When the pandemic arrived, many HR teams didn’t have a remote working strategy in place, let alone a crisis management plan for getting their employees working from home with next to no notice.
So how did HR teams respond?
Many added more technology, apps, and channels of communication, despite already having between 6-15 HR systems in place.
The increasingly important role of technology in employees’ daily working lives has casted an even greater spotlight on the existing flaws within the digital HR experience. And for many, the digital employee experience has been the only employee experience they’ve had.
It’s premature to say that we’re ‘in the wake of the pandemic’ but we’re certainly on the other side of some monumental change and the message coming back to businesses from employees is loud and clear: they don’t want more change. Instead, they want simplicity.
Companies are recognizing that subjecting their employees to multiple, unintuitive HR technologies is hurting their employees’ productivity and satisfaction. However, now that businesses find themselves managing a spaghetti mess of HR systems, they’re faced with the question:
How do we improve the digital employee experience without introducing more technology?
Companies are getting creative with the way in which they solve this challenge and many (two out of every three organizations) are looking to workforce experience layers—a new breed of technology that’s come into prominence—as a potential solution.
As the name infers, Workforce Experience Layers ‘layer’ over an organization’s existing HR tech stack, simplifying convoluted processes and delivering one unified experience to the employee.
By enabling businesses to retain all their HR systems, whilst delivering a unified experience for the employee (who remains blissfully ignorant to the myriad of systems sitting under the hood), it’s easy to see why it’s an obvious choice for many. Connecting existing systems, simplifying convoluted processes and delivering an experience that’s intuitive for employees is high on the strategic agenda for many organisations, regardless of industry.
Related: How an integrated HRIS can improve the employee experience
The knock-on effect of having technology that employees find familiar and easy to use is that adoption and utilisation metrics skyrocket. Increased visibility into workforce data for HR professionals and the heightened engagement in HR platforms will exponentially help organizations make strategic, data-driven decisions. Over time, these decisions can positively impact the bottom line and the employee experience.
Today, the process of implementing powerful integrations and automations has never been easier. Applaud has recently embedded Workato into its platform, allowing organizations to implement integrations and automations without writing a single line of code. This enables lines of business to play a bigger role in the process (while working within a secure, governed environment), and it allows IT to focus more on other critical business initiatives. Moreover, using Applaud’s pre-built connectors and customizable automation templates, builders can implement their integrations and automations in minutes—versus weeks, or even months.
