There’s been a renewed examination of the role of employees in shaping business outcomes in a hybrid workplace.  Employee experience today needs to go beyond the ‘employee’ – it also needs to account for the employee’s family and the environment they’re operating in.  With a blurring of work-life boundaries, companies have had to leverage technology to continuously understand the employee pulse, support mental health initiatives and ensure access to educational resources that would ease their daily work. 

In this context, in a podcast, as part of the “Reimagine Work Week”, Vivek Ravindran, Sr Director, Modern Workplace APAC at Microsoft shared his thoughts about the changing employee experience, the role of technology and HR teams in addressing emerging employee needs.

Navigating a pandemic of isolation

“We’re having a pandemic of isolation, and it’s becoming extremely important for companies to reach out and figure out ways to stay connected to their employees.” Vivek said.

According to the KPMG Global CEO Outlook, close to 90% of them are concerned about customer loyalty and they’re putting customer loyalty at the forefront. 80% of them say they don’t have the right data driven strategy for customer loyalty and 3/4th of the CEOs believe that they don’t have a strategy to engage customer loyalty.

“If we were to flip the issue to employee loyalty instead of customer loyalty, the fundamental issues will be the same. It is about engaging a younger workforce that comes to the workforce with different expectations,” he noted.

In a conversation with People Matters’ Yasmin Taj, Vivek covered a number of aspects:

1.       How employee wellbeing needs to be aligned with productivity

2.      Bridging the missing human element – as workplaces open up with a balance of virtual and physical

3.      How to leverage data to inform employee policies and process

4.      The role of manager effectiveness in delivering a great experience – Model, coach and care

5.      Balance the  head and the heart of employee experience

Listen to the complete conversation below: