At the start of the year, HR specialist Jack was upbeat. His team had put together a tool-led productivity and performance plan for every employee segment – from senior leadership to fresh hires and from return-to-work parents to gig workers. This was expected to streamline processes, make workflows agile, and combat operational bottlenecks for a lean team spread across locations.

But what Jack found at the mid-year strategy review meeting was shocking: Adoption of the new tools was low, and productivity levels hadn’t budged. The latest talent survey revealed that employees were experiencing tool fatigue, and felt unable to align themselves with the management’s vision for AI and automation adoption.

How can such optimistic roll-outs result in such epic failures? To improve employee experience, something has to give.

Talent + Tech

The irony isn’t lost. Even as businesses prioritize Employee Experience (EX) and AI and automation to free up resource time for more high-value tasks, the math isn’t adding up.

Whether you call it Human Resources, Talent Management, People Operations, or anything else, the realm of employee experience management is peopled by professionals who care about — well, people. But technology has so much to offer that it would be foolish to disregard its benefits. From project management to employee engagement tools, technology is integrated in our work — for better or for worse.

As a leader, what can you do differently to ensure increasing AI and tech investments are taken positively by employees? Workplace technology adoption sometimes stalls out in progress — and sometimes fails to kick off because of a mistaken belief that employees won’t be open to the change. Instead of making assumptions about the direct correlation between AI and automation and enhanced EX, it’s time to delve deeper.

Reason #1: Every employee’s journey is unique

Industry reports and regional employee surveys are great for arriving at business blueprints. But when you want to impact EX for a real person, you need access to unique, personalized data and insights. Every employee’s career expectations and life experiences are unique, and these variables affect how they perceive, adopt, and perform using the latest in AI and automation.

Personalized employee experiences are ideal, but facilitating such EX requires a lot of information. How and when do you tune into individual employee psyche? One-on-one manager interactions must be typically focused on output and generic employee surveys are often insufficient to allow insights into the real drivers of individual employees’ experiences.

An increasing number of EQ-attuned leaders are investing in an always-on, high-intent EX ecosystem to collect and make sense of deeper employee realities. By tracking employee sentiment across touchpoints and milestones in every employee’s journey, you can create a culture of listening and intervening that works at two levels:

• Helps you understand patterns in employee thinking and address mindsets with high-relevance communication and solutions
• Enables you to make employee-centric decisions when it comes to prioritizing new tech and accelerating performance

Reason #2: The employee health crisis looms

If there is one thing common to unique employee journeys, it is chronic fatigue and disengagement. The rise in the sheer number of tools they must use on average, constant changes in their daily work life, and anxiety around AI are all top contributors. In the worst case scenario, these challenges snowball along with other factors to result in a toxic work environment. In such a scenario, it is critical that you track and measure your EX in the context of AI and automation tech with powerful, comprehensive metrics. An employee experience platform helps organizations go beyond a single metric like eNPS to truly listen to and understand the voice of their internal customers.

Similarly, by leveraging powerful sentiment and text analytics, you can drill down on the precise factors about a tech or tool that pose a challenge for your employees. This can be immensely valuable when you are evaluating new tech impact and RoI. Once you address the obstacles, measure progress in positive perception with one-click reports. At the end of the day, end-to-end EX management can help you understand and shape employee mindsets and performance.

Reason #3: The future is self-serve

AI and new tech are exploding at a pace that demands more than linear adoption. While you have your own goals in mind, each employee also has their own expectations and suggestions, resulting in ongoing research and advocacy for the use of different tools. Such a democratic, self-serve environment demands that you stay connected. Keep in mind:

• Actual top EX and growth value drivers as against perceived drivers
• Fast-evolving employee preferences around new tech
• Any under-the-radar tech that can give you the first mover’s advantage
• Cost optimization/reallocation opportunities with real-time usage trends data
• Training needs around tech application to minimize the learning curve

With fluid, end-to-end EX management, you can build an ecosystem that tracks and analyzes EX in a tech-forward, AI-driven, automated and integrated universe. From periodic Employee Pulse Surveys to always-on engagement solutions, let interactivity and speed define your approach to authentic insights.

Ready to bring together your talent and tech?

Employee experience management is a rapidly evolving field, but one thing is certain: Just as well-implemented tech solutions can improve a team’s productivity, a powerful EX solution can deliver insights that will drive an entire organization’s success.

When you’re ready to bring the pieces together for your team, connect with our team to learn how SogoEX can make the difference for you.