How important is refining and enhancing employee experience in the workplaces of 2021? How can organizations incorporate holistic, custom-crafted tech solutions that offer the flexibility to customize, adjust and scale employee initiatives for improved productivity and better EX? 

In an exciting session at People Matters TechHR SEA 2021, Helen Snowball, CHRO, APAC, JLL and Tanie Eio, VP HR, Asia Pacific Region, UPS shared insights on creating a winning EX strategy in 2021.

Here are a few excerpts.

Hybrid and human-centric workplace calls for equitable work experiences

If one had to sum up in one sentence the new workplace, it is hybrid and human-centric, believes Helen. Looking at the speed with which employees have adopted workplace technology, hybrid models are not just possible but also being demanded by employees. Hence as HR leaders, the demand from us is to create equitable work experiences everywhere- whether employees are working from home or office or from any other location.

In the last few months, JLL has done research on defining the types of workers emerging and understand their personas to build its employee experience strategy for them. The first one is the traditional worker who loves going to the office and was never attracted by flexible work. Post-Covid, he is exactly the same-the first person to be back in the office. The next persona is the experience lover-they have high aspirations and flexibility and post Covid, they want to spend working 2-3 days from home. Then comes the wellness addict who valued the work-life balance before and after Covid, they like spending more time at home. The final category is the free spirit, who wanted to escape the office pre-pandemic and now like working remotely full time.

When you focus on the human-centric bit of the workplace, it means putting people first. The pandemic has forced organizations to put more attention on their staff and has called for redefining the experiences being provided to them.

Redefining the new workplace purpose through HR and Tech at JLL

When we talk about recreating employee experience for the new workplace in 2021, JLL focuses on five levers to redefine the new workplace purpose through HR and Tech.

These are-

• Learn, Adapt, Innovate

• Culture and Pride in Belonging

• Productivity

• Brand Experience

• Health and Well-Being

Speaking more on the health and wellbeing pillar, Helen shared that research indicated that 90% of employees have been more stressed in the last year. Organizations are grieving and HR’s role is to respond to that. JLL is focusing on initiatives such as well-being conversations, technology-free days, virtual health services, and empathy.

When it comes to the learn, adapt, and innovate pillar, employees should feel that their organization is concerned about the types of skills they should have while we don’t know what jobs of the future could look like. L&D and tech strategies have become more critical. Self-learning is becoming prevalent, hence organizations need to give their employees the tools to learn

Ultimately, the four things Helen recommends for HR professionals are to remain curious, invest in self-learning to stay ahead, be early adopters of technology, and prioritize your own well-being.

Redefining EX the UPS way

Through the pandemic, UPS redefined the journey, the interaction, and the experience for its employees in order to keep them motivated during Covid times. This was done through virtual talent acquisition, engagement through e-approaches, e-learning, operation tech enhancement, and cultural transformation.

Delving deeply into the aspect of cultural transformation, Tanie shared UPS started its process in 2019. As per its vision map, UPS wanted employees to be empowered, agile, and innovative. The vision map activation curve consisted of three steps-hear it, believe it, and live it. Progress was measured first making people aware of it, leading to them accepting it and promoting it, and finally to personalizing and internalizing it, and thereby embedding it in the culture. 

When Covid came, to drive this cultural change and change in employee behavior, one initiative undertaken was launching a UPS Vision Map App. 

This was helpful in engaging more employees and as a result, UPS has seen an increase in empowerment, in collaboration- even with competitors, and record-breaking performance and has even helped the company to rally its employees together towards the organization’s purpose of delivering what matters to every single community and country, thus giving meaning to the daily work of its employees.