We asked some of our United VARs members who are experienced in SAP HXM (Human Experience Management) to get together and share their opinions. Joined by an SAP SuccessFactors expert, they discussed the Great Resignation, DE&I (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) and how mid-market companies can use technology to improve employee experience.
You can listen to the full 36 minute podcast (Spotify or Youtube) with Rebecca Murray, Vice President at Illumiti in USA; Ulrich Rhomberg, Consulting Director at empleox in Germany; Fatih İnanç, General Manager at Detaysoft in Turkey; and Falk Pichl, Director for the SAP SuccessFactors Global Partner Ecosystem in SME. Below is an excerpt from their discussion…
United VARs: Why do you think HR leaders are talking more about employee experience this year?
Fatih (Detaysoft, Turkey): We are talking about human experience management because we want to know more about how the employee feels and how we can measure the satisfaction that our employees have, in order to encourage them to stay and work with us.
Falk (SAP, Germany): Experience management was already in place before the pandemic. What happened during the pandemic, in my opinion, is it basically fast-tracked some of the areas of human experience management.
United VARs: There's been a lot of talk about the Great Resignation, or the Great Reshuffle. What do you think about this?
Ulrich (empleox, Germany): There are lots of people in the labor market, but they don’t necessarily have the skillsets that most companies are searching for. Companies need to be very flexible and open-minded to talent solutions, to learning environments that deliver e-learning, and to people that want to be open-minded. You also need an onboarding environment that you can bring new hires up to speed quite easily.
Falk (SAP, Germany): I 100% agree with you. We can see that a lot of upskilling, learning and training is a requirement in many companies. And when it comes to this a great resignation or reshuffle, employees are changing jobs within the company or to competitors, but also employees are resigning, walking away from their current job without having an alternative offer. And many are asking themselves ‘what is the purpose of my work during the pandemic?’ The last two years have given them a lot of time to think about their work.
In my opinion, employers also need to react and see how they can put this upskilling and training to use if they want to keep their employees. For example, by having something like a talent marketplace within the company.
United VARs: Why do you think diversity, equity and inclusion are important in today's workplace, and how do they improve the employee experience?
Rebecca (Illumiti, USA): You could look at this from the angle of your employee base, being able to meet and respect the needs of all of your employees and to consider all of their perspectives and potential, ultimately this will allow your employees to feel seen and heard. This will lead to greater engagement and collaboration which in the end leads to increased productivity.
Fatih (Detaysoft, Turkey): Being able to look at problems from a different perspective starts with imagination. That’s what we need with our coworkers and our employees, to add value to the work that we need to do. This imagination is fed by creativity, and creativity is nurtured by gathering people with different characteristics, genders, etc. So the organizations should be flexible to that.
United VARs: How can technology help mid-market organizations improve their employee experience?
Rebecca (Illumiti, USA): I think technology is really just an enablement tool for companies. Many of them are now in scenarios where employees are actually influencing, and in many cases defining, the current and future work paradigm.
Technology is a really nice way to have a gauge of what employees are actually experiencing and how they're responding to that experience. So, having tools around feedback to kind of measure the experience and measure people's reaction to that is essential. It also allows us to take those business processes that were done in a traditional in-person capacity in the past and now perform them in a remote capacity, things like recruiting and onboarding, employee training and development.
Fatih (Detaysoft, Turkey): So we want to collect and learn more from the employees, but in a statistical way or in a digital way. This comes up with the digitalization processes and projects and digital roadmaps HR-related topics. Collecting employee data and managing it effectively with smart technologies to track employee attendance, optimize recruitment processes, maximize employee loyalty, find the right talent and so on.
Like any technology-related project, if the employee is not satisfied, is not happy, this project is garbage and useless. So we have to improve the human experience management and also digitalize in a way that the employee will also be happy. Not only for implementing hybrid working models or collecting data from the cost perspective of the employee though. We have to consider the full employee life-cycle in all digitalization and technology-related topics.
Rebecca (Illumiti, USA): To be able to offer development programs, and to change the way you do onboarding based on that employee feedback means you're always keeping pace with the needs of your employees. And ultimately that's going to trickle down into things like satisfaction and retention and increased hiring. These all then flow into revenue and profitability.
I think one thing to keep in mind is that it does take a commitment from an organization to make these things happen. Putting money into a technology toolset is a really great way to start that commitment. But it does also take some type of executive leadership or stakeholder support to really drive these pieces home.
Ulrich (empleox, Germany): Most of our customers want to implement HR tools and streamline the admin functions, and get more automatic rules. That helps them to have more time for their people and for leadership.
It’s important to learn from other companies and best practices from colleagues. I realize that sometimes companies are afraid to get rid of their own processes. It’s like ‘what we established already a couple of years ago we can't touch’, but if you want to go into the future, sometimes it's easier to rearrange the past processes and go for best practices instead. So don't be afraid to change some processes.
Listen to the full podcast discussion: https://youtu.be/BCcFO-vSSdI or https://open.spotify.com/episo....
About United VARs United VARs is a global alliance of SAP solution providers for the mid-market. With over 70 members in 100+ countries, the alliance serves all types of SAP rollouts and integrations across the world.
About Illumiti Illumiti is a systems integration and management consulting company with offices in Canada, the United States, and Switzerland. Its team enables customers to realize their vision by leveraging technology, people and leading business practices.
About empleox empleox is a leading provider of consulting and software services for human resource management with more than 230 employees operating mainly in the German-speaking markets. For more than 25 years the company stands for innovation and know-how in the mid-market.
About Detaysoft Detaysoft is an SAP Platinum Partner and the United VARs member for Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Detaysoft has more than 20 years’ experience helping organisations to achieve their business goals with SAP technology.
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