An introduction from Salesforce’s EVP and GM, Platform, Trailhead, & AppExchange, Sarah Franklin:
The world has changed, and the workplace has fundamentally changed along with it. The new normal for employees has become a digital-first, work-from-anywhere environment that has impacted the way each of us collaborates, communicates, and gets support.
While this rapid shift has forced companies of all sizes to transform digitally quickly, it has also highlighted the flaws in the tools we ask our workforce to use every day, from outdated portals to scattered resources that can be hard to find. Companies need to adjust to the new normal, and do it fast.
It’s time to turn our attention inward and empower our employees with technology to help everyone succeed. That’s the key to getting companies back to growth, and in order to do this, companies need to bring the same resources and energy that they’ve invested in their customers for years, into their own (virtual) workplace. In short, it’s time to treat our employees like valued customers.
It’s clear that investing in employee experience is no longer a choice, but a requirement for any company that wants to thrive.
Sarah Franklin, EVP and GM, Platform, Trailhead and AppExchange, Salesforce
Investing in your employees is not just good for culture, it’s good for business. In a recent study Salesforce conducted with Forbes, 88% of leaders surveyed said an improved employee experience leads directly to improved customer experience. Companies that had both high employee experience and customer experience ratings saw almost double the revenue growth as those that did not. It’s clear that investing in employee experience is no longer a choice, but a requirement for any company that wants to thrive.
Today, with the expansion of Work.com, we’re announcing a new suite of apps, inspired by the very tools we use internally and built on the Salesforce Platform, that will help businesses better connect and engage with their most important asset – their employees. Work.com will continue to support employee and workplace safety and wellbeing, while delivering the tools needed for employees to be engaged and productive.
Read on to hear more about our latest and greatest employee-focused apps.
Enhance productivity with a connected experience
In this increasingly hybrid work environment, fostering productivity and collaboration is more critical than ever. It’s difficult for employees to feel motivated to do their best work when they feel disconnected from their teams and their company. A study by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services found that employee experience initiatives have had a positive impact on organization’s employee engagement (70%), employee productivity (64%), resilience from external disruption (62%), and organizational agility (61%). Nobody enjoys wasting time fumbling through outdated and disconnected intranets or portals, and an organization’s success takes a direct hit when systems are siloed and inefficient. That’s why we’re introducing employee concierge, which includes two new employee-specific products, Employee Workspace and Employee Helpdesk, to help bring a personalized, intuitive, and connected experience to all employees.
With the Employee Workspace, employees can access all work-related profiles, apps, company communications, and content in one single view, saving them the frustration of fumbling through multiple tabs and windows.
Employee Helpdesk will empower employees to help themselves. From “When is payday?” to “How do I get approval for a new software install?,” employees can get the answers they’re looking for quickly and easily through one centralized, self-service experience. Service requests will be streamlined across all departments from HR through IT with tailored workflows, and AI-powered recommendations will help automate case resolution to help employees move fast.
Through a partnership with Okta, employees will enjoy added benefits that help streamline their digital experience. With single click sign-on, simple and quick onboarding with secure and automated provisioning, and tighter security controls to protect sensitive data, we’re helping to provide secure, automated, and seamless experiences for organizations to connect with employees.
As we navigate the demands of the new normal, we’re committed to investing in our employees’ success. We partnered with Salesforce to build a centralized location that our employees could go to for IT and HR support, ultimately streamlining knowledge management and keeping our employees happy, healthy and productive.
Gabriela Garcia Largen, Director of Human Resources at the University of Virginia
Empower IT to deliver modern employee experiences with IT Service Center
Technology is a critical part of delivering a positive and productive employee experience, but provisioning that technology doesn’t always go so smoothly.
IT service management technology today often offers a fragmented experience. The technology has not kept pace with the changing IT environment, and often relies on legacy and siloed tool sets. This distributed work environment has made it even more difficult to bridge the gap between the employee and the IT service desk as well. Employees can’t just walk over to the IT help desk anymore to get help, and IT teams are drowning under piles of tickets and often don’t have the right tools or information to quickly diagnose and solve a problem.
With IT Service Center, we’re offering integrated endpoint management capabilities, developed in partnership with Tanium, so that employees and IT helpdesk agents have a one-stop shop to submit, track, diagnose, and resolve IT incidents. With endpoint management, IT helpdesk agents can monitor, collect data, and take action on endpoints in real-time right within Salesforce. With reporting and dashboards, IT managers can see all their assets, configurations, and employee incidents in one place. Automation is also built in with Einstein AI to guide prioritization of incidents and to recommend actions for IT managers to take.
Prioritize employee safety and wellbeing
Nothing is more important than the health and safety of our students. Work.com supported the safe reopening of our campus through wellness monitoring, contact tracing, and broad and personalized communication capabilities, providing holistic support for the Wildcat community.
Tyler Gayheart, Director Of Strategic Communications & Enterprise Salesforce Operations, University of Kentucky
Earlier this year, we announced Work.com as a way to help businesses and communities safely reopen and we’re continuing to deploy products like Workplace Command Center, Wellness Checks, Shift Management and Contact Tracing to cities, states, schools, and companies around the world to help ensure the safety and wellbeing of employees everywhere.
Now, we’re expanding our wellness offering by partnering with Thrive Global to empower individuals, companies, and communities to prioritize their own health, happiness, and performance. Employees will get tips and guidelines on how to analyze and address individual wellbeing, build mental resilience, manage anxiety, and find balance in their new routine. All of this content is available for free in our Work.com Health & Wellness Resource Center.
The path to a reimagined employee experience
Every company can emerge stronger from this crisis. As a Work.com business partner and customer, Accenture is working with Salesforce to help organizations meet the demands of the new normal, while using Salesforce’s new technology as part of our efforts to assess and manage our own employees’ wellness and plan for long-term business resiliency.
Yusuf Tayob, Senior Managing Director, Accenture Salesforce Business Group.
With an uncertain economic future ahead, companies need to find new ways to increase the efficiency of every employee, team, and department, and find new ways to keep employees safe, happy, healthy, and engaged. Business leaders are responsible for doing what they can to prevent burnout, and enhancing both the employee and customer experience is a step in the right direction.
For this to become a reality, executives need to align on a shared vision of improving the experience for everyone. Employee experience is not just an HR issue anymore, but one that cross-functional teams, including IT, need to collaborate on. Investing in the right technology today ensures employees and your company are set up for a better, more resilient tomorrow.
Learn more about our latest innovations to reimagine the employee experience here.
