At a purchase price of US$18.15 in cash per share, the transaction corresponds to a Qualtrics equity value of approximately US$12.5 billion on a fully diluted basis, representing a 73% premium over the 30-day average trading price prior to 麻豆原创鈥檚 announcement to explore a sale (approx. 62% premium relative to the unaffected closing price on January 25, 2023). 麻豆原创鈥檚 stake will be acquired for approximately US$7.7 billion.

鈥淪ilver Lake has both the operational expertise and the track record with software companies to help Qualtrics extend its leadership in the XM category it pioneered,鈥� said Christian Klein, CEO and Member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE. 鈥淪ince we acquired Qualtrics in 2019 the company has more than tripled its revenue while delivering profitability. 麻豆原创 intends to remain a close go-to-market and technology partner, servicing joint customers and continuing to contribute to Qualtrics鈥� success.鈥� The number of companies and brands using Qualtrics software has risen from 10,000 at the time of 麻豆原创鈥檚 purchase to over 18,000 today.

The agreement resulted from a robust process that was initiated on January 26 and identified the joint proposal by Silver Lake and CPP Investments as most attractive. The transaction has been approved by the Qualtrics board, including a committee of independent directors, as well as the 麻豆原创 Executive and Supervisory Boards.

While the transaction is subject to customary regulatory clearances and expected to close in the second half of 2023, 麻豆原创鈥檚 financial results for the first quarter, due April 21, are expected to present Qualtrics as a discontinued operation.

Barclays acted as financial advisor to 麻豆原创 on the transaction, Shearman & Sterling acted as 麻豆原创鈥檚 legal advisor.

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For too long many companies have taken advantage of their people, simply because they could or because they were too slow to recognize the importance of culture and leadership. The power dynamic has shifted from government to employer to employee to a whole new power base and hierarchy: employee to employer to government. Add to this severe talent pool shortages brought about by demographics, geopolitical change, digitalization, and a new generational attitude to formal sector employment 鈥� in short, a shift to the experience economy around late 2016.

Companies most impacted by the Great Resignation are those with attitudes like 鈥淚f you don’t like it here, you can get a job somewhere else,鈥� those that don鈥檛 treat their people like human beings but rather as disposable capital line items. Frontline workers suffered the most in the past, but since 2014 the power balance tipped more and more to these employees and away from leaders and the organization鈥檚 human capital management (HCM) function. What we’re experiencing now is the first of a potential series of great corrections 鈥� and the risk of not addressing it poses a serious sustainability and growth risk for companies.

The workforce across all ranks now has much more power and influence. After the pandemic, many employees are now saying 鈥淚 don’t want to be treated this way and I would rather have no job than this job!鈥欌�� Prior to the pandemic, fear of the unknown was enough to keep somebody in an 鈥淥K鈥� job. But, people were furloughed, some lost their jobs, and many who didn’t lose their jobs were still distressed and fearful. Suddenly, the unknown became a lot less scary, and when employers now offer them 鈥淥K鈥� and 鈥渦nknown,鈥� they are choosing 鈥渦nknown.鈥� It is no surprise that so many people are leaving their jobs.

The Great Resignation is a sustainability warning to companies that have not focused on culture and leadership for a while. It is a great opportunity to double down to give people a workplace with a culture and climate in which they want to work and want to do the kind of work they feel is meaningful to themselves and their company.

The workplace is an environment of the leadership and employer鈥檚 own making. Employee experience affects all levels, not just junior employees but also more senior leaders whose high number of resignations is being coined the Grey Resignation. The Grey Resignation will hurt business as much as the Great Resignation.

When most leaders speak of challenges in finding the right talent, there鈥檚 a greater than average chance that they鈥檙e really talking about digital skills. This is understandable: we largely operate in and are moving further towards a digital world. In this digital world, organizations need the ability to create experiences that keep customers returning and employees engaged. This also means an increasing reliance on the organization鈥檚 ability to rapidly and successfully deploy new applications and services, based on leading technology.

However, there is more than one elephant in the room. One is that the skills needed are often the preserve of young people. The assumption is that the valuable digital skills are based on the technology with which those newer to the workforce grew up. These capabilities are highly prized and, if they can鈥檛 be obtained through hiring, can be developed through training programs for young people.

Yet while there is certainly appetite for employers to provide up- and reskilling support to those newer to the workforce, it is a benefit that is highly valued across all demographics. According to a听, more than half (57%) of all workers say they are 鈥渆xtremely鈥� or 鈥渧ery鈥� interested in participating in upskilling programs, with 听53% of those aged 55 and above view upskilling as 鈥渧ery鈥� or 鈥渆xtremely鈥� important.

And yet it is the latter that are rapidly exiting in the workforce. This Grey Resignation represents a huge loss of talent, experience, and networks that cannot be easily replaced. For the most part, businesses are in danger of overlooking this before it is too late. The issue is exacerbated by culture debates and oversteer policies in an accelerated attempt to rectify diversity and inclusion targets since historically the older worker will predominately identify as male.

Why can鈥檛 older talent be easily replaced? Because so much of their capability is founded in deep-rooted experience and knowledge that is not easily collated and shared by formal means or automation. Some industries have been struggling with this brain-drain for several years, even those at the forefront of innovation such as the technology sector, where even losing the few people that understand how legacy systems work can raise a major barrier to technological progress.

Losing inherent knowledge and experience is always a concern whenever a person leaves. When a whole demographic heads for the door, it has the potential to be catastrophic, both for the employer in question and the wider ecosystem.听 Relationships between customers and suppliers can start to break down as all the informal working practices 鈥� the bonds built up over time 鈥� disappear in an instant. These are intangible and hard to identify, let alone track, but they are a key part of commercial success and so they must be protected.

It鈥檚 important to understand the drivers behind the Grey Resignation. Some are like those mentioned above: a pandemic-prompted realization that the old ways of working do not fit with modern life, that the unknown is actually not as scary as once thought, or simply a deeper understanding of what they individually want to get out of work and life.

Like every other demographic, older workers have been exposed to new approaches to work since 2020. For some, it will have been a blip; others may well have found that remote or hybrid working suits them better.

This could be particularly true for employees that have had to balance demanding careers with caring for both elderly parents and helping with young grandchildren. The door to a more balanced way of life has been opened and people do not want to move backwards.

Some have felt forced out by changes in management and a need to cut costs during lockdowns. Voluntary redundancies and early retirements were common options during this time of urgent fiscal prudence, with many older workers feeling pressured to leave the workforce while their younger colleagues were put on furlough.

These insights are broad, and specific analysis is required in every company where there will be patterns and variations between sectors and, especially within different business functions, demographics or geographies of the companies themselves. As such, employers will need to proactively gather information to build a clear picture of what the specific drivers and motivations are that make it hard for them to retain experienced talent.

Some businesses might already have a good understanding of what鈥檚 driving out their experienced employees, but for many the mass exits may be unexpected. 听Clearly if these companies wish to grow, this sustainability issue needs to be addressed:

• Analyze and prioritize what鈥檚 happening on the ground and why particular groups of employees may have resigned. Predict which remaining employees are at risk of leaving (flight risk analysis).
• Identify demographically similar groups of employees.
• Determine priority and build tailored flight risk mitigation approaches for each demographically similar group of high flight risk workers, based on their motivational drivers to leave the business.
• Base remediation plans on each individual employee’s motivation to possibly leave the business.

How Can 麻豆原创 Help?

There are several 麻豆原创 products that can help and their value is, not least of all, that they can integrate natively with one-another:

can help transform people data consolidated from multiple sources as a trusted demographics data source and identify demographically similar groups of employees.

Experience insights gathered from employee feedback to measure sentiment, satisfaction, and engagement (the greatest predictor of flight risk) can be conducted with Employee Experience Management Solutions from 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics. ^听

Predictive capabilities in can leverage employee survey results to create a flight risk prediction, like 鈥渨ho might leave the business and why?鈥�

Armed with demographically similar groups of employees and a tool that predicts who might leave and why, organizations can then design a series of specific talent management remediation strategies to stave of potential further resignations.

Implementing each of the integrated human experience management (HXM) approaches identified to prevent resignations is the sweet spot and strength of . This is also the same world-leading integrated talent management toolset that is best placed to transform the culture and climate in the organization to help ensure future bulk resignations are far less likely.

Learn more at .

Kim Fischer is people analytics architect at 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors.

According to a pulse survey conducted by the , 76% of employees want flexibility in where they work and 93% flexibility in when they work. The desire for flexible work is strongest among women, working parents, and employees of color who have shown gains in feelings of belonging working remotely. Specifically, 81% of Black respondents say they want flexibility in where they work, compared to 75% of White respondents.

This data is in direct contrast to what most executives report that they want in post-pandemic workforce policies. Of those currently working fully remotely, nearly half of all executives surveyed (44%) want to work from the office every day, compared to 17% of employees. And 75% of these executives say they want to work from the office three to five days a week versus only 34% of employees.

So, what are companies to do? How can they make informed decisions about what鈥檚 best for leaders, for the business, and for their employees?

Applying a Sustainability Lens to Work Location Decision

One way of looking at the issues of return to office or hybrid work is from a business sustainability perspective. For example, if forcing people back to the office will make critical employees more likely to leave their jobs, you have a real flight risk issue impacting the sustainability of your business. Your business must have enough people with the right skills at the right time to propel it forward.

Another perspective to consider is how today鈥檚 business environment has been transformed by climate change, nature loss, and more. The planet needs change, and people demand change. What if, when making decisions about who comes into the office and when, executives considered the carbon footprint generated by employee travel and commutes, weighed against the energy usage working from home, along with the sustainability causes that their employees support?

This would require implementing next-generation holistic steering and reporting that maps operational and experiential data to show progress on goals such as reducing the carbon footprint of the business. Imagine executives having climate and natural capital accounting at their fingertips, including individual and collective employee carbon footprint tracking.

This is the kind of holistic steering and reporting that groups such as the World Economic Forum (WEF) want companies to integrate into their strategic decision-making. Integrating economic, environmental, and social performance data into decisions 鈥� referred to as Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics 鈥� can help executives serve their own goals, respect their employees鈥� preferences for when and where they work, and contribute to reaching sustainability goals that make the world a cleaner, greener place.

How 麻豆原创 Can Help

In 2020, 麻豆原创 committed to enable companies to report on the WEF鈥檚 Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics. As promised, we have delivered to help enable holistic enterprise-wide sustainability performance management. 麻豆原创 also made it easier to become a sustainable business and reduce carbon footprints with , which can enable businesses to move toward lower carbon emissions and more sustainable operations. 麻豆原创鈥檚 data-driven approach lets businesses embed sustainability comprehensively and gain actionable insights across the entire value chain to enable companies to transition to low-carbon business processes.

Faced with an ambitious sustainability agenda and carbon-lowering targets, one 麻豆原创 customer wanted to go further and consider the employee wishes for home/office work, and the carbon emissions generated from their commute to work against the energy efficiency of their home offices. The company had committed to lowering its enterprise carbon emissions and wanted a mechanism to support managers鈥� operational workforce planning processes.

麻豆原创 built a proof of concept (PoC) application in just one day once the employee survey was collected. The PoC decision support application was realized as follows:

Employee address data was acquired from records using the standard delivered API. 麻豆原创 Data Quality Management and microservices for location data were used for both data cleansing 鈥� a big bonus since the customer was able to cleanse inaccurate addresses in 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Employee Central 鈥� and data enrichment to geocode the home and work addresses with the latitude, longitude, and altitude information. The world of geo-location services was opened.

Demographic measures and dimensions were acquired from 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics using the standard 麻豆原创 Analytics Cloud connector.

While trying to understand employee sentiment on workplace and flexibility preferences, a survey was created using Employee Experience Management Solutions from 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics. The survey allowed for employees, whose jobs enabled them to work from home, to answer questions relating to their preferences for the number of days a week they wanted to work from home and their commute (means and time of travel). The insights gathered allowed us to understand that the travel time to work 鈥� not distance 鈥� is a major factor in determining retention risk amongst various demographic groups and so the information was valuable input for the flight risk tool they had in 麻豆原创 Analytics Cloud enterprise reporting.

was then able to use external Web services and geo-location services to calculate the travel distance and travel time to work by various means of transport. One of the services was then able to determine the carbon emissions for the means of travel that the employee had specified. The commute travel time by job grade is a leading predictor of flight risk and is easily added to the flight risk prediction dataset.

The systems also gathered information of all the corporate and possible work locations. This opened the possibility for work location optimization, but it was not part of the scope of the PoC.

The data was then blended using 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform, specifically 麻豆原创 Data Warehouse Cloud, and anonymization views were defined to protect actual home addresses from being shown. Real-time 麻豆原创 HANA data anonymization allowed the application to use actual addresses to accurately calculate the travel metrics while safely anonymizing sensitive data for dashboard visualization and drill-down.

A dashboard was built and refined to analyze and interrogate the employee commute measures and identify specific employee carbon emissions each working day. Geospatial representation and visualization were built and demonstrated with interactive zoom and data filters. A what-if scenario was demonstrated with graphs and metrics calculated in real time to show the specific carbon emission impact of changing the percentage of time spent working remotely.

As shown in the below process, this PoC was achieved using various 麻豆原创 solutions, including 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solutions on 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform.

In Summary

Executives can make better decisions about the impact of employees going back to the office and how often, considering the social and actual carbon emissions from commutes in their people planning. Using 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solutions for employee information to geocode the distance of employees from the office and utilizing to layer experience insights to determine preferences, they can analyze carbon emissions for different types of commutes and make data-driven decisions to fuel their sustainability initiatives.

As shown in the below figure, executives can even look at this data by employee gender, race, and age. This helps them better assess, for instance, how many employees have strong preferences and who would become a flight risk should the business choose to mandate regular employee in-office attendance.

Finally, the figure below shows the simple what-if scenario to demonstrate how quickly and effectively analytics interfaces can be built, in this case, incorporating a slider bar and immediate impact of the change for the pre-filtered employees.

This kind of sustainability data and analysis empowers executives to find the 鈥渟weet spot鈥� in decisions that balance their preferences against employee preferences and align them to important goals such as reducing their carbon footprint.

Suddenly, what鈥檚 best for all becomes quite clear.

Learn more at .

Tammie Eldridge is part of Solution Marketing at 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors.

Amid unprecedented global challenges, the group鈥檚 Chief Human Resources Officer, Pablo Maison, was tasked with leading the organization through massive changes in its HR strategy. Maison knew that the most important factor to ensuring the success of building out new HR processes that fit the group鈥檚 needs was to understand how its people were feeling and what they needed.

The mission to move the group鈥檚 five companies to was to provide HR leaders with more efficiency using a centralized HR system. 鈥淭he core of our transformation is a simplifying process 鈥� improving employee experience and freeing up time in HR 鈥� for us to be focused on transformation, not transactions,鈥� Maison shared. To help the workforce transition through change, the group implemented 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solutions across various businesses to activate new learning and HR practices that facilitated simplified and efficient HR processes, empowering leaders and managers to have more time to focus on their people.

As the group evolved its HR strategy, it also wanted to find a way to easily capture employee sentiment within existing processes. To truly understand the employee experience, the company turned to Experience Management Solutions from 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics to provide embedded feedback opportunities that can seamlessly integrate within the flow of work.

鈥淲e need to be closer to our employees, and the digital transformation will help us do that,鈥� Maison said. Capturing feedback and insights from employees has enabled the group to develop an HR strategy that is centered around its people. By driving simplified processes, increased efficiency, and creating a culture of ongoing employee listening, Grupo Perez Companc is transforming the way its company works for the better. Implementing has empowered its leaders with insights to make data-driven decisions and support its people through the challenges of today while preparing them for the future.

Amanda Crittenden is global solution marketing lead for Employee Experience Management at 麻豆原创.

Candidates are also customers, so poor candidate experiences can impact customer brand reputation. Virgin Media famously they were losing over $5 million per year in lost sales revenue because candidates who had a poor candidate experience became brand detractors and canceled their subscriptions.

Still, most companies get candidate experience wrong. Something that seems like a no-brainer, like communicating with candidates, doesn鈥檛 happen. New research conducted by Qualtrics and 麻豆原创 found 64% of job seekers have been ghosted by a company they interviewed with (40% say they often don鈥檛 hear back, 24% say they never hear back). Or it could be something more nuanced, like long applications preventing people from applying. The 2022 Greenhouse Candidate Experience Report that 70% of job seekers will not submit a job application if it takes more than 15 minutes to complete.

What is worse is that companies think they are getting candidate experience right. CareerBuilder research shows that 78% of organizations believe they do a good job setting expectations upfront with candidates and communicating throughout the hiring process, but only 47% of candidates agree, creating a large candidate experience gap.

If companies don鈥檛 close the candidate experience gap, they will see higher unwanted candidate withdrawal, lower offer acceptance rates, and higher cost per hire. Identifying an experience gap is only half the challenge; organizations often lack adequate insights to know what levers will close the experience gap.

Specifically, there are three main barriers:

• Lack of comprehensive experience data. Most organizations collect data at only one point in time, usually at the end of the hiring process. This can introduce bias because organizations miss out on experience data from candidates earlier in the process; having a listening post only at the end of the hiring process ignores an experience gap that may exist earlier in the process, like during application or interviewing.
• Constrained recruiting teams. Recruiters are in ; they do not have time to do additional manual work. More listening posts should not mean more work for them. Recruiters need technology that helps them be more efficient and spend their energy where there is the biggest payoff.
• Inability to identify worthwhile insights and take action. Recruiting and talent acquisition teams are already sitting on loads of data. They have data in their candidate directory and applicant tracking systems, and adding on experience data will not necessarily lead to more insights and action. Talent acquisition teams need help synthesizing data from disparate locations, so they can focus their attention where it is needed most and take action sooner.

To solve these challenges, Qualtrics and 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors are deepening integrations by releasing a new automated data synchronization so that data flows more easily, quickly, and securely from into . This integration enhancement combined with existing embedded feedback opportunities make it easier for recruiters and talent acquisition leaders to better understand candidates鈥� experiences and more quickly take action to improve them.

Automating Secure Data Transfer to Enhance Candidate Experiences

Automated data transfer connects the deep operational data from the 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Recruiting module 鈥� like candidate demographics, stage in the hiring process, hiring manager, job location, and job level 鈥� and integrates it with the holistic experience data from Qualtrics 鈥� like how candidates evaluate fairness, clarity, technology, and timeliness in the hiring process. This pre-built integration gives joint 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors and Qualtrics customers a unified view of their operational and experience data, ultimately enabling talent acquisition leaders to optimize their candidate experience.

Available in the second half of 2022 to joint 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Recruiting and 麻豆原创 Qualtrics Candidate Experience customers, this improved integration securely and seamlessly automates data transfers between recruiting and candidate directories for greater data accuracy.听 This improves upon existing data syncing capabilities to be even more efficient. Data integration is critical because it offers talent acquisition teams:

• Up-to-date candidate directory: Gone are the days of manually exporting, scrubbing, and uploading spreadsheets because the workflow automates data transfer and keeps records up-to-date. The connection enables talent acquisition teams to spend more time on what matters most by reducing manual administration work.
• Automated in-moment listening: Embedded feedback opportunities within 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Recruiting captures candidate sentiment at key moments and the updated workflow automates survey distribution, so when a candidate progresses in the hiring process, a survey is distributed in-moment. This minimizes manual work and gathers candidate feedback in a timely manner to help ensure authentic responses that recruiters can respond to and act on immediately.
• Combined operational and experience data to analyze: Syncing candidate metadata, like demographics and job details, with candidate experience data, like perception of fairness, allows talent acquisition leaders to easily filter, analyze, and compare experience data from different views to make data-driven decisions using sophisticated analytics and dashboards.

New integrations continue to strengthen the experiences delivered by 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Recruiting and 麻豆原创 Qualtrics Candidate Experience. Embedded listening and enhanced data connections make it easier, faster, and more secure for CHROs and talent acquisition leaders to not only understand who their candidates are and in what stage of the hiring process they are, but also why candidates are having certain experiences and where to take action. For example, joint customers can discover why women 25 to 34 years old are more likely to decline offers and then implement targeted changes that improve experiences for future candidates of that specific demographic, reversing the negative acceptance trend.

Using experience management solutions from 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics to understand and improve the candidate experience allows organizations to design a talent strategy that values the employee voice at every key moment in the talent lifecycle — right from the start.

.

Amanda Crittenden is global solution marketing lead for Employee Experience Management at 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors.
Emily Lambert is product marketing manager for EX at Qualtrics.

Job Seekers Rush to Find New Opportunities with Better Pay and Work-Life Balance

Nearly three-quarters (72%) of job seekers say rising costs have played a role in their decision to look for a new job and more than half (55%) said news of an economic downturn made them more likely to start their job search now rather than six months down the road.

Job seekers said they are prioritizing pay and work-life balance as top considerations for new roles, and that the interview experience plays a huge role in determining their opinion of a prospective employer.

“Many people have switched jobs over the past year as they re-evaluated the role of work in their lives,鈥� said Dr. Benjamin Granger, chief workplace psychologist at Qualtrics听 “There’s a sense that the clock has started for anyone who wants a new job but has been hesitating to make the jump. Compared to years past, workers have higher expectations for what their jobs can offer, and many are eager to find that next opportunity before the job market slows too drastically.”

鈥淭here is a heightened awareness on the human experience at work as organizations gain a greater understanding of how their people are working across teams, how they鈥檙e feeling, and what opportunities they鈥檙e looking for,鈥� said Meg Bear, president and chief product officer, 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors. 鈥淚n fact, our research found that one of the biggest reasons people are leaving their jobs is because they don鈥檛 have the opportunity to move to a different role. can be a major differentiator to help organizations not only attract new talent but to retain employees and leverage the skills that already exist within their workforce.鈥�

The joint Qualtrics and 麻豆原创 study asked more than 1,000 U.S.-based job seekers about what they want in their next role, why they are struggling to find the best fit, and their biggest challenges during the recruiting process. Here鈥檚 what they had to say:

Finding a job that sparks passion is difficult, but applicants are willing to put in the work.

Only 15% say it鈥檚 been easy to find a job in which they are genuinely interested. And 45% are willing to go through one to five rounds of interviews for a job they are very interested in, while 35% are willing to go through as many rounds as it takes for a job in which they are very interested.

The interview experience plays a huge role in determining the candidate鈥檚 opinion of the employer.

Despite virtual interviews becoming more commonplace, most job seekers (57%) would prefer an in-person interview if given a choice. Only 19% would prefer phone interviews and 13% would prefer video interviews.

• 61% say their interview with the hiring manager is the most important as they determine whether they鈥檇 like to join the company; 17% say their interview with teammates is the most important.
• 64% have been ghosted by a company with which they interviewed; 40% say they often don鈥檛 hear back, 24% say they never hear back.
• 48% are unlikely to recommend the company to a friend if they experience a negative interview process.

Pay is the top factor for applicants when deciding to switch jobs.

The biggest deal breaker for job seekers when considering a new role is salary. Other motivating factors for quitting include a lack of work-life balance and company values not aligning with personal values. Thirty percent say they are not paid fairly for the work they do in their current role.

Well-being and work-life balance are key concerns for job seekers when deciding where to work.

Work-life fit ranks as one of the most important workplace traits, second only to compensation.

• 57% believe that getting a new job will help them feel less burned out; only seven percent say it won鈥檛.
• 59% say their current manager cares about their well-being.
• 56% are more likely to apply for a remote or hybrid role now, compared to before the pandemic; 35% say they are neither likely nor unlikely to apply.

Job seekers are optimistic that the turnaround time will be quick.

Although the job search process can take anywhere from a few days to several months, most respondents are optimistic that their wait time will be relatively quick. One in three (33%) job seekers anticipate it will take one to three months to get a new job; 28% anticipate it will take three to six months, 21% anticipate it will take six to 12 months, and 12% anticipate it will take less than a month.

Learn more about this research and how customers are using 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Recruiting at .

Study methodology: This study was fielded by Qualtrics, in partnership with 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors, between May 31-June 3, 2022. Respondents were selected from a randomized panel and considered eligible if they live in the United States, are at least 18 years of age and are either actively looking for a new job or plan to look for a new job in the next six months. The total number of respondents was 1,002. Respondents who did not pass quality standards were removed.

In , half of business leaders surveyed said they already require or plan to require employees to return to full-time, on-site work by the end of the year. Making headlines are managers like who point out the productivity gains that come from the social connection, culture keeping, and idea generation that they say can only be created in a shared workspace. But others disagree: several senior executives attending the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 in Davos, Switzerland, in favor of a hybrid work model, saying it was the most realistic approach for attracting and retaining talent.

Employees are on a mandated return to office, emboldened by newfound bargaining power as a result of the record and worker resignations of the Great Reshuffle. reveal that up to half of employees say they will quit or look for a new job if expected to return to the office full time.

Flex Work Models Up for Debate

Lost in the debate that is playing out in the media is valuable scientific research on the effects of different work models on worker productivity. This discussion is largely being driven by subjective impressions and entrenched ideas based on the 鈥渙ld normal,鈥� said Dr. Gabriela Burlacu, talent research manager at , speaking at the recently held annual conference of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychologists (SIOP).

Joining her for the session 鈥淲here Will We Work? I-O Psychology Puts Flexible Work Models on Trial鈥� were industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists Dr. Benjamin Granger, head of Employee Experience Advisory Services at , and Dr. Kristen Shockley, associate professor of Psychology at the . Joshua Acosta, a research analyst with , also later provided insights from the recent 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors report 鈥�.鈥�

Autonomy Fuels Motivation for Greater Productivity

鈥淚f we think about theories in I-O psychology, autonomy and control permeate a lot of these theories,鈥� said Shockley, who pointed out that 鈥渁utonomy as motivation for sustained effort鈥� is a frequent theme in I-O literature. 鈥淎utonomy is a fundamental need and when you allow people to work remote, it inherently gives them more of this autonomy. That is something which relates to a host of outcomes, like productivity and well-being.鈥�

The psychologists agreed that the optimal work model for the average global employee is a hybrid work arrangement. They noted, however, that this is not necessarily the best model for every individual or organization. For those organizations that opt for a hybrid model, they emphasized that the work needs to be structured so that collaborative tasks, like brainstorming, are done on-site and more analytical tasks are done remotely. 鈥淚 am very pro the hybrid model, with the caveat that it does need to be intentionally and holistically designed,鈥� said Burlacu.

Workers Expect Flex Work after Pandemic Productivity Sprint

A , which surveyed 10,000 workers in 12 industries in 12 countries in 2021, found that 83% of workers identified a hybrid model as optimal for them. Those already in hybrid environments reported better mental health and stronger work relationships, and felt they were doing better work for their organizations.

The , which studies work-from-home arrangements and attitudes, tracked the productivity of remote workers from April 2020 to January 2022. It found that on average people were in remote work arrangements, even with the added stressors of the pandemic.

For the , Qualtrics carried out a study of 14,000 employees in 22 industries across 27 countries to look at general job attitudes, engagement, inclusion, and well-being. Employees generally felt more energized at work 鈥� compared to the previous year 鈥� with half saying their physical and mental well-being actually improved while working remotely.

鈥淢any organizations haven鈥檛 lost step in terms of productivity,鈥� said Acosta from 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors, citing the latest research from 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors, which found that workers鈥� attitudes are shifting to expect hybrid arrangements. 鈥淚f people are working in a hybrid setting or home setting, we鈥檙e seeing they鈥檙e often just as productive as when they鈥檙e in the office. It鈥檚 our perspective that hybrid work isn鈥檛 going away anytime soon.鈥�

Hybrid Work Moves from Contingency to Certainty

If 2021 was the year hybrid work was utilized for health and safety, then researchers at 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors predict that 2022 will be the year that it moves from contingency to certainty. This means that organizations will need to establish policies, practices, and cultural norms to operationalize hybrid work arrangements. Acosta noted this will look different across all organizations, depending on the composition of the workforce.

Accenture鈥檚 study revealed that a number of demographic factors influence workers鈥� decisions about where to work, including age and gender demographics and where they live. For example, Gen X women said they could be more productive in remote work, while Gen Z men felt strongly about being on-site. Urban dwellers felt they would be more productive in the office, while people living in rural areas preferred remote work.

鈥淎ll of that together suggests that if you let people choose, you will end up with demographically very different workforces on-site versus remotely,鈥� Burlacu said. 鈥淭hat wouldn鈥檛 be a problem if you created equitable work experiences and equitable access to development and promotion opportunities.鈥� She then followed up with a hard truth: 鈥淏ut the issue of equitable access has never been properly resolved in the workplace.鈥�

Just ask deskless workers. This group 鈥� defined as employees who perform their jobs away from a desk 鈥� was largely absent from the discussion in 2021. In 2022, however, these workers are presenting more pronounced views, according to research by 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors. With companies facing talent shortages in all job categories, Acosta said that organizations will need to seriously consider deskless workers鈥� changing expectations for autonomy and flexibility while balancing organizational and job demands.

Maybe It鈥檚 Time for a New Definition of Flexibility?

鈥淎 lot of times we assume workplace flexibility means where you work, but what鈥檚 become clear to us in our work is when employees define flexibility, they鈥檙e talking about where and when they work, and they鈥檙e also talking about how work gets measured and managed,鈥� Granger said. 鈥淓mployees are defining workplace flexibility much broader than many organizational leaders. We need to be more flexible in how we define workplace flexibility.鈥�

Acosta agreed, saying 鈥淥rganizations are going to need to be really thoughtful in operationalizing how they can deliver flexibility as well as autonomy, and perhaps even redesign not only where people work, but when and how work takes place.鈥�

鈥淗aving dealt with significant disruption that鈥檚 impacted every aspect of operations, CPG organizations are coming out of the last two years with a new ethos about the employee experience,鈥� said Michael Esau, Global HR Value Advisory at 麻豆原创. 鈥淭o consistently produce and deliver the freshest foods and highest quality goods that consumers want, leaders realize they have to create an environment where people really want to work and can make the most valuable contribution. Being a great place to work is something that management at leading companies takes extremely seriously, and they鈥檙e creating a connected, knowledgeable, motivated workforce that鈥檚 united across departments in meeting the customer promise.鈥�

A Value Proposition That Keeps Workers Engaged

Regardless of where employees work at CPG companies 鈥� factory floor production, remote and in-person office work, and throughout distribution channels 鈥� digital technology is central to creating a personalized employee experience that will align people towards shared goals while addressing their unique career path. At the most basic level, automating systems of record to keep employee information updated is a must-have for organizations, especially contact data, position, and location. Over time, digital systems speed up processes like employee transfers, reducing wasted time and keeping employees engaged in what matters most, getting their job done. One example is Warburtons, the UK鈥檚 leading bakery brand that relies on 麻豆原创 solutions.

鈥淪upporting the development of our leaders who are adapting to new ways of working, and our efforts to transform how we execute our work daily, continues at pace,鈥� said Sue Yell, HR director at . 鈥淟everaging technology where and when we can to streamline processes is essential to enable our people to focus on our customers and the service we provide. This will ensure we can continue to build a foundation of sustainability, which is crucial to our long-term growth.鈥�

Personalized Employee Learning

In the wake of the post-pandemic talent shortage, leaders at CPG companies are rethinking employee learning as a powerful strategy to attract and retain people. But in this era of the personalized employee experience, reskilling and upskilling options depend on each worker鈥檚 unique situation. Some workers are looking for the resources to close skill gaps and move up the career ladder. Others may opt to stay where they are. Becoming an employer of choice requires companies to provide employees with choice.

鈥淧eople want easier access to knowledge that will expand their skills so they can make a more valuable contribution to the company,鈥� said Esau. 鈥淔or example, integrating data across 麻豆原创 and non-麻豆原创 systems, brings together all of someone鈥檚 professional information in one place from their mobile device or desktop browser. People can see what鈥檚 expected for their current and aspirational roles and responsibilities, including health and safety. They can explore training sessions and connect with colleagues to learn faster from each other.鈥�

Leaders Rally Employees with Empathy

As disruptive as these last few years have been for CPG companies, the cultural shift has been a revelation for managers and workers. Leaders are leading with greater empathy for employees. Many turned to survey instruments such as to better understand employee needs and respond effectively. The Intelligent Enterprise connects data into the business, revealing employee engagement ratings, why people stay or leave, and how workers are feeling. With this information, leaders can make better decisions to improvement employee engagement and manage teams for business resilience. Minus historical precedents, organizations are redefining the culture, meaning how the business operates and people behave.

鈥淎s we continue to operate through these times of disruption, it鈥檚 crucial that we preserve our cultural DNA 鈥� delivering high quality products to our customers on a daily basis,鈥� said Yell. 鈥淲e achieve this by reinforcing our family values with our existing employees and recruiting听future employees听who we believe will demonstrate the same level of care in baking and distributing our products.鈥�

As the direct connection between CPG companies and consumers grows, so will the need for agility. Integrating data across different systems, organizations can anticipate and act quickly before the next disruption occurs, rallying employees around business model changes with a shared vision and the skill-building to help the company address changing market demands. When employees select a company as their employer of choice, customers will always follow.

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Now, service organizations have an opportunity to exceed traditional expectations in the same way. Instead of being considered simply a means of connection and cost containment post-customer purchase, intelligent service teams can become a strategic driver to direct value back to the business.

The new intelligent 麻豆原创 Service Cloud revolutionizes customer service by delivering meaningful customer connections throughout a customer life cycle. Focusing on speed, insights, and accuracy, at unmatched speed 鈥� protecting the brands promise and securing future growth.

Upgrade to the new version of 麻豆原创 Service Cloud.
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This release re-imagines how service is executed by:

• Connecting to customers throughout the life cycle. Pre-, during, and post-transaction, intelligent customer connections bring the right information at the right time to delight customers.
• Putting the service agent back in control with a reimagined agent console that provides instant visibility of every customer interaction.
• Driving greater accuracy and accountability听with powerful case management workflows that help ensure the right expertise is applied to resolving customer issues.
• Helping agents resolve issues faster and deliver better customer experiences through , which uses AI and conversational analytics to enable contact center teams to automate post-call tasks and flag compliance risks.
• Enabling remote workers to seamlessly engage with customers and collaborate to solve critical issues through native integration with Microsoft Teams.
• Increasing business agility and enhanced services experiences through low-code/no-code application development. 麻豆原创 AppGyver enables non-technical users to adapt the application to meet the evolving needs of the service experience.
• Achieving greater speed, scalability, and availability in the cloud by supporting all hyperscaler platforms.

Constant change is a business opportunity. Seize it!

The service center is the new profit center. Today鈥檚 customer transaction is the start of a long relationship to come. Clients expect add-ons, options, and subscriptions, which create incremental revenue streams for business.

Think of automobile manufacturing. Until recently, a car driven off the dealer鈥檚 lot was essentially complete. The consumer could add some after-market enhancements, such as a roof rack or pinstriping, but the vehicle was effectively finalized. Service reps could use the vehicle information to manage, maintain, and service the car. Compare that to the current generation of electric vehicles. Over-the-air updates are essential, and they can fundamentally alter the performance of the vehicle. Regular digital updates mean that the car is never complete.

As service becomes more complex, intelligent customer service professionals struggle with not knowing which products have shipped, whether updates were executed, or about desired customer features or complaints. Without access to current information across the demand and supply chain, service teams are disconnected from the rest of the organization.

We built the new intelligent 麻豆原创 Service Cloud to seize the opportunity to expand business models. With a highly composable, adaptable architecture, the new 麻豆原创 Service Cloud can natively make the critical connections to data, intelligence, and applications across your value chain to enable speed and accuracy for customer issue resolution.

Built on the world-class 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform, we have built the next-generation agent console, one that delivers the right information, at the right time 鈥� from 麻豆原创 S/4HANA systems such as billing and invoicing, as well as external sources 鈥� without expensive third-party tools.

Additionally, with integration to world-class experience management powered by Qualtrics XM Discover, organizations will be able to navigate uncertainty by listening and acting with empathy. As agents work on cases, XM Discover automatically enriches customer profiles with critical sentiment, effort, and emotional intelligence enabling an agent to level-up their conversations with customers.

With Greater Visibility Comes Greater Accountability

To help service teams gain visibility, they need to look for solutions that offer case management features that can be customized to address industry-specific requirements.

Consider the example of a return material authorization (RMA) process. RMA is different for each industry. A retail business would enter a customer return into the point-of-sale system and likely place it back in inventory. In the semiconductor industry, returning a pallet of product would kick off dozens of processes; for example, the manufacturer would receive the goods, start a review by the quality assurance team, and potentially consult engineering about any functional deficits.

Case management features can enable visibility across a company鈥檚 unique RMA process. With this functionality, service teams can get a bigger, better, and more accurate picture of what happens when their industry-specific flow is initiated. This visibility helps service people communicate more clearly and effectively. It also enhances accountability across the business by helping everyone identify bottlenecks and proactively communicate with customers about delays.

Case management workflows serve at the heart of structured work. With case management designer from within 麻豆原创 Service Cloud, users can create and adapt service processes as business needs changes.听 When business demands require extending deployment, 麻豆原创 AppGyver integration empowers non-technical professionals to quickly adapt to new business challenges.

Deliver a Better Employee Experience for Greater Business Success

Modern service technology also helps identify where solutions to a single problem can be extended to address other outstanding issues. Often, a problem for one customer service agent is also experienced by other agents.

Offering service professionals integrated data in a single location can help them make intelligence-based decisions. Agents get the tools they need to do their job efficiently and effectively; customer service agents are retained by putting the power in their capable hands to solve a company鈥檚 biggest service problems

The new agent console in 麻豆原创 Service Cloud is designed to be the unifying console for all actionable information that agents need to capture, analyze, and process information. Purpose-built with a bias toward action, the agent console infuses machine learning to surface the right knowledge, data, and processes to deliver consistent resolution for customer issues.

Combine all of this horsepower with our Microsoft Teams strategic partnership, and you have a real-time collaborative engine that can harness the collective wisdom from across your organization 鈥� and your customers 鈥� to speed up the resolution process.

Service organizations have long been a defensive team, often forced to wait for others before taking action. With intelligent integrated solutions, service finally has the chance to go on the offense. Technology that helps service teams solve issues proactively, efficiently, and productively gives them a renewed opportunity to satisfy customers and help the business succeed.

Effective servicing is a strategic imperative for all organizations.听 The new intelligent 麻豆原创 Service Cloud is built on a foundation to enable a modern era of servicing, where successful customer resolution enables greater customer satisfaction. Available today, it elevates servicing as a critical lever to deliver on your brand鈥檚 promise.

Sanjeet Mall is senior vice president and head of Sales Cloud and Service Cloud Products at 麻豆原创.

In today鈥檚 changing world of work, employees expect better experiences 鈥� especially when it comes to their learning, development, and growth. However, employees struggle with multiple outdated or inadequate systems and tools that create a fragmented digital experience at work.

The pressure is undoubtedly on executives, organizational leaders, and their HR teams to fill those gaps to create a workplace culture that is motivating, empowering, and fulfilling. They are expected to provide personalized work experiences that include access to individualized learning and growth, guided and simplified technology interfaces, continuous process improvements, embedded listening, and increased productivity and efficiency.

Organizations that deliver on these promises exceptionally well are usually more effective in attracting, retaining, and developing the best talent. However, this is easier said than done because no single definition of an ideal workplace meets everyone鈥檚 expectations. To create a truly empowering, engaging, and enriching environment, decision-makers must consider the unique locations, job roles, personal responsibilities, and situations that each employee faces daily.

At 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors, we understand the importance of fostering an environment where people are thriving, collaborating, and ready to succeed today and tomorrow 鈥� no matter where they work. And in virtually every case, that experience begins with technologies that cater to each employee鈥檚 whole self even as they evolve, making everyone consistently feel valued, heard, and recognized.

Personalized, Integrated Experience

A good starting point is giving employees the freedom to reimagine their work experience with hyper-personalized, team-centric, and project-focused workspaces created through the . This integrated digital experience connects the entire 麻豆原创 software landscape and third-party applications to help streamline work and intelligently surface relevant content, recommendations, insights, and actions.

By providing employees with a more simplified and unified digital experience tailored to their unique needs, 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Work Zone can enable companies to increase employee productivity and efficiency.

For example, 鈥�(AKT Global) resolved the presence of inefficient communication and collaboration across borders and time zones to improve productivity and lower employee stress. As a result, its employees work smarter and faster now that they have 24/7 access to everything they need to keep up with changes 鈥� no matter where they work, what device they use, or where they are based.

Culture of Continuous and Agile Learning

Employees need on-demand access to individualized and engaging learning programs as part of their everyday experience. With learning established as a priority in the workspace, they are empowered to develop skills at their convenience and participate in opportunities to further develop their expertise and leadership abilities.

helps to foster a continuous and agile culture with learning that is personalized and relevant for each employee while being embedded into daily activities. Through learning workspaces employees can get access to relevant learning applications, information, collaboration tools, and content from any source 鈥� all through a single entry point and embedded into the flow of work 鈥� to be able to benefit from a more simplified and contextual way of learning. Organizations can then help ensure their people feel empowered to own their career path and growth while helping them become more engaged and develop the skills that align with current and future business needs.

鈥�(Rich鈥檚) is taking advantage of the solution to support a culture of continuous learning. The family-owned food company sought to elevate its training and development program with a modern, consumer-grade learning experience for its associates. By mapping and enabling access to learning content with individualized recommendations, Rich鈥檚 offers its associates a customized view of their development plans and objectives and connects them to integrated external content libraries and resources on demand.

Employees Retained with Opportunities They Want

According to joint research from鈥�, making job opportunities visible and accessible in the workforce helps improve retention by aligning employee interests with strategic priorities. But first, most companies require a conscious shift that embraces each employee鈥檚 whole self 鈥� who they are today, who they are becoming, and the value they bring as individuals.

By adding the 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace solution to their workspace, employees can find short-term assignments, fellowships, learning recommendations, and mentors. The solution can empower everyone across the organization to pursue multiple opportunities for professional development, networking, and project participation.

Meaningful Work Shaped by Real-Time Feedback

Measuring work experiences helps businesses remain agile and strive to give employees what they need to feel supported, productive, and engaged. With , organizations can evaluate how employees are doing, listen to their feedback, and respond to their concerns quickly and effectively.

To enable a people-centric business transformation, luxury retailer听 combines employee experience data with operational HR data. This approach allows the business to gain new insights, identify areas for improvement, and foster a culture where all employees are engaged and fully equipped to provide exceptional customer service. Chalhoub uses Experience Management solutions from 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics to actively listen to its workforce and provide the right training, processes, and tools. The company is capturing feedback at every interaction touchpoint and discovering new ways to meet unique employee needs and continuously improve everyday work experiences.

As a result, the company is redesigning and optimizing key aspects of the employee journey. For example, its HR transformation priorities are supported by hard data on the issues that employees really care about, driving greater emphasis on employee well-being and recognition as top strategic goals.

All Wrapped with a Human Experience

HR organizations are constantly challenging their business executives and organizational managers. They know that seemingly adequate access to technology is no guarantee that an employee鈥檚 specific needs are met. Meanwhile, it is understood that remote and deskless workers face even more complexity in their experiences, such as limited bandwidth and privacy controls, as they juggle work with their personal circumstances.

With 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Work Zone, 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Learning, 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace, and Experience Management solutions from 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics, organizations can deliver engaging, individualized experiences that enable everyone to thrive.

Stephanie Craig is global director of Solution Marketing for 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors.

鈥淥ur AR platform gives consumers and companies personalized virtual shopping and training experiences, expanding the horizon of what AR can do for any brand or company,鈥� said Kanav Singla, founder and CEO of Adloid. 鈥淲e鈥檙e making the benefits of this technology more accessible and contextual to create an immersive experience for customers or employees on an e-commerce Website or within applications, directly from someone鈥檚 mobile device.鈥�

Convenient 鈥楾ry Before You Buy鈥� Shopping

Unlike earlier AR tech that relied on clunky headsets with varied compatibility, Adloid鈥檚 AR platform runs on any smartphone, allowing customers to experience products at scale, in context. Once the online shopper logs in through their phone, the device鈥檚 camera scans their real-world surroundings and virtually mirrors the retailer鈥檚 or manufacturer鈥檚 product.

鈥淧eople can see how a new sofa or chair would fit into their home or apartment with a click of their smartphone,鈥� said Singla. 鈥淐onsumers can virtually try on jewelry, makeup, and other products. Remote workers can see if that laptop, screen, and desk configuration will fit in their home office. It鈥檚 as if the actual products are in front of you.鈥�

He added that manufacturers were interested in using the AR platform within training modules for industrial machinery service technicians, providing them with hands-on learning in a virtual setting.

Immersive Product Discovery Experience

On the consumer side, AR technology is tailor-made for online shoppers who can鈥檛 get enough information about products they might purchase.

鈥淔or someone trying to decide between different car models, AR lets them virtually go inside the trunk to see how much space is in there,鈥� said Singla. 鈥淭hey can open and close the sunroof or try out the controls on the entertainment console, experiencing various car options before going to the showroom.鈥�

Automotive manufacturers are among the startup鈥檚 biggest customers, along with e-commerce platforms of all sizes, retailers with or without brick-and-mortar stores, and manufacturers located in the U.S., Germany, and India.

Augmented Reality Increases Sales

Some customers using Adloid have increased sales conversions from online channels up to 200%. One online retailer tripled the number of online customers who purchased consumer items after using the tool. AR also boosts customer engagement time viewing product images and videos from an average of 30 seconds to a whopping eight minutes.

鈥淚nstead of being limited by a finite number of pre-posted images or videos, AR allows people to interact longer with products in a more personalized way, creating a powerful sales channel that鈥檚 always on at the customer鈥檚 convenience,鈥� said Singla. 鈥淧eople can better understand how a product would fit into their lives, in many cases motivating them to make a purchase decision during that single online session.鈥�

Connected Data for Intelligent Enterprise

Adloid securely anonymizes all customer data and doesn鈥檛 store any personal images or other information once someone ends their AR session. However, organizations can extract valuable insights from the tool鈥檚 analytics.

鈥淎 car might come in six colors, but which ones are customers viewing the most? Companies can see what options people are most interested in, then connect back to inventory management to make sure they can meet market demands,鈥� said Singla.

Indeed, one of Adloid鈥檚 biggest strengths is working with the 麻豆原创 Startup Studio for India, startup accelerator program. Singla said that his team gained validation for product iterations, along with access to 麻豆原创 solutions, including , and the company鈥檚 enterprise customers.

鈥淲orking with a global leader like 麻豆原创 gives our product immediate credibility because we learned what customers were looking for,鈥� he said. 鈥淎dloid is integrated with , , and , helping companies connect data to become intelligent enterprises.

AR Bridges Gap Between E-Commerce and CX

Singla鈥檚 entrepreneurial spirit was initially sparked by his family, all of whom own businesses. He founded his first startup at age 21 during his undergraduate studies in engineering, then saw a major selling gap as e-commerce took off.

鈥淐ompanies went online with their catalogs, but customers couldn鈥檛 more fully experience these products,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 launched Adloid to turn e-commerce into 3D commerce where customers can try out products virtually on their mobile device. We expect AR will provide immersive experiences in more consumer and B2B online sites including fashion, travel and tourism, and large industrial machinery.鈥�

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The driving force of Kaspersky is its employees 鈥� the world-class professionals who research cyber-threats and create leading security technologies. The company relies on the knowledge and expertise of its employees, and therefore strives to provide an exceptional workplace experience for its people to attract and retain the best talent.

鈥淲e have long known that, to make Kaspersky a great place to work, we need to listen to the wants, needs, and desires of our employees,鈥� says Marina Alekseeva, the company鈥檚 chief human resources officer. 鈥淧reviously, we didn鈥檛 have a unified resource to conduct employee surveys, and we wanted to launch a platform that we could integrate with our core HR system to listen to employees鈥� feedback more regularly, to understand how they feel and learn about their concerns.鈥�

To support the shift to a continuous listening strategy, Kaspersky selected to help gather employee experience data at regular touchpoints and gain insights based on employee feedback.

Kaspersky deployed the 麻豆原创 Qualtrics Employee Engagement solution in just four weeks, building dynamic surveys and response surveys all while working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Integration between the 麻豆原创 Qualtrics Employee Engagement solution and 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Human Experience Management (HXM) Suite enables the company to combine employee experience data with operational HR data to get a better understanding of its workforce.

Kaspersky conducted 10 global surveys and more than 30 local pulse surveys in 2020, providing new insights into the employee experience and helping the company to identify areas for improvement.

The results were very encouraging: 80% of Kaspersky鈥檚 4,000 employees participated in the 2020 global engagement survey (a 14% increase on the previous year), and shorter pulse survey participation rates were also high. Moreover, 50% of employees took the time to enrich their responses with free-text comments, providing deeper insights into their thoughts and feelings.

Business leaders also benefit from instant access to survey analytics. For example, in the past, they could wait up to two months to see the outcome of a global engagement survey; today, they can track results and participation rates in real time via interactive dashboards.

But what鈥檚 the point of conducting employee surveys and gathering data if you don鈥檛 act on it? With unique insight into the employee experience, Kaspersky can take targeted action to support its people, fast. For example, just two days after receiving feedback on remote working conditions, Kaspersky made a new company policy to deliver a desk chair to any employee who needs one, so that they could work more comfortably 鈥� and therefore productively 鈥� from home. Although it may seem trivial, having a comfy chair can make a huge difference to your employees鈥� health, well-being, and happiness. Kaspersky wants to ensure that its people have everything they need to work at their best.

Regular pulse surveys also gave managers a convenient way to check in with their team while they were working remotely during the COVID-19 lockdowns, helping them to monitor employee well-being and workload, and to provide support to prevent burnout and maintain pre-pandemic performance levels.

鈥淯nderstanding our employees is critical to everything we do,鈥� says Alekseeva. 鈥淲ith the 麻豆原创 Qualtrics Employee Engagement solution, we get regular feedback that helps us to build a more attractive and engaging workplace.鈥�

Edith Krieg is part of 麻豆原创 Reference Management and Content.

To continue to adapt to a new business environment and compete and succeed in the market, Purolator knew it needed to focus on supporting and enabling its frontline personnel. Managers play a crucial role helping workers get accustomed to new technologies and deliver services that meet the high expectations of today鈥檚 consumers. However, mostly recruited for their operational, technical, and project management skills, many managers didn鈥檛 have the skills required to become transformational leaders and agents of change.

Filling Skills Gaps to Transform Managers into Leaders

To help managers lead workers successfully through a digital transformation and foster a more engaged workforce, the courier firm launched its 鈥淓volve鈥� program in 2018. This leadership development initiative involves multifunctional groups of over 20 managers who receive 10 days of on-site training over a five-month period. In between sessions, participants are able to apply learned skills and competencies in the workplace while skills are reinforced by online microlearning modules and coaching using the 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Learning solution.

Getting feedback from course participants to enable continuous improvement for the learning experience has been a key part of Purolator鈥檚 strategy. To achieve this, the company uses to capture feedback before, during, and after the course. In this way, Purolator is able to learn about participant expectations and discover what is going right and how the training experience can be improved.

Supporting Employees as They Adapt to a Digital World

So far, more than 200 participants 鈥� most of them in frontline manager roles 鈥� have become leaders thanks to the Evolve program. These managers are supporting and guiding their teams through the company鈥檚 digital transformation and helping them learn how to use new technologies. This has enabled the company to change the way it does business without having to look outside its existing workforce for the necessary digital skills.

Continuous improvement projects initiated during the program have also yielded significant benefits for the company. In response to issues identified by the participants themselves, the projects involved the design and implementation of a solution using change management concepts learned during the course.

鈥淥verall, the program has generated over CAD 21 million in saved revenue,鈥� comments Tennyson Devoe, senior director of Safety and Organizational Excellence at Purolator. 鈥淔urthermore, we鈥檝e seen a significant reduction in our injury frequency rate and improved union relations.鈥�

Another important benefit is increased cross-functional collaboration with the program nurturing strong relationships between managers from different areas of the business.

鈥淓ven a few years after completing the program, participants still keep in touch using 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Human Experience Management Suite,” confirms Devoe. 鈥淭his means they can share ideas and reach out for support when they need it.鈥�

The Evolve program has won numerous national and international awards, including four gold awards at the 2020 Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Leadership Development Awards.

Navigating Uncertain Times through Strong Leadership

With the COVID-19 pandemic prompting a significant increase in business volume and the hiring of thousands of new drivers, the ability of Purolator鈥檚 employees to adapt to rapid change has been tested over the last two years. Despite these challenges, the lessons learned by the alumni of the Evolve program have helped the company navigate through uncertain times.

鈥淲e now have a frontline workforce that has successfully adapted to running digitalized processes,鈥� concludes Devoe. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 more, thanks to the strong leadership of our managers, our employees now have the confidence to view change as an opportunity to learn and grow.鈥�

Kristin Muellner is director of Customer Stories & Reference Engagement at 麻豆原创.

• Industry-First Solution Helps Companies Redesign Travel and Expense Programs Using Employee Sentiment Data

Concur Experience Optimizer combines the鈥痩istening and analysis capabilities of Qualtrics EmployeeXM, the leading product for employee experience management, with鈥痮perational intelligence data from Concur Travel and Concur Expense solutions to help companies design travel programs for the hybrid workplace, improve spend management processes and increase employee retention.

Many employees are ready to return to pre-pandemic levels of business travel, with seven in ten (70%) expecting to go back to traveling as much as they did before the pandemic, according to from Qualtrics, the leader and creator of the Experience Management (XM) category, and the 麻豆原创 Concur organization. A small majority (54%) of business travelers say traveling for business is still very important or critical to their role and four in five (84%) say they are willing to travel within the next year.

Yet the experience of traveling for business is unlikely to go back to exactly the way it was pre-pandemic due to marked changes in employee expectations. Global business travelers expect new benefits 鈥� like the ability to choose direct flights or select premium seating 鈥� from their employers to help ensure their health and safety, said. Alongside business travel, employee spending behavior is also evolving with more non-travel purchases initiated directly by employees, requiring new expense categories to support remote, hybrid and in-person work.

鈥淧eople are a company鈥檚 greatest asset, and it鈥檚 no secret that retaining employees has become even more critical,鈥� said Mike Koetting, 麻豆原创 Concur solution area lead at 麻豆原创. 鈥淎 company鈥檚 travel and expense programs can directly impact an employee鈥檚 experience. Concur Experience Optimizer helps organizations understand the reasons behind employee behavior so they can make adjustments that are in line with both employee sentiment and business objectives.鈥�

鈥淥ur research shows that demand for business travel is returning to pre-pandemic levels, but getting the employee experience right is more nuanced and complicated than ever before,鈥� said Jay Choi, Qualtrics chief product officer. 鈥淚t鈥檚 critical for organizations to understand how employees feel about the new world of travel and use that experience data to meet their evolving health and safety needs.鈥�

Concur Experience Optimizer uses technology from Qualtrics and 麻豆原创 Concur solutions, plus expert services from 麻豆原创 Concur Experience Management consultants to help companies listen, analyze and act on employee feedback to create continuous feedback loops and understand the impact of adjustments made over time. Companies can easily capture employee sentiment with science-backed feedback templates and view the results through simple, intuitive dashboards that show the impact of sentiment against operational data metrics. Those insights can be turned into focused action plans to improve employees鈥� travel and expense experiences, compliance, and budget predictability.

With Concur Experience Optimizer, companies can level up their entire program听鈥� from buying behavior to supplier options to workflow 鈥� to:

• Improve employee experiences.鈥疊etter understand how听policies are affecting employee sentiment,听safety,听well-being,鈥痯roductivity and attrition risk.
• Effectively manage听spend.鈥�Gain insight into the听critical听influences听that听impact employee buying decisions and organizational spending patterns, supporting early detection of potential saving opportunities and closing policy and process gaps.
• Reduce听risk听and non-compliant听spend.鈥疘dentify听risks in programs听and adjust processes that allow for鈥痭oncompliant and potentially听fraudulent spending.
• Optimize programs for growth.鈥疢ake confident travel, expense, compliance and spend management program adjustments to lead healthy business growth with enhanced visibility into critical business problems.
• 鈥嬧赌�Drive sustainability.听Make enhancements that align with听organizational sustainability objectives, enhance the organization鈥檚 brand and reduce the carbon footprint.

鈥淐oncur Experience Optimizer brings together the horsepower of 麻豆原创 Concur and Qualtrics to allow finance leaders and travel managers to be active drivers of improved employee experiences,鈥� said Kevin Permenter, Research Director at IDC. 鈥淭his solution has potential to help companies get ahead of spend problems by shaping spend with employee sentiment as a guide.鈥�

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About Qualtrics
, the leader and creator of the Experience Management (XM) category, is changing the way organizations manage and improve the four core experiences of business鈥攃ustomer, employee, product and brand. Over 13,500 organizations around the world use Qualtrics to listen, understand and take action on experience data (X-data)鈥攖he beliefs, emotions and intentions that tell you why things are happening, and what to do about it. The Qualtrics XM Platform is a system of action that helps businesses attract customers who stay longer and buy more, engage employees who build a positive culture, develop breakthrough products people love and build a brand people are passionate about. To learn more, please visit听.

About 麻豆原创 Concur
麻豆原创 Concur is the world鈥檚 leading brand for integrated travel, expense and invoice management solutions, driven by a relentless pursuit to simplify and automate these everyday processes. The highly rated 麻豆原创 Concur mobile app guides employees through business trips, charges are directly populated into expense reports, and invoice approvals are automated. By integrating near real-time data and using AI to analyze transactions, businesses can see what they鈥檙e spending, improve compliance and avoid possible blind spots in the budget. 麻豆原创 Concur solutions help eliminate yesterday鈥檚 tedious tasks, make today鈥檚 work easier and support businesses to run at their best. Learn more at or the 麻豆原创 Concur .

About 麻豆原创
麻豆原创鈥檚 strategy is to help every business run as a sustainable intelligent enterprise. As a market leader in enterprise application software, we help companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 87% of the world鈥檚 total global commerce touches an 麻豆原创 system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers鈥� businesses into sustainable intelligent enterprises. 麻豆原创 helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want, without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables business and public customers across 25 industries globally to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, 麻豆原创 helps the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives. For more information, visit .

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Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as 鈥渁nticipate,鈥� 鈥渂elieve,鈥� 鈥渆stimate,鈥� 鈥渆xpect,鈥� 鈥渇orecast,鈥� 鈥渋ntend,鈥� 鈥渕ay,鈥� 鈥減lan,鈥� 鈥減roject,鈥� 鈥減redict,鈥� 鈥渟hould鈥� and 鈥渨ill鈥� and similar expressions as they relate to 麻豆原创 are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. 麻豆原创 undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect 麻豆原创’s future financial results are discussed more fully in 麻豆原创’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including 麻豆原创’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. 漏 2021 麻豆原创 SE. All rights reserved. 麻豆原创 and other 麻豆原创 products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 麻豆原创 SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices.

As of September 9, the U.S. government has stepped in, announcing that it will require businesses with 100 or more employees to ensure their workers are either vaccinated or tested once a week. This mandate poses multiple challenges for organizations that need to respond immediately to avoid the risk of fines. Businesses are looking for robust solutions to facilitate the process of securely uploading vaccination and testing status data.

Agility and scalability are top of mind. With a pandemic that is constantly evolving, organizations need a configurable solution that can adapt as regulations change and scale as programs ramp up. At the same time, employees may have strong feelings about the mandate 鈥� and . While compliance is a must, so is listening and trust-building. Organizations need a transparent and noninvasive approach to collecting data that helps generate employee buy-in.

Fast, Effective Vaccination and Testing Management

麻豆原创 and Qualtrics have been helping organizations worldwide navigate the global pandemic and offer solutions to help with vaccine mandates. With powerful vaccination and testing management capabilities, organizations can meet evolving vaccination requirements and improve employee safety and well-being. The result is fewer regulatory, legal, and workplace health risks.

With , also known as an , organizations can more quickly and simply gather COVID-19 vaccination status and ongoing test results from employees, contractors, and on-site visitors and spot issues in real time. All relevant information is securely maintained, helping businesses to comply with requirements, reduce risks, and avoid fines.

Qualtrics Vaccination & Testing Manager also provides a critical tool for following through on the most important objective: protecting employee health and well-being. Data is managed in a more secure manner that helps protect employee privacy. And while employee perspectives on the mandate will likely remain diverse, the solution helps organizations better listen to employee perspectives as regulations evolve while enabling the transparency and insight needed to have honest and informed conversations moving forward.

Compliance, Safety, Rapid Ramp-Up

Pre-built and run in the cloud, Qualtrics Vaccination & Testing Manager helps organizations get up and running in days — versus weeks to months with other solutions. It also uses a combination of mobile-friendly digital forms, automated workflows and reminders, and intuitive dashboards that have been designed to confirm vaccination status and test results more securely and at scale.

What sets Qualtrics Vaccination & Testing Manager apart from many other offerings is its breadth, agility, and intuitive use:

• Breadth: It is a single, centralized solution that supports the processes needed to meet COVID-19 attestation requirements and broader workplace safety needs, including vaccine attestation, ongoing testing uploads, and daily symptom checking. It also provides dashboards for tracking details and generating insights on demand.
• Agility: With a lightweight and no-code setup, the solution enables organizations to ramp up quickly. HR teams can manage processes without dependency on IT. And with flexible configuration options, the solution can adapt to future needs and legal regulations as they change.
• Intuitive use: With low administrative overhead and automated workflows, users are smoothly guided through all processes. Vaccination and testing status can be collected via multiple digital channels, such as e-mail, SMS, or via QR code and Web page. Automated workflows, meanwhile, guide employees through the vaccination attestation process, with triggered actions and reminders for uploading vaccination cards, test results, or proof of exemption.

As for helping keep sensitive employee data secure, Qualtrics Vaccination & Testing Manager includes built-in features that maintain personal health information and vaccination data separately from employee records. In addition, the solution is ISO 27001 and FedRamp compliant and HITRUST certified, which means its technology platform provides customers the tools to manage HIPAA compliance if needed. .

Readily Available, Extensible Solution for Existing Customers

For existing customers using the , 麻豆原创 also offers a free of charge.

Available through the upgrade center of the 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solution, this portlet uses the flexible metadata framework technology already built into 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Employee Central. Organizations can customize and extend the portlet to meet a variety of monitoring needs as vaccination and testing requirements evolve.

Additionally, the portlet can produce analytics to identify and support high-risk employees based on location, business unit, department, age, work area, and more. Businesses can use practical, real-time dashboards and reporting to safely bring the workforce back to the office. For more information about the portlet, read this article on .

The Mandates Are Here, Move Forward Today

At 麻豆原创, we know that we鈥檙e all in this pandemic together, and a big part of 麻豆原创鈥檚 mission today is to help our customers make it through. These solutions enable organizations to tackle vaccination and testing requirements with confidence and without delay. They can get up and running more quickly with a cloud-based, pre-built solution that is intuitive, transparent, and flexible enough to adapt to change.

For more information about moving forward, visit us at .

For a live demo, visit the 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors booth at the HR Technology Conference September 28 – October 1.

Amanda Crittenden is global solution marketing lead for Employee Experience Management for 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors.

With approximately 4,600 employees in Australia and 182,000 worldwide, Veolia ANZ has extended its sustainable business commitment to both customers and workers. The company鈥檚 COVID-19 crisis response team in Australia and New Zealand began using this past year to stay connected with workers and address their challenges.

鈥淚t鈥檚 critical that we constantly communicate with employees to understand their challenges and act quickly to address their needs,鈥� said Alexandre Moreau, chief people and safety officer at Veolia ANZ. 鈥淲e needed a quick and easy solution to keep people connected, whether it was managers and their teams or customers. Qualtrics helped us make sure that our people were okay and receiving the support they needed.鈥�

Sustainability is in Veolia鈥檚 DNA. The company鈥檚 business portfolio includes providing environmental solutions across water, waste management, and energy. With operations and treatment facilities nationwide, it serves customers of all sizes 鈥� from local cafes and food chains to industrial facilities. One of its business units helps municipal water customers provide safe drinking water for their communities and industrial clients to more sustainably manage water in their operations, while its energy division helps companies build energy resilience and become carbon neutral.

Listening Translates Employee Feedback Into Engagement

As a designated essential service during the pandemic, Veolia ANZ provided the same level of support for customers despite significant challenges, including social distancing, schedule disruptions, and lockdowns. During the height of the crisis, it needed even more flexibility to respond to highly changeable situations. For example, workloads increased in the health sector because of pandemic-related activities. Meanwhile, some employees were working remotely, while others had to be in the field. The company used XM solutions from 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics to stay in touch with employees.

Kate Moonen, head of Marketing and Digital Experience at Veolia ANZ, was part of the company鈥檚 pandemic response team. Speaking during , she discussed how short, but targeted surveys helped the company stay in touch with its diverse workforce that includes truck drivers, machine operators, engineers, lawyers, and sustainability experts in urban and remote locations.

鈥淲e really wanted to understand that our people, particularly essential workers, were feeling supported,鈥� she said. 鈥淒id they have enough PPE equipment to do their jobs safely? What were their concerns about their mental health and well-being? Based on that feedback, it helped our team formulate what we were going to communicate and what actions we needed to take to continue to support our people.鈥�

Initially, the team was surprised at the high employee engagement levels with the surveys. Over time, the company rolled out new activities based on the feedback. These included regularly scheduled, anywhere, any device communications with senior leadership through live webinars and question-and-answer sessions. In response to employee requests, executives also sent short video messages that employees could watch on their mobile phones, with personalized stories from company leaders about their lives outside of work and how they adapted to the changed working environment.

鈥淧eople felt they wanted to take the opportunity to be heard,鈥� said Moonen. 鈥淲e would often share regular communications with them about what came out of the latest pulse and what we were going to do about it. If you鈥檙e asking people for their time, it鈥檚 critical to demonstrate what you鈥檙e doing with that feedback to meet their needs.鈥�

Continuous Dialogue Through Employee Surveys

Just like any aspect of sustainable business, employee engagement is not a one-and-done effort.

鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing strong employee engagement every time we roll out a new survey,鈥� said Moreau. 鈥淚nstead of waiting a year to connect with employees, Qualtrics has given us a more agile response tool with a quick pulse check that our people appreciate and we can rely on for updated feedback to make better decisions. We want to know how people are feeling in a fast-changing business environment.鈥�

Go Digital for Fast Action

Moreau said companies should be explicit about what employees have shared and how they鈥檙e taking action. Even if there isn鈥檛 an immediate answer, people appreciate the transparency.

Moonen also advised employers not to overthink the survey process.

鈥淪ustainable business is all about agility,鈥� she said. 鈥淐ollecting the feedback and acting quickly is far more valuable than spending months iterating questions. Digital technology gives us the ability to constantly evolve and adapt as customer expectations, market conditions, and employee experiences shift.鈥�

Future of Work Is in Employee Experience

In the wake of the pandemic, many employees yearn for a greater sense of belonging. They want more help with their individual career goals and to have pride in their workplace. Getting the employee experience right is part of every organization鈥檚 transformational journey to sustainable business.

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鈥淐OVID-19 has been a digital catalyst, and the world won鈥檛 be the same even when it recedes. We are starting to look at the workplace and social environments through an entirely new lens,鈥� said Chris Gant, EY global leader for Proximity Monitor. 鈥淲hether it鈥檚 in the workplace, at a sporting event, or at a concert, organizations can help promote safety with visibility into people鈥檚 behavior in the controlled space in which they operate.鈥�

Anonymized, Real-Time Data for Safety

To share their location data wirelessly, people can turn on the Proximity Monitor phone app or use other devices such as a lanyard or wristband. The solution uses and running on EY Client Technology platform to capture real-time data as people interact in any environment, summarizing risk levels on a digital dashboard. Besides measuring the distance between individuals, the solution analyzes the length of time people are near each other and at what time of day, as well as where they are gathering. Companies can configure risk parameters and resultant actions based on low, medium, and high designations. There鈥檚 also an option to add . Best of all, the data is completely anonymized.

鈥淣one of the data we capture in the solution is personally identifiable by individuals,鈥� said Gant. 鈥淓ven if an alert was sent to warn a person that they were nearby someone who tested positive for COVID-19, it would not contain any personal data about them or the name of the person they were near.鈥�

Data Fuels Resilient Business Decisions

The development of Proximity Monitor unfolded as quickly as the pandemic itself during the past year. After initially focusing on contact tracing and social distancing, the solution has morphed into a fast-evolving tool for short- and long-term planning of space.

鈥淐lients can take action based on dashboard insights. It could be anything from sending alerts and strengthening communication to redesigning workspaces and organizing people flow,鈥� said Gant. 鈥淚n a world that’s adjusted to COVID-19, the design of workspace is going to change. Organizations need to re-establish how workspaces will be used, which you can do in near real time with Proximity Monitor.鈥�

Gant added that typical go-lives take about a couple of weeks and can be scaled easily for any number of people.

Trusted Data Says When It鈥檚 Safe to Mingle

Proximity Monitor thrives on uncertainty, analyzing in-the-moment data to reduce risk as people go about their day at work or leisure. In the workplace, data can help leaders and employees feel more confident about location decisions. The same applies to attendees at in-person events. For example, a recent major sporting event organizer piloted Proximity Monitor to help meet the group鈥檚 stringent COVID-19 protocols.

鈥淭hey used the solution to help protect people running and participating in the event, distinguishing between those kept inside a protective bubble and those operating on the outside of the bubble,鈥� said Gant. 鈥淭hey could make sure that different groups of people were not mingling too closely with others or going to locations they shouldn鈥檛 be going to.鈥�

Universities are starting to use EY Proximity Monitor to plan for social distancing reinforcement as they ready for in-person learning. They want to make sure students and faculty understand and can physically follow protocols across various spaces, whether in the classroom, library, dorms, or other campus locations. A massive European cultural event is also using Proximity Monitor to help monitor the health and safety of its artists, production team, and guests.

Global Future for Industry Safety

Fresh from having won a prestigious this year, Gant said EY teams were exploring emerging use cases, like wayfinding to reduce risk as people navigate unfamiliar surroundings such as complex conference venues and large events.

鈥淥rganizations need to regulate the flow of people across locations, preventing crowds and queues from forming,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey can make better space management decisions based on the concentration of people in that building cumulatively at any time.鈥�

Gant saw tremendous potential for Proximity Monitor in the global market, including North America.

鈥淭he wow factor comes alive for clients when they see the fantastic data insights on the dashboard and realize how they can use it to solve their unique challenges,鈥� he said. 鈥淥rganizers of live music and cultural events are excited about it as a way of giving confidence that it is safe to return. We鈥檙e also collaborating with several UK government clients around using Proximity Monitor for workspace management and redesign.鈥�

Customer feedback to date has been overwhelmingly positive according to Gant, and it鈥檚 no wonder. Informed, anonymized data is pitch perfect for organizations navigating through these uncertain times.

Real-time data is giving organizations the confidence to safely bring people back to social events, offices, schools, and other in-person activities.

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This blog also appeared on .

Commissioned by , , and EY, the survey from Forrester Consulting collected global feedback from about 900 full-time employees.

Managing the Hybrid Work Experience

While the pandemic continues to be a bumpy ride for many organizations, changing workforce conditions are making EX more important than ever in the new normal.

鈥淢any industries are experiencing unexpected commercial demand and opportunity,鈥� said Marc Havercroft, global chief customer officer at 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e struggling with talent shortages as some economies begin to rise, while others face setbacks. Organizations have to manage hybrid work models, connecting employees with their managers as well as teams company-wide.鈥�

Digitalization has surged during the past year and will only become more prevalent, supporting productivity and job satisfaction for people whether they stay remote, opt for partial in-person work, or need to be onsite given the nature of their responsibilities. Havercroft said that 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors customers have relied on the cloud-based to help build a strong EX throughout recruitment, onboarding, and performance management.

鈥淥ur global, multi-language platform was instrumental in helping organizations know what employees have been going through to provide a supportive EX from the pandemic鈥檚 early stages through this unpredictable recovery and beyond,鈥� he said. 鈥淐ompanies of all sizes are virtually bringing people on board, using the tools to make introductions, get them productive quickly, and provide what they need to excel.鈥�

Indeed, surveyed employees in the Forrester research were encouraged by management and senior leadership to adopt digital tools that promote collaboration, mobility, and remote work. However, 40% of employees found their technology difficult to use, and over half said that it lacked important features. For example, three-quarters reported that the applications and data they needed were not always accessible on desktop and mobile devices. Closing gaps like these will be an important part of effective EX moving forward.

Technology Strengthens Human Bonds at Work

Reliance on technology doesn鈥檛 negate the human factor. One of the most surprising results of this pandemic year was how digitalization brought people together.

鈥淭echnology takes on the administrative tasks, giving people more time to connect as human beings, especially between managers and their direct reports. That relationship is paramount to someone鈥檚 work experience,鈥� said Havercroft. 鈥淐ompanies can capture work-related data using the technology, so people can do what they do best 鈥� empathetically listening to solve problems and making more valuable contributions by applying their creativity and knowledge. We鈥檙e seeing this happen across every geography and industry.鈥�

How to Close the EX Gap

The same survey findings revealed numerous gaps between a company鈥檚 EX aspirations and the reality employees faced. For example, almost 80% of HR leaders predicted that EX will be one of the most important factors in meeting business objectives. However, a paltry 9% of respondents said employee needs were the number one consideration when setting EX strategies, and less than a third of HR managers said it made the top three priorities. Technology can help close the gap between earlier workforce norms and changing employee expectations.

鈥淲e鈥檝e had EX technology for a while, but Industrial Age societal constructs haven鈥檛 completely caught up to the reality of hybrid work,鈥� said Havercroft. 鈥淭he pandemic turbo-charged this humankind evolution, forcing companies to use the technology more fully to actually enhance our core human capabilities.鈥�

EX Has Direct Impact on Customer Experience

One of the major learnings for businesses worldwide has been that employees are their core asset and should be treated accordingly. There鈥檚 valid argument for changes that will improve EX and cascade to a better CX.

鈥淟ook at those moments that matter for your employees and give them the ability to do their job well so they can deliver a fantastic customer experience,鈥� said Havercroft. 鈥淭he magic of business is when you bring people together, fostering their ability to develop ideas, innovate, fail fast, and learn so they can create more new value for customers.鈥�

In a brand-driven marketplace, it鈥檚 worth remembering that employees are customers too. The best organizations don鈥檛 hire great people and tell them what to do. They create a great EX that allows people to make their greatest contribution.

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.

鈥淭ogether, we are reinventing how businesses run and also demonstrating the big heart of our community. Our thoughts go out to everyone affected by the pandemic, and our thanks to all those who are making extraordinary contributions in our community,鈥� Klein said. 鈥淭echnology has helped communities and families, and helped business quickly adapt. 麻豆原创 has been working hand-in-hand with you, our customers around the globe, whether it was helping you to make your supply chains more resilient, reimagining your business model to create new customer experiences, or to enable remote work. Together, we鈥檝e got this.鈥�

麻豆原创鈥檚 premiere customer event is being held virtually this year throughout June across regions worldwide. During his fascinating keynote, Klein unveiled a series of announcements that included the global industry expansion of the company鈥檚 business network strategy for fast innovation, sustainability tracking solutions, and industry-specific additions to the company鈥檚 popular business transformation-as-a-service offering, . He and special guests welcomed a plethora of customers who demonstrated how they were already relying on 麻豆原创 to become intelligent enterprises.

Business Networks and Sustainability Drive Growth

Klein announced the next phase of 麻豆原创鈥檚 strategy to create world鈥檚 largest and most comprehensive business network, along with upcoming sustainability reporting standards and tools. He put both announcements in business context, based on learnings from companies that have weathered a storm of challenges encompassing the pandemic, geopolitical tensions, social injustice, inequality, loss of biodiversity, and climate change.

鈥淭he most resilient companies were those that embraced technology to transform their business processes. COVID has underscored the urgent need for every company to become an intelligent enterprise,鈥� he said. 鈥淚nsight number two was that no business does business alone. We win together as a community. But the value comes from the network and millions of interconnections it facilitates in real time. The third insight is that we must act now on sustainability with the goal of zero emissions, zero waste, zero inequality.鈥�

Announcing that will bring together , , and , Klein predicted that industries will be revolutionized as 听businesses turn into communities across entire supply chains, able to respond to any disruptions in real time. He said that sustainable business was equally important as he announced the company鈥檚 portfolio of upcoming sustainability-specific solutions.

鈥淲e already run the world鈥檚 largest supplier network with more than 5 million connected enterprises. And because our applications run supply chains across every industry, we have the most relevant data and expertise,鈥� said Klein. 鈥淚t鈥檚 time to build sustainability into the fabric of how we do business to make sustainability a standard dimension of corporate management. The 麻豆原创 community has the power to protect our planet and create a future our children want to be part of. We have created a new sustainability portfolio to help you drive sustainable practices inside your organization and across your entire value chain.鈥�

How 麻豆原创 Customers Are Digitally Transforming

In a series of fascinating conversations featuring real-world 麻豆原创 customers and solution demonstrations, Julia White, chief marketing and solutions officer and member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE, and Paige Wei-Cox, senior vice president and global head of 麻豆原创 Business Network, shared the Intelligent Enterprise in action.

One retailer used to deliver an omnichannel shopping experience for consumers, with embedded artificial intelligence (AI) for personalized offerings based on a 360-degree view of customer data, including social sentiment and purchase history. capabilities integrate data across supply chain planning, inventory, ordering, and invoicing for real-time visibility and faster delivery.

A global leader collaborated in 麻豆原创’s industry cloud to develop an advanced track and trace solution for sustainable medicine returns and launch a single platform for data sharing across partners. Another 麻豆原创 customer, a large agribusiness organization, used 麻豆原创鈥檚 business network to find 140 new suppliers in a few days when the pandemic disrupted supply chains last year. Executives from two and organizations shared how they鈥檝e collaborated with 麻豆原创 to launch an industry-wide clinical trial network to connect seamlessly across complex supply chain partners for faster time-to-market.

RISE with 麻豆原创 Expands with Industry Expertise

Responding to high customer interest, Klein said that 麻豆原创 has expanded its transformation-as-a-service offering RISE with 麻豆原创 beyond 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud to and , as well as a dedicated package for human experience management (HXM).

鈥淢any customers want a holistic, modular cloud ERP solution,鈥� he said. 鈥淎ll of this is delivered with one data and security model, and business process intelligence to ensure your processes are fully optimized and running industry best standards.鈥�

In addition, White announced RISE with 麻豆原创 for industries focused on retail, consumer products, automotive, utilities, and industrial machinery and components (IM&C).

鈥淲e鈥檙e bringing together the best of 麻豆原创鈥檚 50 years of deep industry expertise and the best of our partner ecosystem to provide industry-specific cloud-based solutions as-a-service,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hese solutions are built on to give you the benefits of integration, extensibility, analytics, and one data model. They work natively with 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud so every customer can get the full set of industry-specific solutions needed in their cloud deployment.鈥�

Connected Insights Speed Up Digital Transformation 听

White also had a candid conversation with Hasso Plattner, chairman of the Supervisory Board of 麻豆原创 SE, about how organizations can use 麻豆原创 technology to bring people, processes, systems, and data together for transformational business results. Plattner advised companies to explore transformation using simulations with active data models, which is now possible using experience information from , the , and process management and mining from

鈥淭he whole notion of cloud systems is such a gigantic improvement,” Plattner said. “With new ways to visualize business processes and to get feedback, we have a better chance to move forward faster. We can monitor systems, and see what鈥檚 missing and make changes鈥ven on the fly.鈥�

Innovation Networks for Sustainable, Profitable Business

Klein鈥檚 vision for the future was clear: connected intelligent enterprises will reinvent how businesses run.

鈥淲e will jointly build networks with you that champion diversity, inclusion, and human rights. We will make carbon footprint tracking available in the business network so that you can go to true net zero,鈥� he said. 鈥淭ogether, we can reinvent how industries run by connecting intelligent enterprises into an industry-wide business network, making profitability sustainable and sustainability profitable.鈥�

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The results were published in a new study from Forrester Consulting LLC commissioned by (NYSE: 麻豆原创), Qualtrics, an 麻豆原创 company, and EY. Likewise, budget for EX has almost doubled over the same time period, from 6% to 11% and is expected to increase to 16% within two years.

while maintaining culture, flexibility and productivity. Still, most EX initiatives remain relatively immature, according to the 鈥淐lose the Employee Experience Gap鈥� study, which surveyed 900 HR decision-makers and 900 full-time employees. Organizational silos, lack of executive support, inconsistent measurement, dispersed data and misalignments between HR departments and employees leave room for improvement in creating EX initiatives that drive lasting change.

For example, only 24% of HR teams have an executive sponsor for their EX work, and 71% say it is a challenge to gather real-time information about employee experience. Only 17% of HR organizations say they track KPIs that reflect cultural strength. While 81% of employees believe creating and sustaining a positive culture is the most important aspect to creating good EX, only 58% of HR managers agreed. Furthermore, only 15% of employees expect excellent EX from their companies.

鈥淟earning and training, diversity and inclusion and a culture that encourages people to bring their whole selves to the workplace are all part of the employee experience,鈥� said Jill Popelka, president, 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors. 鈥淓mployee experience cannot be isolated to HR or solely focused on increasing productivity. It needs a holistic strategy driven by leadership and shaped by continuous feedback from employees.鈥�

Despite existing challenges, the study confirmed that EX initiatives can drive immense benefits for the overall business. HR leaders said that EX initiatives have a positive impact on workforce agility (59%) and organizational agility (67%). Meanwhile, nearly 80% of employees said that EX initiatives improve their productivity and quality of work. This translates into increased revenue, according to the 77% of HR leaders who said that EX initiatives have increased revenue and the 61% who said they saw improved profitability.

and .

To learn more, join 麻豆原创 and Forrester Consulting for a discussion about the study during the at 11:00 a.m. ET on February 18, 2021.

For more information, visit the and the 麻豆原创 News Center. Follow 麻豆原创 on Twitter at and

Media Contact:
Samantha Yerks, +1 (914) 918-6087, samantha.yerks@sap.com, ET
麻豆原创 麻豆原创 Room; press@sap.com

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as 鈥渁nticipate,鈥� 鈥渂elieve,鈥� 鈥渆stimate,鈥� 鈥渆xpect,鈥� 鈥渇orecast,鈥� 鈥渋ntend,鈥� 鈥渕ay,鈥� 鈥減lan,鈥� 鈥減roject,鈥� 鈥減redict,鈥� 鈥渟hould鈥� and 鈥渨ill鈥� and similar expressions as they relate to 麻豆原创 are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. 麻豆原创 undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect 麻豆原创’s future financial results are discussed more fully in 麻豆原创’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including 麻豆原创’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
漏 2021 麻豆原创 SE. All rights reserved.
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What the听 has shown us is that to optimize for both speed and accuracy, interdependencies among companies are ever more critical. Interconnected digital supply chains are more relevant than ever before, demand prediction is critical to drive commerce, and procurement must become ever more intelligent and sustainable as we look to source goods and services.

The current situation also underlines the strategy that 麻豆原创 defined years ago: that we are moving from an era of siloed functions to an agile, intelligent, and responsive age. In some ways, we are moving back to basics, as we bring back core business process to the forefront, albeit the next-generation versions that will help power operational efficiency and growth for our customers for decades to come. The next generation intelligent suite is integrated but composable, modular, and infrastructure-agnostic, thereby simplifying adoption, increasing flexibility, and offering choice for companies.

A leading customer example for reimagining business processes by transforming the IT landscape is Orica鈥檚 4S program, which stands for Simple, Standard, Single 麻豆原创. Over the past few years, the company has undergone a significant transformation, which covers eight end-to-end business standard processes. Orica redefined all its business processes by consolidating systems on 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, complemented by other 麻豆原创 solutions and extensions. All these business models were redefined based on the prerequisite to not customize any solutions so Orica can benefit from faster innovation delivery and a new level of transparency and efficiency across the enterprise.

If we take a closer look at where we are right now, we are investing in key processes that run every enterprise in any industry and are summarized in听: Lead to Cash, Recruit to Retire, Source to Pay, and Design to Operate.

We have made significant progress with our integration journey with a cloud-first, but not cloud-only, approach by also enabling . We use key services from , such as master data integration in the cloud, and end-to-end business process blueprints for hybrid scenarios as well.

Lead to Cash

Today, it is increasingly important for organizations to engage with their customers in the most effective way to better understand their needs and meet their expectations. Moreover, customers expect personalized experiences and want to choose when and how they interact with businesses.

But providing flexibility for customers can come at the cost of complexity on the business side.

The Lead to Cash process brings together听听and听听to deal with this complexity. For businesses that use other solutions for customer journeys, APIs offer the flexibility to integrate those solutions as well. Creating a seamless experience from a customer perspective requires seamless collaboration between marketing and sales teams. This in turn is supported by business capabilities that allow for automated, consistent handovers of leads, choice between e-commerce or direct sales, and flexible pricing configuration.

Enabling new business models with one set of solutions is at the core of the Lead to Cash process. It becomes increasingly important to sell physical products, service products, and subscription products in a unified way and allow customers to choose their own specific combinations. Integration scenarios among ,听,听, and 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud and on premise enable a variety of scenarios and allow a flexible business process design to achieve this goal. Furthermore, the process does not stop in the sales domain, but seamlessly integrates with 听for service scheduling and execution.

• Find more information in this

Recruit to Retire

With today鈥檚 business dynamics, organizations are faced with the need to quickly adapt to changing environments. The global pandemic, for example, required companies to re-evaluate and redefine business continuity plans. Companies have seen both sides of the coin: the need to increase workforce and unfortunately, the need to redeploy or furlough employees too. In those moments that matter, transparent communication and trustful collaboration are a must.

This is where Recruit to Retire comes into play, an end-to-end process that enables human resources (HR) leaders to understand, manage, and optimize all aspects of the engagement with their workforce, including external workers. A combined solution portfolio of , , and solutions, along with 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud and helps customers manage their workforce in line with business objectives, while putting the individual human experience at the center.

Think of Return to Work scenarios that are currently top of mind due to COVID-19. Many customers are looking for tools to revitalize and re-energize their workforce. By combining these solutions with , customers can reopen facilities to their employees, reskill their workforce, keep them healthy and engaged, and help them secure new external opportunities if needed — in a human and very interactive way.

At听, we will show an听 that highlights how Recruit to Retire is being supported by three sub processes. These include Hire to Retire, the life cycle of an internal employee; Travel to Reimburse, or travel and expense management; and External Workforce Management, or engaging with contingent workforce. We will show how 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors and 麻豆原创 Fieldglass solutions and 麻豆原创 S/4HANA cover an end-to-end process for hiring and engaging temporary external workers from a supplier 鈥� all connected through one aligned domain model.

• Find more information in detailed posts on 听and听
• Experience it at
• Learn more via

Source to Pay

Procurement departments seek transparency across their trading partners; for example, when it comes to topics such as sustainability or risk and compliance. They also require data-driven business insights at every step of the process. This level of transparency and insight for end-to-end processes can only be achieved in networks on a unified platform. This is the foundation for more effective spend management, better engagement with contingent labor, and sustainable practices across the value chain.

The Source to Pay process involves 麻豆原创 S/4HANA and and 麻豆原创 Fieldglass solutions. Their integration enables organizations to gain a 360-degree view of their processes across the category. This covers a variety of aspects related to Source to Pay building on Ariba Network from supplier management and risk, persona-based guided sourcing, contract management, and buying and invoicing functions tailored to specific industry needs. Capabilities with centralized sourcing, contract, requisitioning, purchasing, and invoice monitoring span across multiple backend systems and drive visibility and efficiency in shared services organizations.

One of our recent innovations in that space is the centralized requisitioning capability released with听, as well as invoicing delivered as part of 麻豆原创 S/4HANA and 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud. Enabled by the guided buying capability, this process addresses the employee self-service procurement flow with the ability to control a global, distributed, and diverse procurement landscape. Based on the integration to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA for central procurement, it is possible for organizations to scale the purchasing processes to support end-to-end business processes across finance and logistics. This helps enterprises create a path to harmonize system landscapes and centralize processes without disruption. Additionally, central buying reduces process costs and total cost of ownership, while at the same time helping ensure compliance and control.

• Find more information in this
• Experience it at

Design to Operate

Until recently, supply chains were often considered a back-office function. However, recent events have catapulted supply chains into the spotlight as critical to a business鈥� differentiation and success. No one knew that 2020 would be defined by a pandemic that would bring the global economy to a virtual standstill. Within weeks, the demand for goods and services became highly unpredictable. In such an environment, resilient supply chains become essential. Such resilience allows companies to respond and recover from unanticipated events.

To achieve greater resilience in supply chains, companies need to become more agile in order to sense, predict, and respond to disruption. Building on that, 听allows them to increase productivity and furthermore, by adopting听business networks, they can also enable better collaboration with business partners. Finally, strong supply chains not only require, but can also actively support, sustainable business practices.

We deliver capabilities as part of the Design to Operate framework that help customers run such resilient and sustainable supply chains. Our customers can orchestrate an end-to-end life cycle of a product or asset from the design phase to its operation. 麻豆原创 enables customers to leverage our interoperable solution portfolio to realize seamless business processes based on specific sub-processes, including idea to market, plan to fulfill, and acquire to decommission.

I鈥檇 like to highlight a few recent integration examples: We strengthened the business integration between warehouse management and manufacturing, supporting the Supply to Line process and covering just-in-time Supply to Production including internal replenishment. Warehouse workers can now transfer stock from storage locations to production supply areas in听听鈥� to accurately and timely supply the production line, thus eliminating waste.

With advanced shipping and receiving within 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, we significantly improved the Order to Delivery process. Customers can gain higher visibility for combined in- and outbound processes as well as for internal shipments, such as when parts are produced in one factory and then shipped to another for final assembly.

Another innovation that stands out is the integration between Qualtrics and Enterprise Product Design; our customers can now factor in product innovation ideas and feedback in real time by incorporating experience data.

One of the outcomes of the Design to Operate framework is the Digital Thread, which covers the lifecycle of products or assets as represented in a digital twin. Here we partner with industry leaders. One example is 麻豆原创鈥檚 partnership with Siemens, which aims to bring together the Siemens Team Center with 麻豆原创鈥檚 product life-cycle management portfolio.

• Find more information in this .

麻豆原创 is keeping its promise to customers and integrating its portfolio across functions and capabilities to reimagine business processes for the digital age. Integration ultimately enables business innovation, and this is what the vision of the Intelligent Enterprise is all about.

Thomas Saueressig is a member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE.
.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think we鈥檙e surviving a global pandemic to do things in the same way,鈥� Ruettimann said. 鈥淏efore, we liked people to come into a room and collaboratively hash out ideas. Now, working remotely, we want people to solve a problem, to reach out as needed, but to use their critical thinking skills and best judgment to do their jobs. Performance management plans will have to reflect that in order to be productive. We鈥檒l have to rely on individual accountability to get things done.鈥�

Ruettimann鈥檚 comments were part of the recent virtual broadcast of . The session focused on the future of work and 2021 trends and was moderated by Kerry Brown, vice president of Workforce Adoption at 麻豆原创, and featured Terry Brown, CHRO at L.A. Care.

Connecting Employees for Resilience

Diversity, equity, and inclusion topped the list of 2021 workforce trends for Brown, whose health plan organization served 2.2 million people in vulnerable and low-income communities across Los Angeles County. Already a diverse organization, Brown envisioned L.A. Care evolving in the wake of the pandemic over the next five years, doubling down on equity and inclusion while navigating a fundamentally changed workspace.

鈥淲e are a mission-driven organization, a health plan operating exclusively in Los Angeles county that provides health coverage for underserved and underrepresented [people], Brown said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 one in five Angelenos. We want to make sure we maintain that culture. In a remote [working] environment, we鈥檙e having to be very creative in how we do that.鈥�

Interestingly, employee attendance at L.A. Care town halls rose after the organization began holding them remotely. The experience may be different, but the results have amplified the value of employee conversations.

鈥淢ore people are attending our virtual town halls than ever attended the in-person town halls we held at the office, and we鈥檙e getting more challenging questions,鈥� Brown said. 鈥淭hose questions help us, letting us know what message is resonating or being missed by employees, and what areas we need to focus on that we didn鈥檛 even think of.鈥�

When L.A. Care employees shared their challenges associated with remote schooling at a recent town hall, leaders invited recommendations. This not only sparked more flexible scheduling arrangements for parents, and others with childcare responsibilities, but also regular managerial check-ins with employees who lived alone. Brown said that these actions reinforced the organization鈥檚 overall mission and culture, treating employees the same way they treated healthcare plan members.

Memo to HR: Don鈥檛 Be a Hero

Although workforce issues have taken center stage during the pandemic, dialogues tend to focus on traditional full-time employees, leaving behind the swelling members of the gig economy.

鈥淧eople are participating in more ways that aren鈥檛 captured in [standard] HR reports,鈥� Ruettimann said. 鈥淚鈥檓 a little worried that when we talk about great initiatives 鈥� programs about diversity and inclusion and well-being 鈥� we鈥檙e only talking about such a small segment of workers.鈥�

The second thing keeping Ruettimann up at night is how HR leaders can forget that they are employees too. Stressed and overburdened, they have become experts in everything from logistics to public health, often burning the candle at both ends.

鈥淚f HR is having that kind of an experience, imagine what the rest of the workforce is feeling,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 tell people who I coach, 鈥業f you really want to improve the employee experience, start with yourself because you fix work by fixing yourself first.鈥� Hero behavior leads to burnout.鈥�

Opportunity for Change

The pressure on working women has become particularly intense according to Ruettimann, evident in the record number of females opting out of the workforce. In her mind, talent wars will become more complicated unless we address societal issues like childcare and sharing household work.

鈥淚f you鈥檙e a working woman with a family, whether you鈥檙e in a traditional or non-traditional relationship, you鈥檙e probably thinking of ways to scale back on work to shore up your home,鈥� she said. 鈥淭his could be a privileged problem, but it鈥檚 a problem that many parts of our economy have felt for years. Now that the pressure is being felt at the top of the economy, maybe we鈥檒l find some solutions that will benefit everybody throughout the enterprise.鈥�

On an optimistic note, Ruettimann saw opportunities in the gig economy for people to 鈥渄o their own thing鈥� and for established companies to shift gears.

鈥淥rganizations have a real opportunity to stop the hemorrhaging by looking differently at compensation and performance management and communicating differently to their people who are so stressed,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 believe in the unending potential of human beings. If they want it, there is the opportunity to be the change they want in their lives.鈥�

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鈥淥rganizations use all kinds of different rewards, but the mainstay motivator is what I call, 鈥業f you do this, then you get that,鈥欌�� Pink said. 鈥淭hese are very effective for simple tasks with short time frames because humans love rewards. What鈥檚 happening now, though, is that organizations use 鈥榠f, then鈥� rewards for everything. For tasks that are more complex, creative, and conceptual with longer time horizons, we need a different motivational regime.鈥�

Autonomy Is Motivational

While motivational studies reflected a fundamental mismatch between science and business, Bear noted how many leaders have realized the importance of the , particularly in moments that matter to each individual. Pink said that long-term employee motivation stemmed from offering people fair pay, along with autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

鈥淎utonomy is a really important point when comes to [employee] experiences,鈥� Pink said. 鈥淭he problem with 鈥榠f, then鈥� rewards is the event 鈥� the contingency 鈥� because the contingency is a form of control. Humans have only two reactions to control: they comply or defy. Do you want people on your team who are purely compliant or defiant? Probably not. You want people who are fully engaged. The pathway to that is self-direction, meaning autonomy.鈥�

Tap Full Brain Power with the Right Timing

On a more personal level, Pink provided his self-motivational tips for daily productivity, drawing from research he captured in his . He argued against using guesswork and intuition to structure daily work schedules. The best time to do something depends on what you are doing.

鈥淲e treat timing like an art, but it鈥檚 really a science,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ur brain power doesn鈥檛 remain constant over the course of the day. It changes in meaningful ways. For about 80 percent of us, we move through the day in three stages. There鈥檚 a peak early in the day, a trough in mid-day, and a recovery late afternoon. Do your analytic work during the peak, administrative work early to mid-afternoon, and iterative insight work late afternoon and evening.鈥�

Skill Development for Future Workforce

As business and markets reel from unprecedented, rapid change, Pink acknowledged the challenges people face in reskilling for organizations of the future. Using the metaphor of left-brain versus right-brain thinking, he suggested a wholesale departure from traditionally celebrated skills.

鈥淭o survive today, people have to do work that鈥檚 hard to outsource and automate and delivers on the new demands of this particular moment in time,鈥� he said. 鈥淐ertain skills that used to get you into the middle class are necessary, but no longer sufficient. We need the left-brain spreadsheet skills, but the abilities that will determine who moves forward and behind are the things we haven鈥檛 taken seriously enough, like artistry, empathy, inventiveness, composition, and big-picture thinking.鈥�

Cures for Meeting Fatigue

Pink had specific tips for staying productive despite the unrelenting pace of online meetings. He urged workers to override their 鈥渕uscle memory鈥� that called for meetings to get work done and replace it with a more measured approach.

鈥淭hink of a meeting as a bundle of tasks,鈥� he said. 鈥淚n some cases, we have overvalued what is synchronous, and undervalued what is asynchronous. If some tasks can be done asynchronously, let people do them asynchronously. It allows people greater autonomy and reduces the burden on that meeting.鈥�

Bucking conventional wisdom, Pink touts the value of taking breaks. While we tend to think of breaks as deviation from performance, they are actually a critical performance enhancer. Research shows the best kinds of breaks involve moving around outdoors, preferably with other people 鈥� safely, these days 鈥� and fully detached from work. Leave the cell phone behind.

Do Less and Go for Small Wins

Somewhat counterintuitively, Pink suggested that people consider reducing their commitments, judiciously, so they can focus with greater purpose and achieve more.

鈥淒oing less often means doing better,鈥� he said. 鈥淓very day when I come in, on my list of things to do, I always have my most important task. I do that first. It鈥檚 a way to be purposeful and have a strong priority.鈥�

Looking ahead to the future of work, Pink encouraged leaders to think like scientists, come up with various hypotheses, and test them in small experiments.

鈥淚f it works, keep doing it,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f it鈥檚 a failure, don鈥檛 tell anyone about it. We鈥檝e discounted the importance of small wins, but the way a lot of progress is made is through small wins that cascade into bigger wins. Especially now in these tough times, go for some small wins.鈥�

Follow me: @smgaler
.

Qualtrics XM for Suppliers combines data from an organization鈥檚 , and 麻豆原创 S/4HANA solutions with real-time supplier insights and AI-driven intelligence from Qualtrics, an 麻豆原创 company.

A majority, 66%, of chief procurement and chief supply chain officers said their procurement function is adept at mitigating risks with suppliers, according to a study conducted by Oxford Economics and 麻豆原创. Yet only 51% said they can quickly find alternative supply sources, and 46% said that gaining visibility into supplier performance is challenging.* Qualtrics XM for Suppliers helps organizations enhance existing source-to-pay processes by listening, understanding and most important, acting on supplier feedback at every touch point.

鈥淲hen organizations prioritize listening, understanding and acting on stakeholder feedback, the business impact and ROI will naturally follow,鈥� said Brian Stucki, Qualtrics executive vice president and CustomerXM general manager. 鈥淨ualtrics XM for Suppliers puts supplier feedback at the heart of buyer-supplier interactions and becomes an integral part of decision-making and relationship building. Procurement teams get a holistic view of the entire process through the lens of their suppliers to quickly close feedback loops, attain prescriptive recommendations on areas of improvement and advance spend innovation.鈥�

As a leader in customer experience and creator of the Experience Management (XM) category, Qualtrics provides its expertise to the new solution with key features of the Qualtrics XM Platform, such as the engine, to help deliver:

• Predictive analytics and intelligence. Instantly access supplier feedback and gain insight into predictive indicators to support informed spend decisions across the business.
• Automated and seamless workflows. Close experience gaps across the source-to-pay process with action plans that require no additional analysis and are automatically provided to procurement teams.
• Real-time insights to action. With visibility into supplier health and interactions across supplier touch points, from onboarding to crisis recovery, procurement teams know exactly where to implement change and which steps to take.

鈥淭his year has taught us that agility and resilience can only be achieved if you can anticipate disruption before it happens, enhance critical supplier synergies and know when to activate alternate sources of supply,鈥� said Jason Wolf, senior vice president and 麻豆原创 Intelligent Spend and Business Network general manager. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 even easier to achieve now with Qualtrics XM for Suppliers for 麻豆原创 Ariba, 麻豆原创 Fieldglass and 麻豆原创 S/4HANA solutions.鈥�

Qualtrics XM for Suppliers empowers procurement, finance and supply chain teams to help:

• Secure critical supply and deliver business resiliency by identifying and mitigating areas of risk to minimize business disruption and proactively responding to the feedback of the most critical suppliers.
• Accelerate savings by getting AI-driven insights and recommendations throughout the source-to-pay process to help identify experience gaps in the supply chain and influence more favorable contract terms that impact ROI.
• Innovate with speed by leveraging feedback captured throughout the source-to-pay process to promote supplier collaboration and use supplier expertise to identify process improvement areas.

Learn more about Qualtrics XM for Suppliers .

Visit the 麻豆原创 News Center. Follow 麻豆原创 on Twitter at .

About Qualtrics

Qualtrics, a leader in customer experience and creator of the Experience Management (XM) category, is changing the way organizations manage and improve the four core experiences of business 鈥� customer, employee, product, and brand. Over 12,000 organizations around the world are using Qualtrics to listen, understand, and take action on experience data (X-data) 鈥� the beliefs, emotions, and intentions that tell you why things are happening, and what to do about it. The Qualtrics XM Platform is a system of action that helps businesses attract customers who stay longer and buy more, engage employees who build a positive culture, develop breakthrough products people love, and build a brand people are passionate about. To learn more, please visit .

About 麻豆原创

麻豆原创鈥檚 strategy is to help every business run as an intelligent enterprise. As a market leader in enterprise application software, we help companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world鈥檚 transaction revenue touches an 麻豆原创 system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers鈥� businesses into intelligent enterprises. 麻豆原创 helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want 鈥� without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables business and public customers across 25 industries globally to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, 麻豆原创 helps the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives. For more information, visit

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United States Only: 1 (800) 872-1麻豆原创 (1-800-872-1727)

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Jessica Jones, Qualtrics, press@qualtrics.com, MT

* Source: 麻豆原创 procurement transformation research in collaboration with Oxford Economics.
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For the Women鈥檚 Tennis Association (WTA), many new challenges have developed since the pandemic, with unique complications given its diverse global community and players regularly traveling to tournaments around the world. This summer, 麻豆原创 Litmos technology powered , an online platform providing live and on-demand access to educational courses for players during an extended stoppage in play.

Now that they have returned to the court, the WTA wanted to get a pulse check on the player community, with technology playing a leading role to create an ideal environment. In their quest for deeper insights, the league leveraged technology from Qualtrics, an 麻豆原创 company, to better understand how their players felt about returning to play. Through Qualtrics technology, the WTA distributed digital questionnaires and was able to analyze the data in real time.

鈥淚n a time when the thoughts, opinions, and trust of each stakeholder are paramount, 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics have given the WTA a new pathway to gather critical data from our players and tournaments so we can optimize our Tour operations,鈥� WTA President Micky Lawler said. 鈥淲ith smartphones and social media today, it鈥檚 never been easier to document our feedback. The technology of Qualtrics gives us the opportunity to harness responsiveness, identify key insights, and apply them decisively.鈥�

鈥淲e鈥檙e proud to support the WTA with 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics solutions to help the league better understand the real-time needs of players as they return to play,鈥� said Dan Fleetwood, vice president of Global Sponsorships at 麻豆原创. 鈥淏y gathering valuable feedback from players, this initiative will help the WTA navigate unique challenges with insights-driven thinking to empower future members.鈥�

Here are several key insights from the players:

• Sixty-eight percent of players stated that 鈥渓ove of the game鈥� was one of their top two motives for returning to the court after a five-month break. Other choices included 鈥渇inancial,鈥� 鈥渞anking,鈥� and 鈥渓egacy.鈥�
• Players cited 鈥渁tmosphere,鈥� 鈥渆nergy,鈥� and 鈥渃heering鈥� as the elements they missed most about not having crowds present during competition.
• 鈥淔itness鈥� and 鈥渕ental game鈥� were the two most popular areas where players said their training routine had changed since the start of the pandemic.
• Fifty-one percent of players said either 鈥渓earning a new skill鈥� or 鈥渢aking educational classes鈥� were areas they chose to explore during unexpected down time. This was encouraging to see given the rollout of the WTA University.

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Since 2013, 麻豆原创 has been a global partner to the WTA, providing innovative technology for the tennis community, helping to advance and grow the sport around the world.

To learn more about 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics technology, visit .

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Speaking directly to human resources (HR) leaders, Popelka expressed heartfelt gratitude to customers that are persevering during these challenging times, while reinforcing 麻豆原创鈥檚 commitment to helping them deliver employee experiences that set up employees and companies for success.

鈥淚 am incredibly inspired every day by your resiliency, unwavering commitment to your people, and your determination to make impactful decisions that will fundamentally change the way we work in the future,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e are committed to listening intently to you so that we can better understand the evolving needs of your business and find new and meaningful ways to support you. Join us and dive into a future of work that is joyful, meaningful, and productive. Human connections, the power of technology, and your leadership will pave the way.鈥�

Employee Experience Directly Impacts Business Success

Popelka teed up the day-long video broadcast, which is also available , as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to learn, exchanging ideas with HR and business experts and reimagine the future of work. Spotlighting the latest research, she presented the inarguable impact of the employee experience on business results company-wide. Survey data gathered and analyzed in partnership with , Thrive Global, and Fortune revealed organizations that scored in the top 20 for employee experience grew revenue on average by 16 percent year-over-year.

鈥淥ne year ago, we made a bold claim with the introduction of HXM as a new category,鈥� Popelka said. 鈥淚t signaled a shift from treating people as company assets to rightly placing them at the center of business. Our people determine whether we succeed or fail. The experiences we deliver, and how we address the moments that matter for every individual, impacts business growth and how quickly an organization adapts to change.鈥�

Winning Combines People, Technology, and Purpose

According to Popelka, companies that win deliver experiences that bring out the best in employees. These organizations create an environment that feels less like work and more like purpose, where people have the tools they need to get the job done and learning is continuous, prioritized, and meaningful. Diversity and inclusion are a natural part of this workplace culture. She charged HXM leaders with a specific call-to-action.

鈥淭o make lasting change in how we work, we must have a renewed focus on making real human connections with our people, the technology to help us work efficiently toward a common purpose with fewer obstacles, and innovative, committed leadership,鈥� Popelka said. 鈥淚 know with certainty how instrumental you鈥檝e been in leading your people and organizations through this time of change.鈥�

Popelka showcased 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors customer National Australia Bank as an example among the many companies leading the way in building bridges among humans, technology, and purpose to help people and business thrive. The bank quickly retrained employees when the pandemic hit, rolling out supportive programs to help them manage new experiences at work and home.

HXM Delivers Results in Era of Continuous Change

Emphasizing that HXM guides everything the company does 鈥� from reimagined user experiences to product innovations such as and Business Beyond Bias, as well as embedded artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and blockchain 鈥� Popelka outlined technology鈥檚 role in creating meaningful, more efficient work environments that support business agility.

鈥淲e鈥檝e made it our mission to make technology work for humans, not the other way around,鈥� she said. 鈥淩eskilling and upskilling have become increasingly important as organizations tap into employee talents and quickly pivot to new markets, products, and services. Learning must be ongoing, dynamic, and individualized to help every employee achieve their development goals, and business become more nimble.鈥�

Microsoft Unlocks Growth Mindset for Employees

Among the highlights of Popelka鈥檚 keynote were excerpts from a video conversation she had with Kathleen Hogan, chief people officer at Microsoft. Hogan discussed the strategic role of HR and how Microsoft supported its employees with a continuous learning culture grounded in unlocking a growth mindset as well as diversity and inclusion.

鈥淎s we鈥檝e navigated social issues and COVID-19, the ability to focus on the employee experience [and] create a culture where all employees can bring their best selves is more important than ever,鈥� Hogan said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a huge opportunity to use the CHRO platform to make a difference for employees in partnership with the leadership team because everybody has a responsibility to drive the people agenda. You absolutely need vision and determination as well as execution.鈥�

Hogan and Popelka agreed that taking care of employees by understanding and acting on their personal experiences during these stressful times has brought empathy to the fore. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Hogan said that Microsoft included caring for employees as part of its managerial policies.

HXM Connects Humans to Move Business Forward

One of the most compelling HXM examples came from 麻豆原创 itself. Popelka shared how 麻豆原创 used Qualtrics pulse surveys to better understand and act on what employees were experiencing in the wake of the global pandemic that initially hit just weeks after she joined 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors. After a virtual leadership tour to hear employee concerns and answer their questions, a subsequent survey revealed a significant increase in employee engagement and leadership trust scores.

鈥淏y being more transparent, we brought employees closer,鈥� she said. 鈥淟istening and monitoring employee engagement is a business imperative. We will continue to embed Qualtrics into all our solutions so that you have the same seamless opportunity to check on your people and understand and take action. We use technology to connect people across the globe and access the data and insights leaders need to make fast and intelligent decisions. This is human experience management.鈥�

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鈥淲e鈥檙e consumer-driven, so we need as much information as possible,鈥� Vice President and CIO George Lesko said. 鈥淲e need to understand behaviors of the people who go into the store; we need to understand how people interpret our products and our platforms; and we need to understand what they want from us next.鈥�

This data helps Ferrara close the experience gap, the difference between how you think customers feel about you versus how they actually feel. The gap is often wider than organizations believe, but tools help analyze and understand experience gaps 鈥� and determine what to do about them.

XM tools help Ferrara gauge a campaign鈥檚 effectiveness, choose the next new product, evaluate how consumers feel about social issues, and more.

Making the Right Impression the Right Way

鈥淲hen we鈥檙e talking customer sentiment, we鈥檙e really talking more broadly about how people think about our brands,鈥� Daniel Hunt, director of Insights and Analytics at Ferrara said.

Hunt and his team regularly use to manage how customers, shoppers, and others experience all that his company has to offer. 鈥淚t really helps us both to test the validity of new ideas, and also to come up with them.鈥�

This goes for brands that Ferrara has owned for ages, as well as recent acquisitions, such as SweeTARTS. , “For SweeTARTS in particular as a brand, we鈥檝e used XM to touch almost every major brand activity, from new innovation to communications.鈥�

With , Ferrara examines how best to engage in conversations with consumers, as well as understanding their preferences, according to Hunt. That means choosing the right message — and everything else that goes with it. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really about how you find the right thing to talk about. And then you also have to find the right way to deliver that message so people remember it, so people get it,听 so people remember it was you.鈥�

The Perfect Storm: Speed, Agility, Cost, Flexibility

鈥淗aving a flexible platform allows you to ask, really, any question you want — in any way you want, to any audience you want — and we can get into very specific details,鈥� Hunt said. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 just have to rely on asking the same five questions over and over again; we can ask specific questions for every brand, for every project [and] every product.鈥�

XM technology allows Ferrara to dive into the granular details of a target demographic鈥檚 data in ways that had not been possible before. Before 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics, discovering people鈥檚 preferred words, phrases, imagery, and colors — and dozens more factors — would have taken too long and been too expensive.

鈥淎 lot of those are sometimes really small questions, and I think that鈥檚 where we鈥檝e seen maybe the most change [because] they鈥檙e really important to having a good product,鈥� Hunt said. 鈥淪peed, agility, cost and flexibility — and the ability to be targeted and drill down — are all important for us when we鈥檙e making decisions.鈥�

The 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics Difference

鈥淨ualtrics is really ahead of all the other competitors, it鈥檚 very responsive,鈥� Hunt said. 鈥淭here are a lot of specific cases that we can talk about — both on the capabilities side and on the automation side — where we鈥檝e had needs, and we can work with the product development team to actually meet them.鈥�

Hunt confirmed that Ferrara chose Qualtrics XM for three reasons:

• The flexible platform is easy to use and implement 鈥渁lmost in one day鈥�
• An aggressive road map for development, 鈥渨here new capabilities are coming online all the time鈥�
• Bespoke surveys, which offer 鈥渢he ability for us to ask questions we couldn鈥檛 ask in the past, the ability to do things faster and do things more automated than we have in the past鈥�

麻豆原创 and Qualtrics help Ferrara identify early adopters and their preferences, which is crucial to staying ahead of flavor trends, according to Hunt. And beyond their candy tastes, Ferrara has gained valuable insight about its fans鈥� values.

鈥淎 lot of the work that we鈥檝e done from a corporate social responsibility standpoint has been informed by the research that we鈥檝e done with experience management,鈥� Hunt said. 鈥淟earning what鈥檚 important to consumers, what they want us to focus on most as a company — trying to be responsible, agile and responsive to that.鈥�

The Peacemaker

鈥淥ne of the ways that Qualtrics has really improved the lives of our employees — and really our decision making — is new product development,鈥� Hunt shared. 鈥淏efore Qualtrics, we used to argue in boardrooms for weeks about product names and package designs. Today we鈥檒l do that over the course of an hour by looking at consumer feedback and consumer data.鈥�

That鈥檚 because such data clearly indicates what will best resonate with consumers, according to Hunt. There鈥檚 no more guesswork or relying on intuition. 鈥淭he first time that we did it for one product, it was like a light bulb moment for our executive team,鈥� he said. 鈥淓veryone was in agreement, and we could just move forward.鈥�

During a recent discussion about which new flavors to unveil, Ferrara tested 50 different ideas and narrowed it down to three — a feat that would have been near impossible before Qualtrics. 鈥淎nything that we used to decide in a boardroom is now something that we decide with consumer data,鈥� Hunt said. 鈥淲e make those decisions in a few minutes instead of several weeks; and we do it in a way where everyone feels happy walking out of the room.鈥�

Ferrara鈥檚 Future with XM

鈥淢y experience using XM has been great,鈥� Hunt said, noting that the number of 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics users at Ferrara has grown to an entire team over the past few years. 鈥淚t was something that was really quick and easy to get people onboarded with, which is fantastic.鈥�

Ferrara鈥檚 XM initiative will continue closing the experience gap by automating analytics and other tasks via the Qualtrics platform, according to Hunt. This will free up his team to concentrate on research.

鈥淭he biggest barrier for us is time — how much time we have to write surveys, to do analysis, to build reports,鈥� Hunt said. 鈥淭he next phase for us is really using all the capabilities that you have on the platform so we can spend more time figuring out the next great questions to answer.鈥�

• Read more about how Ferrara improves its customer experience and meets customer needs.

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鈥淒uring the COVID-19 pandemic, enterprise after enterprise has proven that the safety of their employees, service to customers, and commitments to stakeholders are top priorities,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 our job to passionately champion our customers by providing the best tools, services, and inspiration to help them meet their obligations and thrive in the process.鈥�

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMsSsXFqZNw

Mrugal shared some incredible customer stories of the many positive outcomes achieved by customers that have a strong partnership with 麻豆原创.

Faurecia, a global automotive supplier, focused first on the protection of its employees and then to reassure stakeholders the company could face any challenges presented by the crisis. It also took the across its supply chain and to speed up CO2 neutrality through the procurement of decarbonized energy and steel. Despite the lockdown, Faurecia gathered more than 1,000 suppliers online to help jointly ensure the continuity of the supply chain and make sure they are .

Swiss retail giant Coop used a new forecasting tool to help ensure supermarket shelves were fully stocked so customers could get supplies. It also temporarily transferred employees from its non-food business areas, which were closed during the crisis, to work in understaffed warehouses and distribution centers.

Lamb Weston, a North American purveyor of potato products, at all locations and only allowed business-critical visits to its manufacturing plants to prevent the spread of the virus. It also optimized inventories, enabling the company to shift supplies to grocery stores that needed more potato products.

鈥淭hese are just a few examples of how 麻豆原创 customers are laser-focused on their people and their businesses,鈥� says Mrugal. 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing that everybody around the globe is going through some variation of the exact same challenges. Now more than ever, we are increasing our level of engagement and thinking creatively to increase our collaboration and connectivity with customers through virtual and digital engagements.鈥�

When asked about his role, Mrugal explains that Customer First is at once a mindset, an engagement model, and an organization built around better customer engagements 鈥� all rolled into one.

鈥淭he true measure of 麻豆原创鈥檚 success is the success of our customers. This concept is embedded in our DNA,鈥� he says, as he tells the story about an 麻豆原创 sales rep who helped a customer locate 500 hospital beds within 30 minutes for a makeshift hospital in New York at the height of the pandemic. 鈥淭he sales rep got a call from a supplier, Ram Tool Construction Supply, that was helping a contractor build the hospital. The to quickly fill the need.鈥�

Mrugal notes that since 麻豆原创 gave customers free access to in mid-March 2020, buyer postings on it have increased by 58 percent and supplier responses have increased by 404 percent compared to the period January 1 to March 9, 2020.

Providing free software is one way that 麻豆原创 demonstrates its customer-first mindset. 麻豆原创 also offers customers free access to several .

鈥淐ustomers are taking advantage of our free offerings,鈥� says Mrugal. 鈥淨ualtrics enables them to survey and keep a pulse on their employees to really make sure that they are safe. That’s paramount in today’s environment.鈥�

Mrugal has a mantra of three critical steps organizations must take to successfully survive the crisis. The health and safety of employees, customers, and communities is at the top of the list.

Next, clear and consistent communication is vital. Mrugal says it is critical to keep the lines open with customers and to stay connected: 鈥淲e must understand in real time where our teams or customers have concerns, and we need to address them immediately.鈥�

Finally, Mrugal believes that maintaining continuity ensures that 麻豆原创鈥檚 level of engagement is not lowered; rather, it affirms that 麻豆原创 is changing how well 鈥� not just how much 鈥� it engages with customers.

鈥淚n many cases, we are even more engaged with our customers than ever before as we navigate this unusual time together,鈥� says the long-time 麻豆原创 executive, who believes the role of his organization will continue to evolve as the needs of 麻豆原创 and its customers continue to transform.

One thing, however, will never change: a steadfast focus on the customer will always come first.

Listen to more episodes of In Focus.

Academic and administrative leaders at these institutions suddenly found themselves scrambling to find alternatives to crowded lecture halls and facing new financial worries surrounding cash flow, added expenses, and unpredictable enrollments.

These challenges are global, and the future remains uncertain.

Still, there have been success stories. Mexico鈥檚 Instituto Tecnol贸gico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (Tec de Monterrey) is one of them. And experience management played a big role in what they have accomplished.

Creating the New Normal in Higher Education

Tec de Monterrey is one of the top-ranked schools in Latin America. The institute鈥檚 various divisions educates nearly 160,00 students at 58 campuses across the country. It is a huge operation, but the institution responded quickly to the crisis, resulting in one of its best-ranked semesters.

鈥淲e were the first university in Mexico to adopt a remote academic model,鈥� says Jos茅 Juan Carranza Gardu帽o, director of Project Portfolio and Processes at Tec de Monterrey, in a recent telephone interview.

In mid-March 鈥� when the school saw the need for social distancing 鈥� it began to set up virtual classroom environments in just about a week鈥檚 time.

鈥淭his allowed approximately 95 percent of our students to continue taking courses remotely,鈥� Carranza Gardu帽o says.

Importantly, the university is also using from 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics to gather feedback from students and staff on a weekly basis to monitor their concerns and well-being. These surveys help the school understand and address the evolving needs of its community during this new normal.

Experience Management Already in Place

Tec de Monterrey was fortunate to have the technology already in place when the pandemic struck. In fact, school leaders used their experience management tools last year to conduct a survey of its entire workforce. The goal was to identify ways to improve work-life balance for employees and reduce the time spent on administrative tasks.

The understanding they gained helped the school create 1,500 action plans affecting 30,000 employees within the organization.

鈥淲e want to provide all our employees with the best experience 鈥� with opportunities to grow, to develop themselves 鈥� so they can deliver a great experience to all our students,鈥� Hern谩n Garc铆a, vice president of Talent and Experience at Tec de Monterrey, said in a made shortly after the project was completed.

This focus on staff and faculty development paid dividends when the university needed to make the rapid shift to distance learning. The school was able to offer courses and other resources very quickly to around 10,000 professors, helping them make their digital curriculums more dynamic and engaging.

When New Classes Begin

Tec de Monterrey that a new semester of classes will begin in August 2020. The current plan is to start the semester remotely and gradually migrate to face-to-face classes as conditions allow.

No one knows for sure what the future holds for school students in Mexico or around the globe. What does seem clear, however, is that institutions with the insight needed to create learning environments that are safe and engaging will be serving their students and communities well.

As Garc铆a noted even before the crisis, 鈥淲e鈥檙e living in the experience economy. Understanding how people feel and doing something about it is critical to success.鈥�

Qualtrics is the market leader and creator of the Experience Management (XM) category, a large, fast-growing and rapidly evolving market. 麻豆原创 intends to remain the majority owner of Qualtrics. 麻豆原创鈥檚 primary objective for the IPO is to fortify Qualtrics鈥� ability to capture its full market potential within Experience Management. This will help to increase Qualtrics鈥� autonomy and enable it to expand its footprint both within 麻豆原创鈥檚 customer base and beyond.

鈥溌槎乖粹�檚 acquisition of Qualtrics has been a great success and has outperformed our expectations with 2019 cloud growth in excess of 40 percent, demonstrating very strong performance in the current setup,鈥� 麻豆原创 CEO Christian Klein said. 鈥淎s Ryan Smith, Zig Serafin and I worked together, we decided that an IPO would provide the greatest opportunity for Qualtrics to grow the Experience Management category, serve its customers, explore its own acquisition strategy and continue building the best talent. 麻豆原创 will remain Qualtrics鈥� largest and most important go-to-market and research and development (R&D) partner while giving Qualtrics greater independence to broaden its base by partnering and building out the entire experience management ecosystem.鈥�

Qualtrics, which is part of 麻豆原创鈥檚 cloud portfolio, has operated with greater autonomy than other companies 麻豆原创 had previously acquired. The founder and current management team of Qualtrics will continue to operate the company.

鈥淲hen we launched the Experience Management category, our goal was always to help as many organizations as possible leverage the XM Platform as a system of action,鈥� Qualtrics Founder Ryan Smith said. 鈥溌槎乖� is an incredible partner with unprecedented global reach, and we couldn鈥檛 be more excited about continuing the partnership. This will allow us to continue building out the XM ecosystem across a broad array of partners.鈥�

麻豆原创 agreed to acquire Qualtrics just four days before Qualtrics was to go public in 2018, recognizing the potential of bringing together experience and operational data (X+O) to help organizations take action. 麻豆原创 currently owns 100 percent of Qualtrics shares. 麻豆原创 will retain majority ownership of Qualtrics and has no intention of spinning off or otherwise divesting its majority ownership interest. Ryan Smith intends to be Qualtrics鈥� largest individual shareholder.

麻豆原创 is fully committed to Experience Management and the Qualtrics XM Platform as a key element of its intelligent enterprise strategy. 麻豆原创 will remain Qualtrics鈥� closest and most important co-innovation and go-to-market partner.

A final decision on the IPO and its conditions and timing is pending and subject to market conditions.

Since 麻豆原创, as majority shareholder, will continue to fully consolidate Qualtrics, the transaction is not expected to have an impact on 麻豆原创鈥檚 2020 or longer-term financial targets.

Visit the 麻豆原创 News Center. Follow 麻豆原创 on Twitter at .

About 麻豆原创

As the Experience Company powered by the Intelligent Enterprise, 麻豆原创 is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world鈥檚 transaction revenue touches an 麻豆原创 system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers鈥� businesses into intelligent enterprises. 麻豆原创 helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want 鈥� without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 440,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, 麻豆原创 helps the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives. For more information, visit .

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