Streamline the employee experience with simplified HR technology
As a leader in your organization, you know how the HR tech stack has evolved over the last decade. Throw a global pandemic into the mix and that evolution…
As a leader in your organization, you know how the HR tech stack has evolved over the last decade. Throw a global pandemic into the mix and that evolution began moving at warp speed. In response, technology has acted as a bridge to connect your workforce, a Band-Aid to fix broken processes or over-complicated systems in addition to other solutions it provides. But, there can also be too much of a good thing, which results in some negative consequences, the most prevalent perpetrator being digital fatigue.
Too many channels, not enough bandwidth
Employees are constantly pivoting throughout the day from system to system to communicate, review, or enroll in benefits; learn and develop; track time; and get some work done in between. Moving from platform to platform can give you whiplash. Employees feel tired, anxious, and have a headache by the end of their workdays. Which, let’s be honest, in our work-from-home era, workdays are really any day that ends in “y.” These symptoms make up what is now a far-too-common syndrome: digital fatigue.
Related: How to beat Zoom burnout, compassion fatigue
And let’s not forget HR leaders; they suffer from digital fatigue as well. They’re tasked with researching, implementing, and maintaining countless systems. So much of their day is consumed by simply managing these technologies, not to mention learning and becoming proficient in each of them. As a result, they lack the time to make an impact on all of their initiatives and be the resource your organization needs.
With this increasing dependence on technology brought upon not only by the pandemic but the evolution over the past decade in the way we work, it should come as no surprise that we are overrun by different systems and options. This often leads to organizations left with a bunch of patched-together systems to achieve all of the processes and meet their workforce’s needs. In PWC’s Human Resources Technology Survey, the total value of the HR cloud solutions space is estimated at a whopping $148 billion.
Digital fatigue: What is it and how do I know if I have it?
For the lucky ones who haven’t yet experienced this syndrome (although if you’re reading this article, chances are you haven’t been spared from this headache), it’s when burnout from constant interactions with screens kicks in. It’s no coincidence that one-third of Americans have reportedly experienced anxiety, depression, or both since the pandemic began, according to the CDC. While most are still working from home, any day can be a workday, and the line between work time and me-time becomes increasingly fuzzy.
In that same PWC survey, opinions differed across the organization on leaders’ perception of HR technologies. Forty-five percent of C-suite leaders stated they improved the employee experience. Meanwhile, middle management cut that number in half, with only 23% saying they improved employee experience. This shows the disconnect in how the technologies in place are intended to work and improve efficiency versus how it’s truly impacting employees.
Keep it simple… (you know the rest)
Fear not, there is a solution for this struggle, and it comes in the form of simplicity. Marie Kondo fans, rejoice! When it comes to HR technology, the ultimate goal is to boost engagement and retention, which in turn increases productivity and ROI or revenue. Therefore, the fatigue and burnout resulting from too many technologies is obviously counterproductive and is not what you sought to accomplish upon implementation.
As burnout is mounting, so is the cost of these duplicitous platforms. We know there is no escaping the screen as many continue to work from home, but we can minimize the channels we constantly have to switch between. Take a look at your tech stack and identify overlap. Then determine where you can streamline so that your workforce has more bandwidth for what matters.
Find a platform that offers multiple solutions across administration, talent management, workforce management, and engagement. Here are some criteria for evaluation: Integration capabilities: How does it interact within your ecosystem? Analytics and reporting: Are you able to measure activity and report on performance? Utilization: Are people actually using the tools offered? How user-friendly are they?
Don’t be afraid to seek employee sentiment with surveys and task forces to see what’s working and what isn’t. You did your due diligence to select the technologies in the first place, so now it’s time to repeat as you seek to improve the employee experience and provide relief in the fight against digital fatigue.
In closing, keep a keen eye on your technologies and note the effect they have on your employees’ experience. Digital fatigue is upon us, and unless action is taken, it’s here to stay. Protect your workforce and preserve the employee experience through this simple evaluation and exercise of streamlining. You know the saying, work smarter not harder, so let’s allow technology to do its job of simplifying our lives rather than complicating it.
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