Navigating the Digital Employee Experience: Insights from Industry Experts

In our recent webinar, Simpplr brought together industry experts Jamie Yan, Bala Kasiviswanathan and Forrester’s Cheryl McKinnon for an enlightening discussion on transforming the digital employee experience (DEX) through modern intranets and generative AI.

Simpplr, a modern intranet platform, serves as a transformative force in unifying employee engagement, enablement, and services. By leveraging AI, Simpplr aims to provide seamless, cohesive, and personalised experiences, revolutionising the way organisations approach internal communication.

The webinar covered topics that included:

• The definition of Digital Employee Experience
• Exploring how modern intranets fit into the DEX landscape
• Market trends and Forrester's framework for measuring maturity
• Insights into generative AI trends

WHAT IS THE DIGITAL EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE (DEX) AND HOW DO INTRANETS FIT INTO THE LANDSCAPE?

Our experts highlighted DEX as the sum of all perceptions employees have while working with technologies. The focus is on hardware, software, applications, and information for effective job performance. A cohesive approach and the quality and relevance of information is crucial for ensuring the best employee experience.

Modern intranets were discussed as foundational elements in the digital workplace, evolving from classic intranets to purpose-built applications that offer the power of personalisation, trust in communication relevance, and the ability to overcome challenges in remote or hybrid work settings.

The modern intranet’s role in enhancing satisfaction levels, providing relevant information, and acting as an orchestration layer for content, communications, and application integration was emphasised. A modern intranet is seen to be the foundational glue in the digital workplace, allowing organisations to enhance workplace culture despite the physical location of employees.

Our speakers delved into how important it is for organisations to ensure their intranet has the content and communication abilities to feed employees the most relevant information for them based on the group of employees they belong to, e.g. region, job title or department, rather than a one size fits all approach. With this method, organisations can have a truly impactful digital employee experience strategy.

Those at the forefront of innovation and engagement provide employees with one unified platform that meets employees where they are, offering a seamless and frictionless experience.

MARKET TRENDS AND FORRESTER’S FRAMEWORK FOR MEASURING MATURITY

This part of the discussion touched upon the rise of Digital Employee Experience (DEX) teams, investment in cross-functional teams, breaking down internal silos, and addressing challenges in remote or hybrid work settings. Trends included rationalisation and consolidation of technologies, influenced by line of business leaders in tech investment decisions.

Our speakers emphasised the top of the maturity curve, where organisations can connect the dots between communication efforts and specific business outcomes. Whether it's revenue growth, employee retention, or a faster pace of innovation, the digital employee experience becomes a key player. The alignment of communication strategies with business goals, coupled with data-driven insights, proves pivotal in achieving these outcomes.

Anticipating future discussions, the focus will delve into the measurement of success and success metrics for modern intranets, emphasising the value these platforms bring to enhancing digital employee experience.

GENERATIVE AI TRENDS

There is certainly a short-term value of generative AI, particularly relating to summarisation. In a world cluttered with extensive content, the ability to distil crucial information from lengthy documents becomes a game-changer. The speakers envisioned a tool that empowers content creators and subject matter experts to condense hour-long videos into succinct, shareable bullet points for quick blog posts. Moreover, they underscored the importance of human oversight to ensure accuracy while appreciating the time and effort saved for communication leaders.

Looking into the long-term future, there’s a lot to be excited about when it comes to generative AI and the future. Our experts highlighted how it may be possible in the future to provide every employee with a virtual assistant as part of their employee experience platform. This would take the Simpplr offering to a very different league in terms of what they can do for their customers but, more importantly, it allows the platform to add value and be helpful to employees every day.

In summary, the conversation illuminated the evolving landscape of employee experience, the pivotal role of technology in addressing communication challenges, and the metrics and frameworks for assessing the success of intranet and internal communication initiatives. The speakers advocated for continuous improvement, emphasising the adaptability of strategies based on data insights.

If you missed the webinar and would like to watch on-demand, you can do so here.