WHEN THE AI IS AN ALLY FOR HR DIRECTIONS
February 16, 2024
ALVERIA AT GLOBAL HR SUMMIT 2024
March 12, 2024
Report of the event "The frontiers of Employee Experience: best practices compared"
February 22, 2024
Report of the event "The frontiers of Employee Experience: best practices compared"
The second workshop of the 2023-2024 edition of the HR Innovation Practice Observatory was held on February 6, entitled "The Frontiers of Employee Experience: best practices compared." The workshop delved into the theme of the evolution of employee experience in the organizational context, thanks to the presentation of projects and best practices by HR Executives and experts in the field.
Introduction of the Observatory
During the first part of the event, the Observatory defined the basic characteristics and elements of Employee Experience, presenting some Research data and models from international sources. The Employee Experience, the experience that the organization offers to its employees, is composed of all those interactions and relationships that are substantiated along three continuous and permeable moments between them: the Employer Branding, the actions with which the organization presents itself to employees and potential candidates, as an "employer"; the Organizational Environment, i.e., the cultural, physical and digital environment that people experience once they enter the organization; and the Employee Journey, the heart of the experience, with its "moments that count," often coinciding with processes and services overseen by the HR Department. The Employee Experience has not always had the same relevance over time. To chronicle its evolution, the Observatory reworked a Jacob Morgan model1 based on four historical stages. The first, from the 1920s to the 1950s, is that of theutility: employees' experience is composed exclusively of the means and tools made available by the organization and functional to the conduct of their work. From mid-century, with the development of industrial automation systems, the focus becomes productivity, and organizations begin to focus on "efficiency," "optimization," and "repeatability." In the 1990s, the great studies of occupational psychology usher in the engagement phase:engagementorganizations focus on the involvement and motivation of their people, in a way that is nevertheless instrumental to improving job performance. From 2020 and with the arrival of the pandemic, the focus shifts toto the 360-degree experience that the organization offers employees, intercepting new needs, expectations and interests. Culture, physical environments and technologies are its three essential elements, built with the goal of making people feel good and igniting a new purpose in them. What characteristics should these three elements possess?
Physical spaces
Inclusive and connected:enhancing with respect to people's distinctive characteristics and, at the same time, open to the city and territory. Comfortable, barrier-free, connected to the territory's infrastructure and easily accessible by all.
Flexible and reconfigurable:adequate with respect to new hybrid ways of working, in line with present and future needs, of organizations and people.
Identitarian:capable of conveying the values, culture and identity of the organization to those who experience them, with which people like to identify.
Smart:tailored with respect to different work activities, to foster collaboration, activate socialization, reconcile concentration, and stimulate creativity.
Smart Working Observatory Research2 shows that only very limited percentages of the sample have spaces with these characteristics. Less than 20 percent have flexible and reconfigurable physical workplaces, less than 15 percent have areas dedicated to socializing and relaxing, and only 12 percent have free, unassigned workstations. Openness to the local area (e.g., by running external hubs in coworking logic) and spaces equipped with advanced technologies (e.g., in meeting rooms) are even less common features.
Technologies
Accessible and simple:user friendly and designed to be used by everyone, even those without specific and technical digital skills.
Appealing and "consumer":attractive, engaging and similar to the technologies that people use in their daily lives as consumers and service users.
Customizable:responsive to people's actual needs and usage preferences.
To date, what technologies do people have to manage their daily work? The Smart Working Observatory Research shows that among the currently most popular systems we find software to support collaboration, document storage and sharing, and video conferencing activation. Less present, on the other hand, are project management applications for managing different activities, virtual assistants/ chatbots capable of providing advice to the operator and Virtual/Augmented Reality applications. Interestingly, then, much of the sample, despite having these systems, does not use them.
Technology is also an important driver for access to services and processes overseen by HR management. More than half of the sample of organizations have systems that allow people to access micro-learning (e.g., training pills), 33 percent provide new hires with digital kits or apps that support them in the onboarding phase, and 30 percent give candidates the opportunity to present themselves in the selection phase with "video" tools (e.g., Video CV or Video Cover Letter). Systems that allow the exchange of continuous feedback-so important for ensuring people's growth and development-and more frontier training platforms that can adapt learning to the needs of learners (e.g., Adaptive Learning) remain uncommon.
Culture
Attentive to well-being and Work-Life Balance:geared toward creating work environments in which people are physically, psychologically and socially well and can manage their own work-life balance.
Meritocratic and fair:concerned with providing all people with the same starting conditions, without any form of discrimination or prejudice.
Valuing and inclusive:able to integrate and treasure the heterogeneity of people, as a source of richness and characteristics to be enhanced.
Supportive ofemployabilitygeared toward developing the future employability of its people through training, upskilling and reskilling profiles.
Despite the fact that worker well-being has been touching alarmingly low levels in recent years, less than half of the sample from the HR Innovation Practice Observatory has activated of supporting initiatives. This evidence reflects negatively on workers, who are dissatisfied with what their organizations put in place in both wellness and work-life balance4. Meritocracy and equity are also critical elements: about 30 percent of people feel they do not have the same opportunities for growth as their colleagues, and 20 percent are not sure if their manager treats them fairly. In terms of valuing diversity, there is often a lack of an underlying strategy that knows how to guide different initiatives, and the risk is that they lose effectiveness or are not appreciated by workers, as is the case for 9% of them. With respect to ensuring employability, 60 percent of organizations are already moving forward with retraining pathways, but 90 percent of people are still dissatisfied with the support they receive.
Finally, the last part of the Observatory presentation was devoted to a key feature of Employee Experience: consistency. To explain the concept, a model by two researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was reworked based on adaptive work environment - the work environment that is "adaptive" with respect to people's needs - and collective work habits - the habits, practices, and cultural aspects that determine how well people are able to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the adaptive work environment. Examples of consistency between the two components may be the establishment of hourly and location flexibility policies and the real opportunity for people to take advantage of them without incurring consequences, or the provision of training plans to support reskilling along with the possibility of devoting part of working time to training. In contrast, the HR Innovation Practice Observatory Research shows an example of inconsistency on people's use of frontier technology to access some HR services: more than half of the sample of workers who have experienced Chat Bots, Augmented/Virtual Reality and Tik Tok Resume initiatives say it was a negative experience. In this case, an adaptive, technology-driven, state-of-the-art organizational environment has lacked a match with the still unsatisfactory user experience.
Testimonies in comparison
The workshop continued with a series of company testimonials on Employee Experience redefinition projects and initiatives brought by HR Executives and Partner and Sponsor companies of the Observatory. Below is the testimony of Giovanni Iacobelli, Head People Service of TIM and Massimo Genova, CEO of Alveria.
TIM and Alveria
What are the preconditions needed to actually make this philosophy possible?
The first step was to start looking at HR Management as a complex system composed of various subsystems. These subsystems produce a lot of information about people within the organization, often not communicating with each other. In 2019, TIM began work to create a platform that would natively integrate all of these subsystems in order to put the HR Directorate and other data users in a position to easily access them. The goal was to provide all stakeholders with data, information and interpretative models consistent with their role and decision-making processes, from HR, to managers, to the employees themselves. Thus , a single point of access access was created for all available services and information, both internally produced and from other platforms. The platform is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, with a customized digital profile for each user, providing relevant information and enabling the management of processes efficiently. In terms of people data, the company has made digital dossiers and customized dashboards available to monitor the status of processes and plan career and training paths. Managers can view information about their organizational structure, while HR can monitor individual processes and organizational units. Finally, a search mechanism has been implemented within the platform to extract up-to-date data and display it in a flexible and personalized manner, simplifying access and use of information.
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The second workshop of the 2023-2024 edition of the HR Innovation Practice Observatory was held on February 6, entitled "The Frontiers of Employee Experience: best practices compared." The workshop delved into the theme of the evolution of employee experience in the organizational context, thanks to the presentation of projects and best practices by HR Executives and experts in the field.
L’INTRODUZIONE DELL’OSSERVATORIO
During the first part of the event, the Observatory defined the basic characteristics and elements of Employee Experience, presenting some Research data and models from international sources. The Employee Experience, the experience that the organization offers to its employees, is composed of all those interactions and relationships that are substantiated along three continuous and permeable moments between them: the Employer Branding, the actions with which the organization presents itself to employees and potential candidates, as an "employer"; the Organizational Environment, i.e., the cultural, physical and digital environment that people experience once they enter the organization; and the Employee Journey, the heart of the experience, with its "moments that count," often coinciding with processes and services overseen by the HR Department. The Employee Experience has not always had the same relevance over time. To chronicle its evolution, the Observatory reworked a Jacob Morgan model1 based on four historical stages. The first, from the 1920s to the 1950s, is that of theutility: employees' experience is composed exclusively of the means and tools made available by the organization and functional to the conduct of their work. From mid-century, with the development of industrial automation systems, the focus becomes productivity, and organizations begin to focus on "efficiency," "optimization," and "repeatability." In the 1990s, the great studies of occupational psychology usher in the engagement phase:engagementorganizations focus on the involvement and motivation of their people, in a way that is nevertheless instrumental to improving job performance. From 2020 and with the arrival of the pandemic, the focus shifts toto the 360-degree experience that the organization offers employees, intercepting new needs, expectations and interests. Culture, physical environments and technologies are its three essential elements, built with the goal of making people feel good and igniting a new purpose in them. What characteristics should these three elements possess?
Physical spaces
Inclusive and connected:enhancing with respect to people's distinctive characteristics and, at the same time, open to the city and territory. Comfortable, barrier-free, connected to the territory's infrastructure and easily accessible by all.
Flexible and reconfigurable:adequate with respect to new hybrid ways of working, in line with present and future needs, of organizations and people.
Identitarian:capable of conveying the values, culture and identity of the organization to those who experience them, with which people like to identify.
Smart:tailored with respect to different work activities, to foster collaboration, activate socialization, reconcile concentration, and stimulate creativity.
Smart Working Observatory Research2 shows that only very limited percentages of the sample have spaces with these characteristics. Less than 20 percent have flexible and reconfigurable physical workplaces, less than 15 percent have areas dedicated to socializing and relaxing, and only 12 percent have free, unassigned workstations. Openness to the local area (e.g., by running external hubs in coworking logic) and spaces equipped with advanced technologies (e.g., in meeting rooms) are even less common features.
Technologies
Accessible and simple:user friendly and designed to be used by everyone, even those without specific and technical digital skills.
Appealing and "consumer":attractive, engaging and similar to the technologies that people use in their daily lives as consumers and service users.
Customizable:responsive to people's actual needs and usage preferences.
To date, what technologies do people have to manage their daily work? The Smart Working Observatory Research shows that among the currently most popular systems we find software to support collaboration, document storage and sharing, and video conferencing activation. Less present, on the other hand, are project management applications for managing different activities, virtual assistants/ chatbots capable of providing advice to the operator and Virtual/Augmented Reality applications. Interestingly, then, much of the sample, despite having these systems, does not use them.
Le tecnologie rappresentano un driver importante anche per l’accesso a servizi e processi presidiati dalla Direzione HR3. Più della metà del campione di organizzazioni dispone di sistemi che permettono alle persone di accedere al micro-learning (es. pillole formative), il 33% fornisce ai neoassunti kit digitali o app che li supportano in fase di onboarding, il 30% dà la possibilità ai candidati di presentarsi in fase di selezione con strumenti “video” (es. Video CV o Video Cover Letter). Rimangono ancora poco diffusi, invece, i sistemi che permettono lo scambio di feedback continuo – importantissimi per garantire la crescita e lo sviluppo delle persone – e le piattaforme formative più di frontiera, in grado di adattare l’apprendimento alle esigenze dei discenti (es. Adaptive Learning).
Culture
Attentive to well-being and Work-Life Balance:geared toward creating work environments in which people are physically, psychologically and socially well and can manage their own work-life balance.
Meritocratic and fair:concerned with providing all people with the same starting conditions, without any form of discrimination or prejudice.
Valuing and inclusive:able to integrate and treasure the heterogeneity of people, as a source of richness and characteristics to be enhanced.
Supportive ofemployabilitygeared toward developing the future employability of its people through training, upskilling and reskilling profiles.
Despite the fact that worker well-being has been touching alarmingly low levels in recent years, less than half of the sample from the HR Innovation Practice Observatory has activated of supporting initiatives. This evidence reflects negatively on workers, who are dissatisfied with what their organizations put in place in both wellness and work-life balance4. Meritocracy and equity are also critical elements: about 30 percent of people feel they do not have the same opportunities for growth as their colleagues, and 20 percent are not sure if their manager treats them fairly. In terms of valuing diversity, there is often a lack of an underlying strategy that knows how to guide different initiatives, and the risk is that they lose effectiveness or are not appreciated by workers, as is the case for 9% of them. With respect to ensuring employability, 60 percent of organizations are already moving forward with retraining pathways, but 90 percent of people are still dissatisfied with the support they receive.
Finally, the last part of the Observatory presentation was devoted to a key feature of Employee Experience: consistency. To explain the concept, a model by two researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was reworked based on adaptive work environment - the work environment that is "adaptive" with respect to people's needs - and collective work habits - the habits, practices, and cultural aspects that determine how well people are able to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the adaptive work environment. Examples of consistency between the two components may be the establishment of hourly and location flexibility policies and the real opportunity for people to take advantage of them without incurring consequences, or the provision of training plans to support reskilling along with the possibility of devoting part of working time to training. In contrast, the HR Innovation Practice Observatory Research shows an example of inconsistency on people's use of frontier technology to access some HR services: more than half of the sample of workers who have experienced Chat Bots, Augmented/Virtual Reality and Tik Tok Resume initiatives say it was a negative experience. In this case, an adaptive, technology-driven, state-of-the-art organizational environment has lacked a match with the still unsatisfactory user experience.
LE TESTIMONIANZE A CONFRONTO
The workshop continued with a series of company testimonials on Employee Experience redefinition projects and initiatives brought by HR Executives and Partner and Sponsor companies of the Observatory. Below is the testimony of Giovanni Iacobelli, Head People Service of TIM and Massimo Genova, CEO of Alveria.
TIM and Alveria
What are the preconditions needed to actually make this philosophy possible?
Il primo passo è stato iniziare a considerare la Direzione HR come un sistema complesso composto da vari sottosistemi. Questi sottosistemi producono molte informazioni sulle persone all’interno dell’organizzazione, spesso non comunicanti tra loro. Nel 2019 TIM ha avviato i lavori per creare una piattaforma che integrasse nativamente tutti questi sottosistemi, al fine di mettere la Direzione HR e gli altri utilizzatori di dati nelle condizioni di accedervi facilmente. L’obiettivo è stato quello di fornire a tutti gli attori interessati dati, informazioni e modelli interpretativi coerenti con il loro ruolo e con i loro processi decisionali, dall’HR, ai manager, fino ai collaboratori stessi. È stato quindi creato un unico punto d’accesso access was created for all available services and information, both internally produced and from other platforms. The platform is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, with a customized digital profile for each user, providing relevant information and enabling the management of processes efficiently. In terms of people data, the company has made digital dossiers and customized dashboards per monitorare lo stato dei processi e pianificare percorsi di carriera e formazione. I manager possono visualizzare le informazioni relative alla loro struttura organizzativa, mentre l’HR può monitorare i singoli processi e le unità organizzative. Infine, all’interno della piattaforma è stato implementato un meccanismo di ricerca che consente di estrarre dati aggiornati e visualizzarli in modo flessibile e personalizzato, semplificando l’accesso e l’utilizzo delle informazioni.
Source: HR Innovation Practice Observatory
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