Your Chief Information Officer Must Be Aware of These Employee Trends We'll explain how CIOs can incorporate the latest technologies and trends relevant to their industry.
By Saurabh Kumar Edited by Ryan Droste
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Over the last two years, the world has seen a rise in the adoption of digitized platforms. Since the Covid-19 crisis began, organizations in every major industry have adapted to the "new normal" to provide a seamless employee experience for their team members. As professionals were locked within their homes, they had to find a way to use to technology in order to continue with business operations.
This led to an increase in the implementation of collaborative platforms and tools that allow companies to digitize and automate their business processes. From onboarding new employees to providing them with personalized support, organizations worldwide are using software platforms to improve employee experience in all departments.
Now that organizations are slowly recovering from the pandemic, it has become important for management to adapt to the new and emerging trends that will help them make the most of technology in order to leverage employee experience. CIOs need to focus more on catering to remote employees and handling processes in a hybrid workplace. This calls for companies to incorporate the latest technologies and trends relevant to their industry.
While 2021 was the year of slow recovery, 2022 is expected to be the year that provides organizations with opportunities to grow and prosper. Here are some of the most crucial employee experience trends that CIOs should be prepared for in 2022 and beyond.
Related: How to Automate Technology to Help Run Your Businesses
Optimization of AI and ML
Technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have already started making waves for improving employee experience across the board. These technologies are designed to help employees automate repetitive processes and obtain valuable insights into the processes undertaken by the team.
As more and more businesses are getting digital and data-driven, the optimization of AI and ML is bound to increase, making it essential for organizations to adopt the same to have an edge over their competitors.
Prevalence of automated employee-service desks
Automated employee-service desks have played an essential role in improving the employee experience within organizations. These service desks are powered by AI and are used to provide personalized support to employees. Modern service desks are built on understanding the context of the issues faced by specific employees and providing them with tailored solutions.
These platforms are equipped with conversational AI that allows your employees to interact with AI chatbots to resolve problems. These virtual assistants provide automated support to your employees, reducing the excessive dependence on support agents. When an employee interacts with a chatbot, it scans your enterprise knowledge base and returns with personalized solutions for problems.
These AI-driven platforms can be used as IT service desks, HR helpdesks and robust project-management platforms. They also allow your employees to automate repetitive processes such as changing and resetting passwords simply by chatting with virtual assistants.
Related: How Technology Is Reshaping Businesses For The Covid-19 Era
Automated onboarding of remote employees
Even as the most acute phase of the Covid-19 crisis is subsiding and some organizations are restarting with on-premise work, millions of employees worldwide are wanting and willing to continue working remotely. The freedom and flexibility of this type of work has made professionals used to operating from the comfort of their homes. However, this has resulted in organizations having to change their onboarding strategies and the emergence of automated onboarding processes. This trend is likely to continue moving forward.
Instead of providing physical resources to the new employees on-premise, the new trend involves sending personalized emails to remote employees based on user personas. These emails can also be used to send contact details for peers, login credentials, company policies, work schedules, expectations from the organization and other information to be provided to the new employees.
Increased integration of cloud-based platforms
Organizations are switching from traditional platforms to cloud-based software for managing their databases and performing a range of business processes. From CRM platforms to business-specific applications, CIOs will need to encourage and facilitate the implementation of cloud-based platforms in the future. Cloud-based platforms will help you increase the scalability, flexibility and accessibility of managing your datasets, allowing you to store all your records on a centralized platform.
Increased focus on data security
Now that more and more organizations are implementing digital-storage platforms for their databases, keeping records secure and private has become even more crucial. The need for data privacy and security will only increase as businesses implement more robust storage platforms. Looking at this trend, CIOs will need to take cybersecurity measures even more seriously to prevent threats like unauthorized access to data, fraud and more. The need to undertake system checks and audits will increase to identify vulnerabilities and troubleshoot issues encountered by the system.
Increase in digital reward and recognition
As workplaces are getting increasingly virtual, the approach to employee recognition is changing. Organizations have started implementing software platforms that facilitate digital rewards and recognition. These platforms keep track of the work done by your employees and allow the management to appreciate their efforts and contribution. They also help the management reward employees based on their achievements and value-added to the organization. This trend allows you to boost the morale of your employees and motivate them to give their best, resulting in an increased rate of engagement and productivity within your organization.
Related: How Can CIOs and CTOs Spend Increasing IT Budgets?
The pandemic has made organizations realize the importance of virtual workplaces and digitized platforms, encouraging them to sync with the trends that optimize the latest technological advancements to improve their functionality.
