ESM is a key part of the employee experience
Service management has changed significantly in the last few years. The rise of liquid expectations, and the shift to remote and hybrid working have amped-up employee expectations. They want consumer-grade service and support experiences that are designed around their needs. The way they get the tools and assistance they need to do their best work is a critical part of the overall employee experience (EX). EX matters because it is a major influence on employee productivity, engagement, and retention. A better employee experience has also been proven to drive a better customer experiences—driving increased customer loyalty, revenue, and growth.
Shifting experiences
In the last few years alone, we’ve lived through a decade or more worth of change. The way we work has changed—embracing Zoom, Teams, digital whiteboards, and virtual coffees to interact formally and informally. Whatever generation we were born into, we’re all digital natives now.
The way we get help at work has also changed. The traditional phone, email, and walk-up channels for interacting with teams like HR and IT have been replaced by digital equivalents. The physical employee experience has now become a predominantly Digital Employee Experience (DEX).
As consumers and employees, our service experience habits have adapted. Digital is now the channel of choice. What this means is that we have higher expectations of service, and we’re far less tolerant of bad experiences—in our consumer and working lives. We know what good looks like. Now, everything from paying a household bill to changing job is subject to the same high expectations.
Liquid expectations
The concept of Customer Experience (CX) has been well-understood in B2C businesses for decades. They know that the experience that surrounds a product or service is as important as what they deliver. The how is as critical as the what. To a customer, the quality of the experience tells them how much a brand cares about them. Liquid expectations describes this phenomena: A great experience with one brand quickly becomes an expectation for all others—regardless of context. Expectations change quickly. A great experience with Amazon on one day reshapes a person’s expectations of their interaction with Spotify on the next.
It’s described as “liquid” because expectations flow across brands and industry sectors. Employees aren’t comparing the service experiences your organization provides with past corporate experiences; they’re comparing it with their consumer-life experiences. The common question is this: Why isn’t the tech I use at work as good as the tech I use at home?
It’s a high standard to meet and keep up with. It’s liquid because it flows from one place to another and it's a constantly rising waterline.
Why the employee experience matters
The Employee Experience (EX) matters to employees, so it needs to matter to the organizations that employ them. EX matters because it tells employees a lot about how supportive an organization is—whether they really mean it when they say “Our people are our most important asset.”
Our view of work is changing. The social contract between employer and employee is no longer just about a transactional relationship where time is exchanged for money. Randstad’s annual review of work shows that work-life balance is the number one factor for their current or future role. According to research from ZipDo, 92% of employees say that a good employee experience contributes to better work performance. And 64% of employees would leave their current employer for one offering a better employee experience.
On average, 40% of employees are actively considering changing their job within 3 to 6 months. When looking at specific industries, the statistics are even more alarming. 47% of hospitality industry employees are thinking about leaving in the next 6 months—nearly half of the workforce. Employee churn carries a significant cost to organizations, with average recruitment costs exceeding $5,000. And disruption caused by joiners, movers and leavers inhibits growth and eats away at profits and progress. The cost of losing a large part of your organizational knowledge pool every year is incalculable.
Workers are demanding more from their employers. More support to enable the mission they were hired for. More technology to help them do their best work, quickly. More flexibility so that they can achieve the work-life balance they want. More collaboration with their colleagues (wherever they are) so that they can communicate, learn, and progress more easily.
Service management is a key part of the employee experience
Culture is a big part of the overall EX, but IT services and the broader corporate service ecosystem are the critical components that enable day-to-day productivity. They have a direct impact on the quality of the employee experience—influencing engagement, happiness, productivity, profitability, and churn rate.
- People want the right technology; always there when they need it. Millennials now make up the majority of the US employed workforce—and these digital natives won’t tolerate second-rate tech, or manual work that they know can be easily automated.
- People want seamless interaction with colleagues wherever they are. The ability to offer remote and hybrid working is critical to recruiting and retaining the best talent from the global workforce pool (instead of a restricted local pool).
- People want access to services, assistance, and information at any time, from any device. Waiting in a call queue is no longer acceptable. Instant digital outcomes are expected.
The organizations that meet these needs will be those that can hire and keep the best people—solving the challenges of the global skills shortage. This is why service management matters to the employee experience. Service management is how they get the tools, information, and assistance from the corporate functions like HR, facilities, and IT that support them in their mission.
However, research from Harvard Business Review reveals that technology is one of the most poorly-rated parts of the employee experience. Fewer than 1 in 3 employees say their company’s tech works effectively. Fewer than 1 in 4 say they are equipped with seamless technology.
Employees have been waiting for the employee experience to catch up with their consumer-life experiences. Now it is time to deliver.
Find out more about shifting employee expectations and the future of service management in this report:
More about delivering a better employee service experience
