User-experience experts map out customer journeys down to the smallest detail; what font gets the most attention, the right times of the week to run promotions and what steps can be cut out to give the end-user a seamless experience. Traditionally, it has been a challenge for HR departments to analyse and recreate a  similar experience for their own employees. In fact, only 27% of organisations HR services are at a consumer grade.

Best in class HR tech solutions usually don’t play nicely together. This has resulted in a time consuming and confusing experience for the employee, who is often required to log in and out of multiple platforms to complete different HR tasks and find HR services. The rise in the new hybrid working model means that managing these accounts has grown even harder, as all HR practices must be able to be done online and so even more accounts have been created. 

However, employee expectations are rising, and HR leaders are increasingly looking to their tech stack to provide an HR experience that is more in line with what consumers are receiving outside of work. This can combine all of the employee services into one, avoiding the time-consuming nature of having to manage several accounts at once. 

Compared to traditional HCM solutions, the focus of HR platforms is centred around the employee, providing simple processes that improve employee engagement and productivity. Disengaged employees are costing the UK economy an estimated £70bn every year in lost training and recruitment costs, sick days, productivity, creativity and innovation. Here, the increasingly tech-enabled HR function is also leveraging technology to come up with new and exciting ways to keep employees motivated and productive in a world where work circumstances can change rapidly.

What HR Should be Doing
New-age HR tools give employees a very similar experience to what they would expect from their consumer platforms; simple to use, hyper-personalised and agile. These platforms achieve this consumer-grade experience by putting the employee first by mapping out personas and journeys and combining a number of back end systems. Very similar to the philosophy behind our favourite consumer apps. But with less than 10% of organisations offering hyper-personalised digital experience platforms, the industry still has a way to go. 

Consumer technology adopts a ‘the simpler the better’ mindset. And businesses that have done the same are already making strides in improving the digital employee experience. By having one integrated, personalised HR platform that prioritises information relevant to the user, they are already seeing productivity gains. This is similar to what one would experience as a consumer, where unnecessary elements are hidden and multiple systems are interlinked behind the scenes without disrupting the end-user experience. Similarly to Amazon, where the consumer searches for a product and purchases it, it arrives the next day – you don’t see the stock levels in the warehouse, assign a product packer or a delivery driver. 

So when employees are searching for HR services, they should receive the same high level of simplicity. If they want to change their address, for example, they should be able to easily search for the form, fill it in and hit submit. Not have to contact multiple services to get it updated. We have seen workforce experience layers really spearheading this change.

But it’s not just simplicity that HR should be mimicking. HR has traditionally been slow to execute ideas to digitise their workforce, and recent events have revealed being able to adapt quickly is critical as our working environment can change overnight. The faster you can update employees, the faster you can reduce anxiety levels and the lower disruption your business will experience. Consumer-focused platforms were quick to adapt, for example to the rise in eCommerce: pivoting advertising and stocking products to suit customer needs. 

Employee Care
The pandemic has brought the focus onto employee care, as employees look to employers to explain how government announcements will affect their work. When am I supposed to go to work, and what measures should be in place, etc.. This is especially important, following recent figures that revealed 37% of working adults in the UK are given less than a week’s notice of the hours they will be working. 

Some of the best examples of this are ‘borrowed’ from the tools consumers are using every day. For example, an enterprise contextual-based search engine – think Google for an organisation – can enable knowledge to spread quickly and efficiently and allow employers to make urgent decisions relating to the effects on their employees and convey these easily. 

In today’s rapidly changing work environment, HR is under pressure unlike ever before to deliver a first-class employee experience. And much should be learnt from the dynamic methods of the consumer platforms we use every day and adapted to fit into HR platforms. This will ensure employees stay updated, productive, and motivated. Ultimately, this will bring a more consumer-grade experience into the working lives of employees.