HR could double its budget, HR leaders from most organizations would like to allocate these additional funds to improve the employee experience (44%) and existing technology (37%).����

Before the pandemic, we used to have 2 types of experiences – Physical & Digital/Technical. Today, we have only one��–��the “Workforce or Human Experience”.����To achieve��this experience��to the fullest, we��have to��stop implementing technology and move to deploying human capabilities.����

Adding technology doesn’t change the HR function or its interaction with the workforce – but it��definitely helps��with it. However, we��have to��remember that technology without change is nothing.��And for people to adopt transformation, organizations will have to adapt.����

Human-Centered Design Leverages Personas��

You cannot talk about HXM, without talking about humans, and the voice of the employees/customers.��Deploying technology was��previously��done as a single spread. This��approach��doesn’t work anymore. We need to meet people where they are with an empathetic��lens to the work they do and how they do it.����

We need to create personas by listening to people who seem like the persona and study them more carefully to understand- the best ways to communicate with them, their needs and expectations, roadblocks, etc. When we understand a persona at that level, we can deploy messages in a way that meets the persona where they are and with what they need.����

Benefits of personas:��

• Companywide understanding of your workforce��

• Encourages empathy-driven design����
• Digestible workforce segments��
• Uncover workforce needs/common frustrations��
• Test, refine, and improve experiences��
• Anticipate future opportunities��

When we have this kind of insight into our workforce, we can take the “Whole Person Approach”. This approach looks at every aspect of the employee – Physical, Emotional, Social, Spiritual, and Intellectual to��design solutions that��attack��every��problem from all angles.����

COVID has given HR the passport to reset, rethink, reimagine, and realize that the next normal is probably going to be no normal that we are used��to��and that growth is coming at a very large scale. We need to plan and prepare for this by shifting focus from using technology for transition to using it for transformation.�� And embrace the fact that everything about the digital workforce & HXM is now HR’s responsibility.��

HR needs to now deliver experiences, not technology – solutions, not toolkits; enable not monitor; people capabilities, not technology features! And all of this��has to��be done while considering the measurable outcomes of the business.����

One of the most magical things about the shift from HCM to HXM is realizing that technology is the fuel that will allow us to drive to what the NOW of work is.����

Check out more posts:

CEO’s Perspectives on the Changing People Paradigm����

Meeting Business Priorities in a Hybrid World

The post Evolving Employee Experience from HCM to HXM in Hybrid 2.0 appeared first on �鶹ԭ�� India News Center.

To get a CEO’s perspective on the evolving paradigm of the talent agenda the event held an exclusive CEO Dialogue. Chaired by Ester Martinez, CEO & Editor – in – Chief, People Matters, this esteemed panel included thought leaders from leading organizations –��Kulmeet��Bawa, President & Managing Director, �鶹ԭ�� Indian Subcontinent,��Dilip��Shanghvi, Managing Director, Sun Pharma, and C. P.��Gurnani, CEO, Tech Mahindra.����

While discussing the COVID situation, the power-packed panel revisited the talent transformation agenda and reflected on how it has once again become the center of board room concern. They acknowledged the role of technology in helping businesses reinvent themselves to continuously realize value��as they��inch from recovery to growth.��

Following are the key��highlights of this insightful discussion:��

Revisiting��The��Talent��Agenda��Through��The��Pandemic��Lens��

Kicking off the discussion with his thoughts on COVID, C.P.��Gurnani��termed it the accelerator for one of the greatest workforce transformations of our lifetimes.��Emphasizing��the��lasting impact of recent��changes to the ways we work, exercise, shop, learn, communicate, or where we work, he stated��“HR��today means how it affects me as an individual and my 13,000 associates.��“��

Reflecting on the��initial phase of the lockdown, he mentioned “The first few months were about arranging chairs, tables, renting out hotels near workplaces and creating a secure environment.��It��was��like��mechanically responding to an emergency��–��creating war rooms to provide essentials.��But very soon we realized that transformation is essential as much for��customers, for managers��to manage a remote workforce, and as much for the workforce to balance their personal & business lives.��Technology has provided the fabric and the��answer, but��knowing what the challenges are and being able to address them is the need of the hour.”����������

Kulmeet��shared, “The world has��changed��and we are grappling with certain issues. While we miss the coffee corners, office huddles, personal connections, and travel, we��have��witnessed��a prominent��silver lining in the form of much higher levels of productivity��and a lot more time with our customers and teams, which is phenomenal to me.”����

Commenting with his perspective of the future of talent agenda, he added��“There��has been a clear emergence of a��brand-new��culture, that demands a��lot more agility and nimbleness. From a talent perspective, this means employees need to possess a lot more digital dexterity and mental resilience.��We as leaders & HR as an organization will need to be a lot more conscious of how we bring in this new talent and hone them to be successful. Secondly,��the changes we are��seeing today require a whole new paradigm in terms of leadership. We need to break away from the traditional hierarchical chain-of-command model��to cater��to the huge millennial and Gen Z workforce��that we are bringing on board��and balance their need for instant gratification.”��������

Speaking on the challenges faced by employees,��Dilip��Sanghvi added, “Another important challenge we faced was – because we have people working across different time zones, the boundaries between personal and professional time were blurry. We had to set clear expectations, otherwise, people are left with no time to work, guide recharge or relax.”����

Creating��Positive��Employee��Experiences��That��Enable��Productivity����

The more employers focus on what’s best for their people, the greater each employee’s experience will be. This means actively catering to your people’s needs and, more importantly, actually caring for them.����

On �鶹ԭ��’s and his personal experience��as an “on-screen leader”��over the last 13 months,��Kulmeet��said,��“Employees��today truly trust organizations that care for them.��At���鶹ԭ�� our topmost priority has��always��been the health and safety of our employees and the broader community.��I am touched by the spirit today, where I see every �鶹ԭ�� India employee��is��going beyond their charter by miles to deliver on the shared vision that we set up for ourselves as teams.��“����

Commenting on the need to create moments of truth that holistically support employees, C.P.��Gurnani��added, “This war has been imposed on us and has meant that��we��need to get into a wartime General mode. But you can’t be a��General who��is not concerned about an employee’s spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental health.��Today more than ever, the future of work is the future of worker well-being.”����

��

In an effort to help employees manage the stresses of��work-life integration,��Tech Mahindra��has��appointed “Wellness Officers”. Clearly communicating the company’s intention address its people’s emotional and physical requirements.��He added,��“COVID��has been a method of redefining business. My business is executed by people, they are my flag bearers and if I��can help them to redefine themselves, I will automatically be redefining my business and winning the hearts of my customers.��“��

Echoing the sentiment across the panel,��Dilip��said, “The last few quarters have been some of our best. This is the result of the significant contributions of our employees��and��helps us to look at business very differently, and��learn continuously.”����

The Role of Technology��as a Strategic Enabler����

Technology is rewriting the rules. In the hybrid workplace, it��is no longer playing a supporting role.��Instead,��it has proven itself to be the��critical��driving force enabling employees to achieve��overall operational��success.����

On technology’s increasingly important role,��Dilip��Sanghvi��said,��“The��greatest contribution��of technology in improving processes has been its ability to remove subjectivity from evaluating performances. Making it a transparent process��that rewards people based on their contributions and success in an unbiased manner.��The speed with which technology has enabled us to work in this changing environment is only going to accelerate.”����

Reflecting on��its critical role��in underpinning the talent strategic changes seen in the past year, C.P.��Gurnani��pointed out,��“The shift towards digitalization has been accelerated by a minimum of 5 -7 years.��I’m convinced that if��employees��had��not��embraced technology the way they did, some of the results we are seeing would never have been possible.��It is employees that grew, learned, and used the tools that were made available.”����

“As employers and company leaders��we��will have to continue to invest in our people��and��give them a learning environment, where they can��create a��significant��impact��not only in the short-term but also in the medium and long-term.”����

Talking about the emergence of a new mindset and its importance in the experience era,��Kulmeet��added, “While we talk about digital-first, I have witnessed that the digital-only strategy is coming up rather quickly. The questions we get asked today are no longer about the “Why”, but about the “How?” – How do we do this faster? Or holistically? How do we do this cloud-first so that we are more agile?”��

In the “experience era” of ubiquitous, personalized experiences in the online world, technology is facilitating a real-time merger between science and art, between content and data. Commenting on��the need��for a renewed focus on fostering human connection, he explained,��“While��most leadership tenets remain the same, some like the need for communication, enhanced need for empathy, and authenticity from leaders has gone up from a technology standpoint. We must humanize ourselves through various technological channels and forge the kind of bonds that��help us grow closer as people.”��

Fostering Human Connections��in��a Changing��Workplace��

“We need to nurture a culture of trust within our organizations, by rolling out trust-based models. At �鶹ԭ��, we are in the process of implementing an initiative called “Pledge2Flex”.�� We hope it will help us dive deep into a flexible workplace model, agnostic of geographic boundaries and time zones.��It is time we ensure that the amount of flexibility should move at the same pace as what the world is demanding.”��

Discussing the needs of a changing workforce,��Dilip��mentioned, “Managing the new millennials needs a new mindset. A transparent model that gives them freedom, respects their abilities, trusts their judgments while rewarding contributions, and gives honest feedback can be the best way��into the future of work.”��

Concluding the session with some advice on��creating��a high-performing workplace, C.P.��Gurnani��suggested, “Managers need to adopt a parental style of leadership, where you understand your employee will need some help to uphold values, his/her contributions and his/her relationship to their own family. I believe it is our job to keep the workplace happy and��I can only do this by communicating and listening.��All my advice��boils down to 3 words – Listen. Understand. Act.����

Also read about the keynote address at HR Connect 2021��

The post CEO’s Perspectives on the Changing People Paradigm���� appeared first on �鶹ԭ�� India News Center.

As part of the opening keynote, Prashanth Tripathy, Managing Director & CEO, Max Life Insurance Pvt. Ltd.,��shared some critical insights into trends that are creating lasting��impacts on��the workforce and workplace. And the importance of building��progressive employee experiences��that expand the definitions of productivity, collaboration, and employee well-being in the post-pandemic world.��

The unfolding events of the COVID-19 outbreak have undoubtedly impacted the way the workforce is interacting and working with each other.��Organizations��are looking for creative solutions to��maintain balance between their 2 main objectives of sustaining rapid growth and creating a positive employee experience.��

Explaining how Max Life Insurance experienced its best 18 months since its inception 20 years ago, Prashanth pointed out some key trends. And shared how his organization tackled these ups and downs to achieve business goals of hyper-productivity, agility, and flexibility through a progressive employee experience tailored for a hybrid world.����

Key Trends��Transforming Employee Experiences��

Rise of True Digitization��

Before the disruptions caused by the pandemic and the consequent lockdowns, the digital journey was simply a fad that every CEO seemed to be on. The current work scenario has created a paradigm shift.����To deliver on business outcomes more efficiently, while remaining a great place to work��organizations across the globe��are��re-evaluating��and doing��more to support their��move towards digitization.����

Global Talent Competitiveness��

The shift to remote work also means that we are now competing for talent at a global level. People today can work from any market, serving any company. The entry-exit barriers created by geography have slowly but surely dissolved, leaving us with a new challenge��to find creative ways to retain our position as great employers, among almost the whole world.����

The “Phygital” Workspace��

As a critical enabler of business and economic continuity, remote working has shown us that physical presence for work is out of the window. It’s a new world and��organizations need to differentiate themselves based on flexibility to meet employee needs. Creating a��“Phygital”��world – that brings in digital and interfaces it with the physical set-up to perfectly fit in the new normal��which��seems to be the way ahead.����

No One Solution to Fit All��

Organizations will have to strike the optimal balance between the physical and digital, that works best for them.��Solutions cannot��be generic for industries or the world at large, as every company and its employee needs will differ depending on their��work models and business goals. All companies will have to strike their own balance.��

Importance of Company Culture��

The culture of an organization, its purpose, and values are some of the most important things that anchor and bind the workforce. At a time when departments within organizations are physically divided across geographies, the consequent flexibility can impede creating strategies that align the workforce and is a challenge that needs much thought.��

Supervision is Passe��

The last 18 months have made it clear that most organizations do not need supervisors. It has been observed time and again that if we are not careful this supervisory layer can create havoc by shifting the balance from discussions, creativity, or brainstorming to mere reviews. Instead, organizations need to divert efforts to engage and create deeper connections with employees, so they feel heard and appreciated.����

Work-life Balance Matters��

We have all experienced the slow deterioration of the quality of work-life balance since the beginning of the work-from-home era. A direct result of the reduced productivities��as compared to��how well we used to work cross-functionally in a physical set-up.��It is not as simple as just walking up to someone’s desk anymore. Collaborations of any kind today, require setting up calls and setting aside time from our already busy schedules.��

How Max Life Insurance Re-invented its Employee��Experiences��for Hybrid 2.0��

As soon as the lockdown was in place the team came together to outline a purpose and path to differentiate themselves in the market.��Keeping a close watch on trends and tirelessly working toward creating a unified purpose,��helped��Max Life Insurance��to��realize and outdo its business goals, despite the challenging times.��

Prashanth detailed��some of the actions��his organization��adopted to maintain��the��equilibrium required between employee centricity, morale, motivation, and��the��business outcomes that were expected.����

• Launching a special program called ‘Mission Possible’ with a focus on surviving against the adversity of the pandemic. This was done via different reward and recognition mechanisms, listening forums, engagement avenues, as well as presenting a simplified way to operate in a digital setup.��Successfully mirroring, replicating, and creating��an optimum way��of work resulting in a steep increase in��market share, rather quickly.��

• Secondly, they always listened. The need to listen has multiplied many times over the last 18 months. While earlier listening avenues were restricted by hierarchy, the team now spent at least a couple of hours were spent talking to people, to identify��problems. Pulse surveys were also conducted every 2 months to understand the ground reality and quickly finding solutions to the reported problems.����
• As the workforce shifted from the physical workspace, the organization made huge investments to enable teams with tools, training, WFH infrastructures, and designing a world-class hybrid workplace.��This new adaptable workspace will be welcoming its head office staff of over 2000 employees, to a hot-desking setup, where people can come in anytime they feel like.����
• People communication and cutting down on meeting time is another area of focus.��In the era of zoom and teams, meetings can eat into a lot of productive time. To combat this, “Do-Not-Disturb” time has been scheduled between 1-2 pm every day. No meetings are to be scheduled, and people are discouraged from calling their peers during this time. The company is also contemplating declaring a couple of days a month as “Off-Meeting Days”. This will give people time to prioritize work deliveries, rather than attending meetings.����
• As a workforce predominantly consisting of the sales team, 85% to be exact, Max Life Insurance acknowledges that is never going to be a 100% digital company. It believes that to maintain a great culture and value system, human face-to-face interactions are foundational and is working towards bringing back its people to the office slowly. At the same time, they are committed to being mindful of the personal needs of each employee.����

In closing, as an organization run by people, we need to recognize the importance of the human touch, but what is required more than that is to continue inspiring people to deliver on the expected business outcomes by aligning our people with our strategies. Ensuring that there is a common thread that ties the entire workforce together can help in this endeavor. ��

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But the question is not when to bring everyone back, but how to use this opportunity to create a workplace that allows everyone to collaborate, focus, learn, socialize, and grow.

My colleague Steve Hunt, chief expert of Technology and Work at �鶹ԭ��, calls this line of thinking a “.” And I couldn’t agree more. Now that more than����of millennials and Gen-Zs prefer the option to work remotely more often, it’s clear that pre-pandemic employee experiences will never come back again.

But this sentiment doesn’t mean that the traditional office experience is dead – it simply means that employee needs are evolving. Whether your employees are working remotely, on site, or within a combination of both, delivering experiences that keep your people engaged is critically important. After all, the hybrid workplace is likely to become more common across many industries for the foreseeable future.

Sustaining a culture of employee engagement and productivity

Some businesses are already heading in the direction of a hybrid work model, allowing some people to work two or three days in the office and the rest of the week remotely, for example. But that part of the hybrid work model is the easy part.

The real magic happens when companies are able to:

• Tap more diverse talent pools
• Assess available skills and capabilities
• Realign resources to address changing needs
• Develop future leaders
• Compensate and promote people fairly
• Recognize and reward top performers in ways that increase motivation and performance

These aspects of the overall employee experience strategy must happen no matter where employees sit.

A hybrid workplace model challenges HR teams to not only keep people connected, engaged, and empowered, but also analyze data-driven insights to understand and improve the workforce culture and deliver business outcomes. But this exercise is not just for HR leaders – executive-level leaders, department heads, and organizational managers must accept responsibility to do the same.

https://youtu.be/vHOxQhSKcYA

Sales leaders are already familiar with this model to a degree. They engage primarily remote salespeople through active listening and consistently study the sales pipeline and win-loss analyses to determine which are most productive, hitting targets, and exceeding expectations. To stay competitive, sales leaders must know their organization’s cost in terms of total headcount and its implications on the company’s bottom line.

How to achieve the right balance

Transforming a workplace into a hybrid model is not as simple as writing new rules of employee conduct and setting new expectations. There is still much work to do to close any gaps in how tools and technology at work enable a great employee experience. Although employees are satisfied with some tools, they may still be skeptical about whether they have everything they need to be productive and continuously develop and grow.

However, building the connections needed to make this happen is not always easy without the right support. According to��, 29% of midsize businesses cite a lack of coordination between different departments as a top internal challenge and 44% cite effective collaboration across functions as a major barrier to transformation initiatives.

Technology plays an essential role in overcoming these issues to create an engaged and agile workforce that enhances business continuity and increases resilience. In fact, employees who are highly satisfied with their company’s tech are six times more likely to be highly satisfied with their overall employee experience.

So how can a business maintain that “workplace hum” of interconnectedness when some people are in the office and others are remote on any given day? The answer goes beyond traditional HR approaches to a more human-centric one, called human experience management (HXM).

HXM��is��about��putting people and their experiences at the center��of everything,��making work��not only easier, but more��individualized to each employee.

With the hybrid work model here to stay, it is increasingly important that employees feel connected, informed and with access to the tools they need to be productive from any device or location. And all of these capabilities are affordably accessible to midsize companies.

Digital workplace tools, such as this new HXM solution, allow employees to tap into everything they need – applications, processes, content, and information − from a single touch point and plus, they can personalize the experience based on what matters to each individual, and which insights and actions are relevant based on their behaviors.

Discovering peer groups, mentors, and intelligent recommendations with greater ease helps employees access the resources they need, stay connected, and save time to get work done. In addition, HR teams can leverage the technology to onboard and offboard employees and upskill and reskill through continuous learning,��skills development,��and on-the-job training opportunities.

With this modern and intuitive technology, multiple applications are integrated into a single user interface, extending the experience across all work-related touch points. And since the platform is extensible, companies can generate more value for their customers, partners, and stakeholders without the burden of ever-increasing IT costs.

Putting people first matters

There’s no doubt that the pandemic has empowered us to reimagine the workplace and created opportunities to optimize it.��But no matter where or how employees work, employee experience matters, especially when it comes to employee engagement and retention.

A hybrid work environment that is interconnected with the right foundation can become an experience that gives employees what they need to feel connected, empowered, appreciated, and fairly rewarded. And when employees and their experiences come first, and their true value is well-understood, midsize businesses create a true meritocracy that empowers their workforce to take charge of their future and the company’s success.

Connect the dots��between��customers, employees, insights, and processes across your midsize business. Read the Oxford Economics brief, “,” for research-based insights on the��value of being��interconnected��and the e-book, “,” for tips on how to act on them effectively.

Lara Albert is global vice president of Solution Marketing for �鶹ԭ�� SuccessFactors
This article was originally published on Forbes, .

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