But what does employee experience really mean? It loosely translates to how people feel about their employer based on all the interactions they’ve had and what they’ve observed. It could include how they connect with their manager and colleagues, the support they get during critical moments, the growth opportunities they have, and the access to tools and technology that help them perform at their best.
The Workday Approach: People at the Center
Our vision is to deliver an employee experience that meets the evolving needs of each individual with a personalized approach. Using technology, we can better understand the distinct needs, preferences, and goals of each person, then apply machine learning and data-driven insights to optimize experiences in a way that will help people grow, be more productive, and feel more supported in moments that matter.
We aren’t the only ones that see this tailored approach as key to the future of work. According toDeloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends research, 68% of executives agreed that workforce strategies will be more customized in the future to individual needs.
From the beginning, Workday has built software with people at the center, with the employee experience as a top priority. Employees are also our number onecore valueand foundational to our success. While we’ve made great strides in this area, we continue to evolve the applications we offer to customers and use internally, as well as our own people strategies, to adapt to an ever-changing climate.
One thing is certain: What a positive employee experience entails, and how employers communicate and interact with their people, has drastically changed due to the events of the past two years.
An Evolving Experience
Years ago, employee experience was based on what employers believed would make their employees happier and more productive, including open concept offices, perks such as free lunch and snack programs, and gaming areas.
But with the global pandemic, proliferation of intelligent technologies, and hybrid work models have come greater expectations from the workforce. This requires a shift to more meaningful two-way communications, where employers are listening to and taking guidance from each employee on what they want and need, then applying technology to create more connected experiences that help them to be more engaged and productive.
对布林g this to life, we are pursuing a three-pronged strategy focused on the following:
Voice of the employee.We believe that businesses thrive when employee voices are heard and employers respond. That’s why, when we realized that we shared this common vision withPeakon last year,我们很高兴欢迎他们进入工作fold to help us improve the two-way dialogue between employees and employers about the issues most important to people. For Workday—and many of our customers—Workday Peakon Employee Voicesurveys enable us to keep a pulse on our employees’ experience, health and wellbeing, and sense of belonging, so we can factor in their concerns and feedback, more deeply analyze their sentiment, and take meaningful action in response.
For example, we introduced “Thank You Fridays”—company-wide holidays—during our remote work phase of the pandemic, as a result of our employees telling us they need a break to recharge and focus on their wellbeing.
We also recently announced a new product—Workday Scheduling and Labor Optimization—to support how employees want to work, taking into account their scheduling needs and preferences while empowering the business with insights needed to effectively staff. With these innovations, we’re elevating the voice of the employee by listening to and supporting their unique needs.
Employee engagement and development.Engaged employees are more likely to be happy, productive employees. When we apply advanced analytics and machine learning toWorkday Human Capital Management(HCM) data, we can surface the kind of insights that enable us and our customers to create effective employee programs and objectives that help improve engagement.
For example, we’ve heavily invested in ourSkills Cloud technology, which—as part of our Workday Talent Marketplace offering—identifies skills gaps, and thenprovides relevant development recommendationsby matching people to opportunities and suggested learning that are a fit based on their role, preferences, and career interests. Skills not only help us to stay agile and deliver on our business strategy, but enable us to promote employee growth and development so we can engage and retain our best people.
User experience and experience design.The tools and technology we use every day to get our jobs done speaks volumes about the investments a company makes in us, or lack thereof. That's what makes the application design (the UX) an integral part of the overall experience equation, and it’s why we’ve hired our firstChief Design Officer, Jeff Gelfuso. We are more committed than ever to creating an incredible digital experience for every Workday user, and are focused on improving the discoverability and usability of key Workday tasks such as time off and expense reporting.
We also know the best design keeps employees productive, and we want to meet people where they are, regardless of where they are working. Our recently announcedWorkday Everywhereis a great example of how we do this by infusing Workday into other digital environments (think Slack or Microsoft Teams) to make work simpler and more connected for everyone.
Driving Experiences with Unified Data for Faster Response
An effective employee experience requires much more than a portal, or an attractive user experience layer that makes various cobbled-together technologies look cohesive and connected (when they’re really not). Personalization requires a strong data foundation, and having all your people data securely in one place, where it can be combined with third-party data and then analyzed, enables us and our customers to pinpoint issues, then quickly create and execute strategies for a targeted audience to help remedy the problem.