Employee Experience Drives Human Resource Efforts

Last year was hard on everyone, and human resource departments are reconsidering how their employees interact with their organizations, especially as many of them continue to work remotely, according to a survey by iSolved, a human capital management platform provider.

ISolved conducted a SWOT analysis of 500 human resources departments and found that 92% of HR pros say employee experience is their No. 1 priority this year.

Much of that experience will be digital, but the report found that’s not necessarily a result of the forced transition to remote work. The pervasiveness of technology in everyday life has changed what employees expect from their company platforms, too.

“Employees expect that the digital experience they have at work will mimic their favorite social media app or shopping site — from onboarding and offboarding to performance reviews and PTO requests,” according to the report. Consequently, 20% of HR pros say upcoming digital transformation projects are coming out of their department, not IT, marketing or operations.

Some projects to consider include:

• Human capital management solutions, which more than half of respondents said they’re considering changing in the next 12 months.
• Streamlining the tech stack, which almost 30% of respondents said include between five and 10 different platforms.
• Automated payroll solutions, as 20% of respondents said manual processes were their biggest payroll challenges.

Respondents were evenly split on the main drivers of their focus on employee experience: 32% cited widespread remote work and 32% believe it’s important to retention efforts.

The prevalence of and potential for remote work will likely impact employee experience for some time to come. In fact, 16% of HR pros said remote work was the biggest threat to their company’s culture.

A third said it was the biggest threat to their retention efforts, while 40% said recruiting was seriously threatened by remote work. Over a third of HR pros believe they themselves will continue to work remotely.

Although 57% of respondents think they already offer an employee experience that is at least positive (and 24% call their employees’ experience “excellent”), almost one in five believes employee engagement programs can help improve company culture, followed by a flexible work environment (15%).

Some other findings about how HR teams are adapting to the changing work environment:

• 79% of respondents are actively investing in “future of work” technologies, such as cloud-based tools, automation and AI).
• 58% of respondents believe that HR automation will help evolve the type of jobs HR pros perform, not replace them.
• Companies are leaning toward mandating COVID-19 vaccinations before allowing employees to join their coworkers in the office (44% for, 41% against), but a sizable share aren’t sure what to do.