Tools That Deliver Contextual Experiences Are Key

Guest Post By Leon Papkoff, CEO & Chief Strategist,The CXApp

The future of work is both smart and connected. Digital transformation inside and outside the enterprise has been accelerated across many high-performing organizations, but there is still a long way to go.

Employees stand to benefit greatly from the rise in workplace experience technologies. New, innovative and contextual interactions will be delivered through platforms such as IoT, mobile, sensors, and location-aware tech and Bluetooth beacons that invite the workforce back to the office as safely and effortlessly as possible.

For years, emphasis was placed on customer experience and forward-facing initiatives. While they still exist — and are just as important — organizations are now forced to look inward too. Employee engagement and healthy, positive employee experiences are now critical.

Re-thinking the Future Workplace Experience

As every business must push towards innovation and growth to please existing customers and bring in new ones, they must also do the same for employees on the backend of operations. Here are just some of the things that organizations can achieve through optimized workplace experience programs:

• Meeting the status quo of our current cultural crisis
• Increasing employee retention
• Refined ways to combat the gig economy
• More opportunity and more innovation

According to Quora Consulting, 75% of the brightest talent ends up leaving their organization within two years, due to “disillusionment with the caliber of management and frustration with the unproductive, poorly optimized workplace design.” Stagnation in the corporate world is not good anywhere, externally or internally.

All Roads Lead to Connected Experiences

Honing in on ‘experience’ is the goal. We are in an era of engagement where the experiences you create and deliver are dependent upon the technologies we use in our day-to-day work lives.

Many of today’s organizations are exploring tools and technologies that are designed to improve work culture and support a work from anywhere model. However, every organization is different and has incredibly diverse needs.

The “Experience” Narrative

The technologies that are being evaluated day-in and day-out to solve engagement and improve the employee experience must be able to shape the narrative through contextually smart tools.

To get this context, the technology businesses invest in needs to account for the following parameters about each user/employee in order to gain more context and drive these smarter experiences and more informed interactions in the workplace.

• Who you are
• Where you are
• What you want
• When you need it

Today’s tools and apps have very basic, yet common features that are more than just desirable, they’re efficient. Once you’re able to gather the data to solve these queries and convert it into actionable insights, then you can deliver the types of experiences that make the workplace experience much more connected.

On-the-Go Access For A Distributed Workforce – Mobile is the go-to platform for just about everyone. Modern experiences must be available on mobile, but in an always-on capacity for employees at home, in transit, and on-site.

Mobility-Enabled Contactless Interactions – A connected network of sensors, beacons, and IoT devices help organizations create low-toch environments that can be controlled through a single mobile app or device, decreasing the effect of high exposure areas.

Personalized Communications and Content – Hyper-personalized content and interactions help employees feel seen or understood. Generic or irrelevant content makes an individual feel disconnected. The more an employee uses the right technology and tools that can learn and grow based on user intent (like machine learning), the more personalization you can configure.

Real-time Alerts and Notifications – Push notifications on mobile are an excellent example of real-time alerts in action. Modern apps and platforms should always leverage this function to the highest-degree.

However, a truly intelligent application has to offer much more than what’s common and suitable in today’s landscape. There are several “game-changing” factors that companies must start investing in if there’s any hope to develop an enriched ‘experience’ factor.

The attributes that are necessary to improve employee engagement and workplace experience are:

• Location-aware features through location services
• Contextually-sensitive notifications and alerts
• AI and machine learning-powered automation with smart content
• Connections with other tools, workflows and work systems
• Data insights about usage patterns by employees and physical spaces
• Active connections to smart IoT sensors, controls and physical touchpoints (desk height, lighting, climate control, digital signage, etc.)

What It Takes To Optimize the Workplace Experience

To successfully implement smart applications across the organization teams must:

• Be consistent with usage and expectations
• Connect with other tools and systems to keep information transparent
• Have a reliable and well-documented adoption strategy

To achieve success, first, an assessment must be conducted to reveal what the organization needs most. Then, a matchmaking process will sync teams with available technologies that facilitate those needs and requirements.

Finally, it’s important to define workplace experience technology as a perpetual improvement system. Routine upkeep must be carried out, to continue building upon what already exists. These kinds of platforms are a tool, not a solution.