Learn, explore and unleash your inner chef.

RACV Royal Pines Resort Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

19 - 21 July 2017

Ahead of the marcus evans Australian CIO Summit 2017, Kristine Dery 
discusses how CIOs can improve employee experience and customer satisfaction 

Copyright © 2017 Marcus Evans. All rights reserved.

For more information, please contact:
Sarin Kouyoumdjian-Gurunlian
press@marcusevanscy.com

“Companies that focus on improving the employee experience, paying attention to how work is done, and giving people a voice to make changes, score higher on innovation and ability to deliver customer satisfaction,” says Kristine Dery, Research Scientist, Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “Employee experience is not just a nice-to-have, but absolutely critical for a business to deliver great customer experience in the digital environment,” she elaborates.

Dery is a speaker at the marcus evans Australian CIO Summit 2017, in the Gold Coast, Australia, 19 – 21 July.

What is the CIO’s role in building a better employee experience?

The way employees are getting their work done has significantly changed as we enter the digital age. The more complex products and services we create for customers, the more complex life gets for employees. As more work gets digitised or done by machines, the role of humans is becoming one of dealing with thoughtful solutions that require them to build networks, gather information, search for ideas and people in the organisation, and move across silos.

The employee experience is made up of the need to reduce complexity and build very different types of behavioural norms. The role of technology here is very significant. It means the CIO has to take a much more proactive role, to think about building and managing a better employee experience in order to add value to the organisation.

Why is employee experience just as important as customer experience?

The higher companies score on employee experience, the higher their score on innovation and customer satisfaction. Almost twice as much. These companies have launched twice as many new products and services, and they are significantly more profitable, therefore they are able to reduce costs and increase opportunities for revenue. A great employee experience in the digital era really matters. It enables us to deliver a very different type of value to customers.

CIOs need to work closely with management across the organisation, provide the right technologies at the right time in the right place. They must change expectations and behavioural norms so people can work more effectively together, be more creative and empowered to manage their work life and relationships with customers.

How should CIOs redesign the workplace?

First, they need to play a central role in connecting the employee experience to the organisation’s strategic objectives. Successful companies are able to articulate this relationship. Too often companies are focused on the customer relationship, allocating IT resources to that area, but the CIO must rethink how those resources are allocated and ensure adequate funding is directed to building a great employee experience. What technologies do people need? What software, capabilities, skills and teams? Also, what governance is required?

Most of what makes it difficult for people to work effectively is blocks put in place by pre-existing business models, rules and structures. CIOs must play a big role in rethinking the validity of those rules and reimagining the type of environment that employees need to deliver results.

How could CIOs ensure they’re ahead of their peers in this new world?

CIOs need to amplify the voice of their employees. Companies that rate very high on our employee experience score are two to three times more likely to have an enterprise social media platform where they can get a more transparent review into how employees are working, where they struggle, and how they come up with solutions and innovations to overcome challenges.

These companies are more actively seeking out feedback from employees, either through social media platforms or online platforms, and more effective in collecting data from multiple perspectives to really amplify the voice of employees. They also have the capabilities in place to implement changes.