Human-centric Future of Work

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The Future of Work is here, now. Organisations faced unprecedented challenges of coping with the work-from-home model, when COVID-19 hit earlier this year. Many organisations managed the pivot successfully – but all organisations were impacted in some way.

The COVID-19 crisis has required major resets in how organisations function – across industries and economies. In this environment of intense changes, businesses that have been agile in their operations and their mindsets and were better digitally enabled have thrived, while others have struggled.

Our 360o Future of Work practice focuses on Business, People, Technology and Work Environment. All four are required to work together to enable companies to meet future challenges. The Future of Work enables companies to Pivot, Adapt and Thrive.

Ecosystm Future of Work Framework

The People practice within the Future of Work helps organisations adapt their People strategies in conjunction with the other areas to drive a holistic approach in the Future of Work strategies. 

The Need for Human-centricity

Talent has always been a key company asset that brings product and service offerings to life. HR teams have retained a constant focus on attracting and retaining talent. HR teams have come into sharp focus as the pandemic rages across the world. With the closure of offices and borders, and distancing measures, companies have had to focus their energy on their people and the work infrastructure – almost overnight.

With every passing week, the situation keeps evolving – and so do the ways of managing and engaging with employees and customers. As countries and businesses slowly reopen and modify their distancing protocols the People strategies will have to evolve rapidly.

Every organisation is now grappling with the decision of whether to “reopen” and go back to how things were; or think of alternatives and opportunities that they can capitalise on to strengthen their businesses.

The 4Es of People: Experience Journeys

The cornerstone of the People practice within the Future of Work is to align the Customer Experience and the Employee Journey.

It is not just about finetuning the employee process or employee life cycle in isolation. That is a consequence of the tweaks to the overall journey.

Depending on the phase of the company that you are in (Pivot, Adapt and Thrive) the changes to the employee experience would vary. The 4Es of People is designed to help you make that happen.

Experiment.  HR leaders are increasingly being asked to “orchestrate” companywide experiments to help figure out the way forward. An Experimentation Mindset is crucial to finding the right solutions fast. This needs to be done in a small and holistic way – some examples include thinking of different workforce models, working contracts and benefits, working archetypes, technology and data enablers and workplace models.  

Enable. Two main areas of enablement that need to be looked at are:  the human elements of talent, capability, leadership and culture to align to the business strategy pivots; and  the associated elements of technology, workspace and analytics.

Energize. Key HR competencies of empathy and collaboration are increasingly becoming crucial to ensure that the organisation is staying well, motivated and focused through these demanding times.

Embed. The ability to learn from the experiments, finetune the overall system within and outside the company, and support the changes over the longer term are crucial to help companies scale the models and gain sustained competitive advantage over the mid-term.

The 4Es of People can be effective in adding the right elements and outcomes to support the changes. These are intended to enable HR to help organisation establish their Future of Work strategies and implement them effectively. This will help them to be prepared for whatever model of work becomes prevalent in the future.

Schedule a time to speak with us on Future of Work

Ecosystm Principal Advisors; Tim Sheedy (Technology), Ravi Bhogaraju (People & Organisations), and Mike Zamora (Work Environment) provide a holistic view of what the Future of Work will look like.

We enable businesses to adapt, pivot and thrive in their ecosystem; provide holistic access to data and insight across People, Technology and Work Environment; help businesses transform and be better prepared for future disruption, and the ever-changing competitive environment and customer, employee or partner demands.

Contact us through the platform, or over email at info@ecosystm360.com


Ecosystm 360⁰ Future of Work

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The Future of Work – Implications for Business Leaders & HR

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The COVID-19 crisis has required major resets in how organisations function – across industries and economies. In this environment of intense changes, businesses that have been agile in their operations and were better digitally enabled have thrived, while others have struggled. Irrespective of whether an organisation has been able to pivot fast to thrive or struggled to cope, it is very clear that the Future of Work is here now. Every organisation has had to make some changes to their People and work practices. It is time to (re) focus on employee experience holistically so that organisations can be ready for whatever model of work becomes prevalent in the future. I have recently published a report offering guidance to business leaders and HR Teams on how to make holistic workplace shifts, with inputs from Ecosystm Principal Advisors, Tim Sheedy and Audrey William.

Employee Experience at the Core of Customer Strategies

It has become increasingly clear that customer experience (CX) is not just about good sales skills or customer service. It is about the overall experience of the customer from start to post-purchase. Customers are focused on not just what they are buying but also on how they are treated along their entire journey. Good CX has consistently shown to help increase price premium, impulse buying, and loyalty. Consequently, one bad experience can drive a customer away forever. Customers pay for your products or services, but it is your people who can really deliver the experience.

Audrey says, “As it becomes clear that we are headed for a hybrid/blended model of work, employee experience (EX) has to be a key focus area for organisations. Organisations will have to support remote work and simultaneously evolve their physical workplaces so that employees have the choice to come into work. But business leaders and HR will definitely have to come together to re-evaluate their policies around employees and improving EX – irrespective of where they choose to work from.”  

The Role of Productivity in the Digital Workplace

Productivity has been at the core of an organisation’s desire to be a digital workplace. Tim says, “A digital workplace is one that has the capability to support any employee to access the process, information or system they need on their device of choice, in their moment and location of need. In the wake of the pandemic, the digital workplace went from being a ‘good idea’ to an ‘absolute necessity’ – and the seeds were sown to build true digital workplaces, years ahead of plan.”

This is the time to retain that focus on productivity. A lot of energy is being spent in defining and measuring productivity. The focus seems to have shifted to how to get the best out of the remote/hybrid workforce. It is time for business leaders and HR to go back to the drawing board to re-define what productivity means to their organisations.

Tim says, “The focus should be on enabling productivity rather than on monitoring activity. Productivity is an outcome, not a process. So, measure the outcome, improve the process. Productivity will be driven at an organisational level through removing friction from overall operational processes, to make things more streamlined and effective to create more value.”

The True Implication of Flexibility

There has been a rapid shift in practices around working from home and flexibility. But it is time now for organisations to create a framework (policy, performance expectation and management) to manage these practices. Many companies do not really understand the implications of flexible working to their business. In fact, they may be unaware of shifts in work patterns that have taken place in the last few months and the impact these shifts are having on the business.

Framework around flexible working should be backed by data and an understanding of the feasibility of such practices. If your employee has to work on her compulsory day off, then you do not have a truly flexible work practice. This will have a negative impact on employee experience and ultimately on your business.

 The Evolution of Employee Engagement

Audrey says,One of the areas that business leaders and HR will have to bear in mind is that despite flexible working hours, employees might be overworked – it is emerging as a common problem with working from home. It is common that many employees are working longer hours.”

Ecosystm research finds that some organisations have been evolving their HR practices, since the start of this crisis (Figure 1).

Key HR Measures to Empower a Future of Work, Remote Set-up

But more needs to be done. Organisations have to work really hard to replicate their employee engagement and social hours in the virtual world. It is critical that organisations design mechanisms of keeping employees connected – to each other, as well as to the organisation. “Virtual social groups” not only provide this connection, it can also be a rich source of input for HR and wellness teams to quickly adapt their programs to meet the changing needs of employees.

Shift in Managerial Styles

Performance management has been traditionally done through annual cycles, and by monitoring and tracking. In the Future of Work, organisations will have to increasingly give their employees the choice of working from home. Meetings, check-ins, 1:1 and team huddles for close monitoring will not work in this remote/hybrid model.

It is time to stop close monitoring and really focus on outcome-based management. And this will have to start with re-skilling people managers. Training should be provided on softer skills such as emotional intelligence, being able to sense across boundaries and digital spaces, and being able to be responsive to employees’ needs. The people manager must evolve into being a coach and a mentor – internal coaching and mentoring networks will have to be established. Line managers, business leaders and HR teams will need to collaborate more to ensure that these skills are developed and that the right support system is in place. 


For more insights on how organisations should evolve their Future of work Work practices to strengthen their agility and market competitiveness, read the report.
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Industry Spotlight for August – Future of Work

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The Future of Work is here, now. Organisations were faced with unprecedented challenges of coping with the work-from-home model, when COVID-19 hit earlier this year. Many organisations managed the pivot very successfully, but all organisations were impacted in some way. Various trends have emerged over the last few months, that are likely to persist long after the immediate COVID-19 measures are removed by countries. In the Ecosystm Digital Priorities in the New Normal study, we find that organisations will continue to cater for remote employees (Figure 1) and keep a firm eye on employee experience (EX).

Organisations will continue to Enable Remote working 2020-21

August has seen these clear trends in the Future of Work

#1 Tech companies leading from the front in embracing the Future of Work

As the pandemic continued to spread across the globe, various companies adopted the work from home model at a scale never seen before. While it is still unclear how the work model will look like, many companies continue to extend their remote working policies for the remaining year, and some are even thinking of making it a permanent move.

Tech companies appear to be the most proactive in extending remote working. Google, Microsoft, and AWS have all extended their work from home model till the end of the year or till the middle of next year.  Earlier in the month Facebook extended its work from home program until mid-2021 and are also giving employees USD 1,000 to equip their home offices. This appears to be a long-term policy, with the company announcing in May that in the next 5-10 years, they expect 50% of their employees to be remote. Similarly, Salesforce and Uber also announced that they would be extending remote working till the mid-next year, and are providing funding for employees to set up the right work environment.

In Australia, Atlassian has made work from home a permanent option for their employees. They will continue to operate their physical offices but have given employees the option to choose where they want to work from.

Some organisations have gone beyond announcing these measures. Slack has talked about how they are evolving their corporate culture. For example, they have evolved their hiring policies and most new roles are open to remote candidates. Going forward, they are evaluating a more asynchronous work environment where employees can work the hours that make sense for them. In their communique, they are open about the fluid nature of the work environment and the challenges that employees and organisations might face as their shift their work models.

Organisations will have to evaluate multiple factors before coming up with the right model that suits their corporate culture and nature of work, but it appears that tech companies are showing the industry how it can be done.

#2 Tech companies evolve their capabilities to enable the Future of Work

Right from the start of the crisis, we have seen organisations make technology-led pivots. Technology providers are responding – and fast – to the changing environment and are evolving their capabilities to help their customers embrace the digital Future of Work.

Many of these responses have included strengthening their ecosystems and collaborating with other technology providers. Wipro and Intel announced a collaboration between Wipro’s LIVE Workspace digital workspace solution and the Intel vPro platform to enable remote IT support and solution. The solution provides enhanced protection and security against firmware-level attacks. Slack and Atlassian strengthened their alliance with app integrations and an account ‘passport’ in a joint go-to-market move, to reduce the time spent logging into separate services and products. This will enable both vendors to focus on their strengths in remote working tools and provide seamless services to their customers.

Tech companies have also announced product enhancements and new capabilities. CBTS has evolved their cloud-based unified communications, collaboration and networking solutions, with an AI-powered Secure Remote Collaboration solution, powered by Cisco Webex. With seamless integration of Cisco Webex software, Cisco Security software, and endpoints that combine high-definition cameras, microphones, and speakers, with automatic noise reduction, the solution now offers features such real-time transcription, closed captioning, and recording for post-meeting transcripts. 

Communication and Collaboration tools have been in the limelight since the start of the crisis with providers such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Slack introducing new features throughout. In August Microsoft enhanced the capabilities of Teams and introduced a range of new features to the Teams Business Communications System. It now offers the option to host calls of up to 20,000 participants with a limit to 1,000 for interactive meetings, after which the call automatically shifts to a “view only” mode.  With the possibility of remote working becoming a reality even after the crisis is over, Microsoft is looking to make Teams relevant for a range of meeting needs – from one-on-one meetings up to large events and conferences. In the near future, the solution will also allow organisations to add corporate branding, starting with branded meeting lobbies, followed by branded meeting experiences.

While many of these solutions are aimed at large enterprises, tech providers are also aware that they are now receiving a lot of business from small and medium enterprises (SMEs), struggling to make changes to their technology environment with limited resources. Juniper has expanded their WiFi 6 access points to include 4 new access points aimed at outdoor environments, SMEs, retail sites, K-12 schools, medical clinics and even the individual remote worker. While WiFi 6 is designed for high-density public or private environments, it is also designed for IoT deployments and in workplaces that use videoconferencing and other applications that require high bandwidth.

#3 The Future of Work is driving up hardware sales

Ecosystm research shows that at the start of the crisis, 76% of organisations increased investments in hardware – including PCs, devices, headsets, and conferencing units – and 67% of organisations expect their hardware spending to go up in 2020-21. Remote working remains a reality across enterprises. Despite the huge increase in demand, it became difficult for hardware providers to fulfil orders initially, with a disrupted supply chain, store closures and a rapid shift to eCommerce channels. This quarter has seen a steady rise in hardware sales, as providers overcome some of their initial challenges.

Apart from enterprise sales, there has been a surge in the consumer demand for PCs and devices. While remote working is a key contributor, online education and entertainment are mostly prompting homebound people to invest more in hardware. Even accessories such as joysticks are in short supply – a trend that seems to have been accelerated by the Microsoft Flight Simulator launch earlier this month.

The demand for both iPad and Mac saw double-digit growth in this quarter. Around half of the customers purchasing these devices were new to the product. Apple sees the rise in demand from remote workers and students. Lenovo reported a 31% increase in Q1 net profits with demand surges in China, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

 #4 The impact on Real Estate is beginning to show

The demand for prime real estate has been hit by remote working and organisations not renewing leases or downsizing – both because most employees are working remotely and because of operational cost optimisation during the crisis. This is going to have a longer-term impact on the market, as organisations re-evaluate their need for physical office space. Some organisations will reduce office space, and many will re-design their offices to cater to virtual interactions (Figure 1). While now, Ecosystm research shows that only 16% of enterprises are expecting a reduction of commercial space, this might well change over the months to come. Organisations might even feel the need to have multiple offices in suburbs to make it convenient for their hybrid workers to commute to work on the days they have to. Amazon is offering employees additional choices for smaller offices outside the city of Seattle.

But the Future of Work and the rise of a distributed workforce is beginning to show an initial impact on the real estate industry. Last week saw Pinterest cancel a large office lease at a building to be constructed near its headquarters in San Francisco. The company felt that it might not be the right time to go ahead with the deal, as they are re-evaluating where employees would like to work from in the future. Even the termination fees of USD 89.5 million did not discourage them. They will continue to maintain their existing work premises but do not see feel that it is the right time to make additional real estate investments, as they re-evaluate where employees would like to work from in the future.  

There is a need for organisations to prepare themselves for the Future of Work – now! Ecosystm has launched a new 360o Future of Work practice, leveraging real-time market data from our platform combined with insights from our industry practitioners and experienced analysts, to guide organisations as they shift and define their new workplace strategies.   


Ecosystm Principal Advisors; Tim Sheedy (Technology), Ravi Bhogaraju (People & Organisations), and Mike Zamora (Infrastructure & Offices) provided holistic view of what the Future of Work will look like.
Ecosystm Engage Future of Work

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Putting EX at the Core of your CX Transformation

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The COVID-19 pandemic has presented us with a set of circumstances that we have never seen before – health, safety, and economic livelihoods are being affected. Companies are being asked to take on roles that they are not familiar with. The global situation continues to evolve rapidly, and we are all having to adapt as we go. During this time, the expectations of customers and employees are evolving in tandem. Companies should look at understanding this evolution and take fuller advantage of the opportunity this evolution will present.

CX at the Centre Stage

Customers have always been the top priority for businesses. In the last few years, we have seen the transition that organisations are making from selling to creating; evolving from selling products to solutions to experiences. This has led to reframing of the selling methodology and, consequently, the technology and people skills needed to make that happen.

While companies have been able to understand the need to make this shift intellectually, it needs to be backed by the right investments in their people and customers. However, industry estimates find that only about 10% of organisations put money where their mouth is. Those that have been able to do so, have been consistently able to meet and exceed their goals.

As such, investments in customer experience (CX) technology is taking centre stage. Ecosystm research finds that improving CX has been the top business priority for organisations, before COVID-19 (Figure 1).

If we take a deeper dive into CX, it becomes clear that CX is not just about good sales skills or customer service. It is about the overall experience of the customer from start to post-purchase. Customers are focussed on not just what they are buying but also on how they are treated along their entire journey. Good CX has consistently shown to help increase price premium, impulse buying and loyalty. Consequently, one bad experience can drive a customer away forever.

So, what does improving CX look like? A vast majority would think technology. That is only part of the story; the key component of making your CX strategy come to life is your people. Customers pay for your products or services, but it is your people who can really deliver the experience. Glassdoor research shows that there is a clear link between employee and customer satisfaction. On an average, a 1-point increase in company rating on Glassdoor is associated with a 1.3-point increase in customer satisfaction, measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

So, the fact that only 33% prioritise employee experience (EX) (Figure 1) shows a gap in understanding how to achieve excellent CX. In this gap lies the true opportunity of gaining sustainable competitive advantage.

Reset During COVID-19

Due to COVID-19 all of us have had to re look at who we are and how we operate. It has really changed the world of work and business, almost overnight. Companies have invested a significant amount of time on just enabling their employees to stay safe and work from home. Overnight, access to physical offices was gone and everyone was transitioned to digital workspaces.

The Ecosystm Digital Priorities in the New Normal study, that was initiated to gauge the immediate and longer term impact of the pandemic finds that during the crisis, the focus on employees increased drastically, with 75% of organisations introducing measures to manage their employees, while 30% focused more on their customers.

This is a complete reversal in the focus of the organisations. Employees have come into sharper focus. This should be good news. Yes, it is – but partly so.

Initial focus has been rightly on safety and on employees being able to work from home. This was an “adapt” mode, focussed on services like payroll, handling employee queries and onboarding without disruption. After the initial crisis-handling, organisations have been able to focus on digital learning and skills enhancement, while others have been trying to increase productivity (predominantly through giving access to collaboration tools).

The Journey Ahead

As we continue to work in the new normal, one thing comes out even stronger: the new experience needs to be seamlessly connected between all channels – and be agile and more human. It is now even more evident that organisations and people – that are its lifeblood – need to constantly adapt and pivot to meet these changing landscapes.

Customer expectations have evolved in the last few months from a cost and product view, to being loyal to companies that show more empathy and are able to solve their problems. Employee expectations have also evolved, simultaneously – and it now goes beyond a good pantry and an engaging, fun-loving environment. Employees today value connectedness, and expect the organisation to show more care (so they can do their work effectively), and create opportunities for them to grow (job security) as they continue to grapple with the situation.

Thus, the more relevant the EX product and the faster it can adapt to the evolving situation, the better it translates into better engagement and loyalty. But what will definitely be required of organisations, is a continued focus on their employees. If we compare the business priorities before and after COVID-19, we get an indication that EX might once again be left behind in organisations’ obsession about their customers (Figure 2).

The gap is not as wide as before COVID-19 hit us – but there appears to be a shift towards a customer focus. This is evolving differently from our expectations and can potentially cause a misalignment.

Opportunity to Reshape

The reset has pushed EX and CX expectations closer to each other when it comes to designing experience with the company. The opportunity lies in taking a more holistic view of the company business – bringing HR, IT, Customer Success and Marketing teams together into agile tribes and guilds – to design a consistent CX by improving EX.

This would help to increase the speed of prototyping new experiences, and consequently drive greater visibility of what is needed – from skills to IT systems. Overall, it will drive a greater degree of connectedness between the employee and customer worlds; resulting in better engagement and loyalty.


More insights on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and technology areas that will see transformation as organisations get into the recovery phase can be found in the Digital Priorities in the New Normal Study
Ecosystm COVID-19 Research Data

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DBS and AWS Collaborate to Upskill Employees

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Organisations are on a fast track to digitalisation. The Ecosystm Digital Priorities in the New Normal study finds that 60% of organisations anticipate increased use of digital technologies for process automation, even after the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. One of the key challenges that these organisations will face is the lack of internal digital skills – especially in emerging technologies. One of the success metrics of any technology adoption is employee uptake. Without the necessary skills or understanding of the benefits of emerging technology, employees will largely shy away from digital offerings, even the ones that will make their work more efficient and their lives easier.

Organisations are realising the value of making their workforce future ready.

DBS Instilling Company-Wide Digital Culture

Far-sighted companies are collaborating with technology vendors and professional training providers to promote tech awareness and education to futureproof their workforce. DBS Bank in Singapore has collaborated with AWS to train and upskill 3,000 employees – including the leadership team – with AI and machine learning skills through gamification in a DBS x AWS DeepRacer League.

The AWS DeepRacer Leagues have been previously organised in several parts of the world, but the DBS x AWS DeepRacer will be the first to be organised at this scale. The league will enable DBS employees to get their hands-on AI and machine learning tutorials online. They will then have the opportunity to test out their new skills in programming a 3D racing simulator and iteratively fine-tune their models and compete with each other. The learning program is entirely cloud-based and aims to ingrain digital skills in the workforce.

DBS has won several accolades for their digital transformation and innovation initiatives, and they continue to experiment with emerging technologies. In 2019, DBS digitalised and simplified end-to-end credit processing, setting the foundation for advanced credit risk management using data analytics and machine learning. They have also deployed an AI-powered engine for self-service digital options to its retail banking customers. Taking their employees along with them on this journey is a wise move.

Ecosystm Principal Advisor, Ravi Bhogaraju says, “With the increasing use of automation, AI and machine learning, the nature of work and businesses is transforming rapidly. This is creating opportunities for processes to be automated and increasing the use of AI and Deep Learning into the business processes of the organisation. Industry value chains are transforming – AI and machine learning is adding automation, analytics and predictive intelligence to the portfolio. The recent news of DBS and AWS partnering to upskill the bank’s workforce underscores the value of creating a future ready workforce.”  

“Such upskilling efforts add industry-specific context to make them more effective. BCG refers to this as ‘Human + AI’. A recent study from BCG and MIT shows that 18% of companies in the world that are pioneering AI are making money with it. Those companies focus 80% of their AI initiatives on effectiveness and growth, taking better decisions – not replacing humans with AI to save costs.” 

Government Focus on Digital Skills Upgrade

This week, Singapore also saw another initiative to bridge digital skills gaps – this time from the public sector. In 2018, the Government launched its Smart Nation Scholarship program to attract and nurture talent, and later involve them in various departments to drive Singapore’s Smart Nation initiatives. The most recent Smart Nation Scholarship program 2020 attracted 723 applicants (17% more than the previous year). This is a slightly different approach, aimed at attracting digital native employees and mentoring them for digital leadership. After completing their studies, the 15 scholarship recipients are set to join public sector agencies such as Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA), Government Technology Agency (GovTech), and Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), to give the younger generation an opportunity to co-create the country’s Smart Nation vision.   

Bhagaraju says, “Both private and government institutions are working to enhance workforce skills, improve marketability and making the workforce future ready. Industry 4.0 and the digital revolution have created the need to address the skill gaps that have arisen. Government programs such as the Skills Future program in Singapore, Malaysia’s HRD upskilling program, and the EU-28 European Digital initiative are all making a sustained effort to promote lifelong learning and acquisition/upgrading of skills for their respective citizens with quite successful results, that will have long-term impacts.”


More insights on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and technology areas that will see transformation, as organisations get into the recovery phase, can be found in the Digital Priorities in the New Normal Study
Ecosystm COVID-19 Research Data

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Key Considerations in Transitioning to a Hybrid Workplace

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5/5 (2) The past 3-4 months have seen technology leaders move mountains to support their newly remote employees and 100% digital customers. Over 40% of businesses in the Asia Pacific didn’t formally support remote working – so these companies have made massive changes in support of their employees. You have rolled out new hardware, new data protection and compliance policies, new security measures, collaboration software and VPNs. You have also strengthened the IT Helpdesk to better support remote employees and digital customer processes. And you are embracing the public cloud to offer new services and capabilities to customers and staff. The pace of change has been breathtaking – and things are not slowing down.This chart shows what businesses in Asia Pacific are doing to support remote working

Many countries or economies are now moving to a hybrid working arrangement. This ISN’T about “going back to the way things were”. Hybrid working is really an important step on the road to the Digital Workplace – which enables access to the tools, data and processes that employees need to get their job done regardless of location or device.

Components of a digital workplace

Many businesses claim that productivity has improved now that employees are working from home – some have even measured it and can prove it. We have to ensure that the move back to the office doesn’t negatively impact productivity. To drive continued productivity with hybrid working arrangements, consider:

  • How will video calls work with employees in the office and at home? If employees in the office are docking their laptops, they immediately lose access to the camera. If they have monitors on their desk, they might not even be able to work with the laptop open. If they are in an open-plan office, the regular video calls might be distracting.
  • What is the role of meeting rooms in the hybrid workplace? With social distancing an expectation in many countries today, the role of meeting rooms has changed. They will cater for fewer employees, and there is a growing need for them to be video-enabled.
  • How do you manage hybrid meetings – where maybe 3-5 employees are on a single camera? How do you ensure every voice has equal weight – and that the right employees have their fair share of voice on the calls.
  • How do you support employees who are moving between locations? You must focus on self-help services and automating as much of your Service Desk capabilities as possible.
  • How can IT support social distancing in the office? Many companies are scaling back their hot desk environments to ensure there are fewer shared working environments.
  • How will the changing location of employees impact business processes? Many of your processes were designed assuming employees were on site. You then redesigned many of them to assume they were not. Do you need to rethink them again?
  • Does the application strategy work for all employees? There has been an increase in employees accessing applications from mobile devices – sometimes that was because it was a better experience, but too often it was because it was the only option. Is it time to rethink access and interfaces to make them relevant for all users?
  • How do you keep employees and their data secure? Employees might move between secure and unsecured networks, work and home devices, on-premise and cloud applications. How do you keep them secure, backed up and synchronised – regardless of their device or location?

The move to hybrid working might not be a smooth one. The last thing you want to deliver is a poorer experience at one location versus the other, so you have work ahead in keeping your employees productive and secure – and hopefully, you’ll also move further down the path towards a Digital Workplace that can enable and empower all of your employees.

 


If you are a Tech Buyer, you can visit the research module to take part in this study and gain access to a benchmark of how you compare to your peers in regards to your organisation’s response to COVID-19.
Ecosystm COVID-19 Research Data

For more information on Ecosystm’s “Digital Priorities in the New Normal”, please contact us at info@ecosystm360.com


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Telstra using AI for Recruitment

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5/5 (1) In 2018, DBS Bank came together with AI start-up impress.ai to implement Jim – Job Intelligence Maestro –  a chatbot that helps the bank shortlist candidates for positions in their wealth planning team. This is primarily for screening for entry-level positions. Apart from process efficiency, the introduction of AI in the recruitment process is also aimed at eliminating bias and objectively finding the right candidate for the right job. The DBS chatbot uses cognitive and personality tests to assess candidates, as well as providing them with answers to the candidates’ frequently asked questions. The scores are then passed on to actual recruiters who continue with the rest of the recruitment process. DBS claims that they have curtailed the initial assessment time of each applicant by an average of 22 minutes.

While some organisations have started evaluating the use of AI in their HR function, it has not reached a mass-market yet. In the global Ecosystm AI study, we find that nearly 88% of global organisations do not involve HR in their AI projects. However, the use cases of AI in HR are many and the function should be an active stakeholder in AI investments in customer-focused industries.

Telstra employs AI to vet Applicants

Last month, Australia’s biggest telecommunications provider Telstra announced its plans to hire 1,000 temporary contact centre staff in Australia to meet the surge in demand amidst the global pandemic. In response to the openings, Telstra received overwhelming 19,000 applications to go through and filter, with limited workforce. To make the recruitment process more efficient, the company has been using AI to filter the applications – and has been able to make initial offers two weeks from the screening. The AI software takes the candidates’ inputs and processes them to find the right match for the required skills. The candidates are also presented with cognitive games to measure their assessment scores.

Ecosystm Principal Advisor, Audrey William speaks about the pressure on companies such as Telstra to hire faster for their contact centres. “Several organisations are needing to replace agents in their offshore locations and hire agents onshore. Since this is crucial to the customer experience they deliver, speed is of essence.” However, William warns that the job does not stop with recruiting the right number of agents. “HR teams will need to follow through with a number of processes including setting up home-based employees, training them adequately for the high volume of voice and non-voice interactions and compliance and so on.”

The Future of AI in HR

William sees more companies adopting AI in their HR practices in the Workplace of the Future – and the role of AI will not be restricted to recruitment alone. “A satisfied employee will go the extra mile to deliver better customer experience and it is important to keep evaluating how satisfied your employees are. AI-driven sentiment analysis will replace employee surveys which can be subjective in nature. This will include assessing the spoken words and the emotions of an individual which cannot be captured in a survey.”

In the future, William sees an intelligent conversational AI platform as an HR feedback and engagement platform for staff to engage on what they would like to see, what they are unhappy about, their workplace issues, what they consider their successes and so on. This will be actionable intelligence for HR teams. “But for a conversational AI platform to work well and to encourage users within the organisation to use it, it must be designed well. While it has to be engaging to ensure employee uptake, the design does not stop at user experience. It must include a careful evaluation of the various data sets that should be assessed and how the AI can get easy access to that data.”

AI and Ethics

With the increased use of AI, the elephant in the room is always ethical considerations. While the future may see HR practices using conversational AI platforms, how ethical is it to evaluate your employees constantly and what will be the impact on them? How will the organisation use that data? Will it end up giving employers the right reasons to reduce manpower at will? These and allied issues are areas where stricter government mandates are required.

Going back to AI-assisted recruitment, William warns, “Bias must be assessed from all angles – race, education, gender, voice, accents. Whilst many platforms claim that their solution removes bias, the most important part of getting this right is to make sure that the input data is right from the start. The outcomes desired from the process must be tested – and tested in many different ways – before the organisation can start using AI to eliminate bias. There is also the added angle of the ethical use of the data.”

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Is Your Digital Transformation Helping Your Business Continuity?

4.8/5 (4)

4.8/5 (4) The current state of the world is alarming. The COVID-19 virus is not only disrupting businesses and economies – it is taking away loved ones, it is separating friends and families, it is disrupting the education of young adults and children and it is seeding fear in communities. But while the media is dominated with doom and gloom at the moment – and we do need these reports – I believe it is worth stopping for a moment to consider the fact that if the pandemic happened ten or fifteen years ago, many businesses – and government agencies – would have closed down. You could argue that the world wasn’t as globally connected then as it is now. And to an extent that is correct – the numbers of air travellers increased up until the end of 2019. But even in 2005, the world was still a very global place – economies relied on cross-border commerce as much then as they do now.

Depending on your business or industry 10-15 years ago:

  • Staff couldn’t have effectively worked from home. And if they did, collaboration would have been hard (if not impossible outside of the usual voice services). Teleconference services would have needed to be booked.
  • Remote access would have been painful and slow – relying heavily on VPNs over slower internet connections.
  • Software would have mainly been running in company datacentres – with very little SaaS-based applications. These applications were often designed for LAN access…
  • Those lucky few with a Blackberry or iPhone might have had access to email – everyone else would have needed to go into the office to get work done.

But worse than this would have been our customer engagements. While eCommerce had healthy adoption by 2005, it often relied on very manual processes – and it was mainly focused on consumer products and services – B2B adoption was still a number of years away. And, for many businesses, it represented a tiny proportion of their revenue. Small companies didn’t often have the web presence to compete with the big players. But if I look at the big fast-food giants in Australia (e.g. McDonalds and KFC) – these companies didn’t have a web or mobile ordering until a few years ago, and even more recently for home delivery services. Any company that had to shut down their face-to-face contact would have likely fallen back on their contact centres – but even these would have been impacted as the ability to route calls to remote or home-working call centre agents barely existed then – so they would have been understaffed or closed due to an infection being discovered…

Today’s digital connectivity has the opportunity to save lives. Less physical contact means less people being exposed to – and spreading – the virus.

If this pandemic had happened 10-15 years ago, many small AND large businesses would have had to shut their doors very quickly. Very early in the cycle, businesses would have had to make the decision to shut their doors straight away, or risk accelerating the infection rates by having staff continue to attend the office or contact centre. So if there is one small positive we can take away, it is that our digital investments are paying off very quickly. The ability to continue to trade, continue to sell, continue to do business in such a market as we are facing today and tomorrow is priceless. I can purchase goods and services online, register my car without leaving my desk, upgrade or change my health insurance without speaking to a single human being. Most businesses have the ability to have their employees access many of their critical applications wherever they are located. Our accountants can still pay and send bills, HR can hire for open positions, product teams can continue to innovate on the products and services they offer.

Don’t get me wrong – business survival is not guaranteed. This is why I implored governments to aim their stimulus spending towards small and medium businesses digital initiatives – as cafes, retailers, bars and restaurants close down across cities, states and countries, many are now lamenting their immature online presence, their lack of delivery and their lack of pre-ordering. If you have any doubt about this, check your local Facebook group – it is full of small businesses putting up images of menus in the hope that customers will reach out directly to keep their businesses running. If these businesses are given incentives to build digital services quickly, they might see less of a slowdown in business.

COVID-19 will definitely stress test our digital assets and strategies. Just recently, the Australian government’s citizen-facing portal crashed as too many citizens logged on to register for welfare. This forced many people out into government shop-fronts – putting themselves, the staff and all connected families and friends at risk of catching the virus. I also heard today of a bank that called many of its staff back to the office as the VPN could not cope with the number of users and volume of traffic! If you have not already, you will quickly find out how your digital capabilities are performing – where you need extra capacity, where services are running smoothly, where you need to rethink process design or where you need to consider re-crafting this approach for the fully digital era.

But stay safe – listen to the advice of medical experts and act on that advice. A senior medical officer recently stated that social distancing is the only way that we will overcome this virus – so stay safe and stay home (if you can!). But also take the time to review your digital capabilities – start making moves now to ensure they help your business stay afloat – or your government agency to keep serving citizens in times of restricted trading or shutdowns.

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It’s Time For End User Computing To Take Centre Stage

5/5 (1)

5/5 (1) For most companies, End-User Computing (EUC) is considered an expense to the business. EUC strategies are typically exercises in cutting costs – with often not much more than lip service given to the needs of employees (or employee personas). I know – I help companies write these strategies, and the costing component is always the piece that gets the strategy over the line.

But the winds are changing. Employee Experience (EX) is taking off as a serious business initiative. For example:

  • Edmunds.com wrapped the traditional Facilities and Human Resources functions into a combined WEE Team which represents Workplace and Employment Experience. They engaged in a campaign to rid the company of the term “Human Resources”
  • Airbnb has a dedicated team to “drive the company’s health and happiness”
  • Nitro has “turned old-school HR on its head and instead created Employee Experience (EX)

In our upcoming CX research, the early data is showing that EX is the number two initiative for businesses across the globe in 2019. And for information workers, the technology that sits in front of them is a HUGE component of their experience – and their ability to get and stay productive.

Productivity Should Be The Focus Of Our EUC Strategies

Smart businesses understand that. They allow employees to choose (or bring) the devices that they need to remain productive. While desktop PCs might not be making a comeback, they are increasingly being adopted as an alternative to the “laptop as one device” strategy that many businesses embrace. Sometimes a powerful computer with a big screen (or multiple screens) is what people need to get the job done. Other times a small form factor desktop is perfect. Employees may need tablets or smartphones. And other times they need regular laptops, convertibles, or 4G connected laptops. Smart businesses also focus on seamless security – knowing that security is a key enabler of productivity. We are seeing that “The best, most secure device for the job” is taking off as a EUC hardware strategy in businesses that are striving to build a productive and enjoyable employee experience. This helps them to keep employees productive and will help them attract and retain the best talent.

And EUC goes beyond the device to the entire user experience

Collaboration initiatives often disappoint. Limited adoption, and limited interoperability between applications limits effectiveness. There is often a disconnection between the collaboration system and how it helps employees hit their goals. Microsoft is currently rebooting its collaboration strategy – and has created a more modern system that more closely mimics the processes of a typical information worker (Teams).  Slack is also taking the world by storm – as it is a collaboration tool that helps people the way they work today – it doesn’t require any training.

IT Operations

IT Operations professionals need to take a fresh look at EUC – but this time within the context of the other initiatives in your business. Do you already have a team focusing on EX? Are there initiatives you can help with – or piggyback on? There is real academic research proving the link between happiness and productivity – or the “state of flow”.  IT holds the key to productivity – and therefore happiness – for information workers in particular – it’s time to step up and put employee experience and productivity – not costs – at the centre of our IT end-user computing strategies.

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