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Tech Trend: Future of work: Revolutionizing the next-gen employee experience
In the third episode of our Tech Trends 2024 series, we discuss the future of work and next-gen employee experience with our Technology Consulting Partner, Ajay Gachhi. Ajay sheds light on the integration of digital employee experience across platforms and the transformative impact of AI on HR processes. Join us for an enlightening conversation on how technology is transforming workplaces to attract, retain and nurture top talent.
Ajay Gachhi
Partner, Technology Consulting, EY India
Key takeaways
Unified digital platforms aim to provide a seamless, personalized experience to employees, reducing inefficiencies and boosting productivity.
AI enhances human resource (HR) processes by automating certain tasks, improving recruitment, personalizing learning, and transforming talent management.
Advanced HR analytics provide actionable insights, enabling better decision-making and driving overall organizational effectiveness.
The future of HR lies in integrating diverse applications into a single, seamless platform, providing a hyper-personalized experience for employees.
For your convenience, a full text transcript of this podcast is available on the link below:
Pallavi: Welcome to the EY India Insights Podcast! I'm your host, Pallavi, and you're tuned in to another exciting episode of Tech Trends 2024. In this series, we delve into the upcoming tech landscape with our leading Tech consulting partners. In today's episode, we're exploring next-gen employee experience in the tech-driven workplace. Joining us is Ajay Gachhi, our EY India Tech consulting partner with two decades of experience in shaping HR technology across the globe. Ajay's expertise in Digital HR and transformative technologies is set to enlighten us on the future of work.
Ajay, thank you for joining this podcast. It's a pleasure to have you in this episode
Ajay Gachhi: Thank you so much, Pallavi. It's a real pleasure to be here.
Pallavi: To start off, could you elaborate on the concept of digital employee experience integration across platforms and significant please?
Ajay Gachhi: Yes. So, firstly, right at the outset, employee experience remains at the very core and a top focus for creators, right? It's a key pivotal lever for organizations to attract, retain, and nurture top talent in a competitive industry. Now, it is significant because it directly impacts the employee value proposition, employee engagement and satisfaction, productivity retention, and thus revenues and profitability.
Right. The key objective in digital employee experience is to provide a single, seamless, consumer-grade, hyper-personalized experience. Now, the challenge in that, like the topic of the discussion, is that there is now a profusion of applications and siloed processes, even at the largest and most mature organizations. Right. What this leads to is very different experiences for an employee who has to work across multiple applications and different ways of working.
There's duplication of effort, manual transactions, suboptimal insights, loss of productivity, inefficiency, ineffectiveness, etc... Right. The reason this question arises, just to elaborate a little bit, is that now the whole HR platform space has really exploded into literally thousands of applications. This is due to the evolving maturity, being an intensely active space, super specialization, and digital innovations. This is why large organizations can end up having multiple applications.
Now, what are these types of applications? In the past, you had these large foundational HCM platforms like SAP, SuccessFactors, Workday, Oracle, Darwin Box, etc. These used to be one-size-fits-all, end-to-end, covering the entire hire-to-retire lifecycle, apart from handling foundational masters, structures, and employee data, etc. But now these are no longer enough and the HCM landscape has evolved.
So, number one, there are now best-of-breed applications. This is due to super specialization in processes, and whole new subcategories exist. Let me take two examples. Right. So learning: the foundational platforms just had a learning management system. But now the best-of-breed vendors have evolved into new categories like learning experience platforms such as EdCast and Degreed, learning content generation like Skillsoft and Coursera, learning gamification as represented by extended Axonify, learning assessments like Mettl and Talview, and microlearning.
Similarly, recruitment has evolved: apart from applicant tracking, which was the only area there in the past, now there's candidate relationship management like SmashFly, candidate experience sourcing platforms like Arya, assessment and screening platforms like HireVue, biometrics, and so on.
And this diversity exists for every feature area. So now, apart from foundational platforms, all these best-of-breed applications exist. And then there are these specialized digital vendors, right? I mean, these are because of the AI revolution, you have, you know, every area like talent management, where there are AI-based vendors like Eightfold.AI, Sky High, etc., and then there are overall AI vendors like GenAI, OpenAI, Google AI, blockchain vendors like Bitwage, Crone Bank, etc., robotic process automation vendors, virtual agent vendors.
So, and then there are the analytics platforms, productivity collaboration, communication platforms, employee engagement platforms, and so on. There's a huge variety of applications that exist now. So what is the solution to this? Right. So what has evolved is an employee experience layer where you get all of these applications and present a single face to the employee. It's an integrated single window, a single insights layer. You know, it integrates everything together and gives that one seamless, consumer-grade, personalized experience for the employee.
Pallavi: Thank you Ajay for, invaluable insight. Now, as you know, no conversation is incomplete without AI. How is AI revolutionizing various aspects of HR?
Ajay Gachhi: So, Pallavi, as you mentioned, AI is impacting and revolutionizing every aspect and dimension, right? It's an amazing time with intense developments in the HR space. There are numerous use cases and value that are already being adopted and generated. However, the future promises to be even more exciting and fascinating because of a multitude of technologies and possibilities that are exponentially multiplying, right?
When we consider the spectrum of artificial intelligence and related areas, it encompasses generative AI, machine learning, deep learning, robotic process automation, natural language processing, computer vision, conversational AI, AR, VR, social collaboration, Internet of Things, blockchain, etc.
Due to time constraints, let me summarize a few key points. At its basic level, automation significantly reduces manual, repetitive, transactional, administrative, and compliance-related tasks, which constitute a substantial portion—60%, 70%, or even 80%—of many organizations' workload, right? By eliminating these tasks, HR can focus more on business partnering, strategy, and policy.
For example, robotic process automation exemplifies how AI can streamline HR processes such as pre-employment checks, employment contracts, payroll, leave administration, and timesheet submissions. These applications illustrate how AI enhances traditional HR challenges and processes.
In recruitment, AI enhances every aspect, from automated sourcing to contextual search and talent branding through social and network recruiting. AI technologies ensure better process efficiency and effectiveness, facilitating tasks like candidate skill matching and predicting candidate success.
In learning, AI enables personalized learning paths, automated future skilling, and reskilling recommendations, microlearning, gamification, adaptive learning, among other advancements.
Moving to talent management, technologies like AR, VR, and XR transform onboarding experiences into immersive journeys that familiarize candidates with company culture, teams, and work environments. Similarly, machine learning and deep learning enhance career path recommendations, job standardization, targeted sourcing, and social collaboration across processes.
Technologies like IoT and blockchain, though more long-term, promise significant applications such as smart workplaces, automated attendance tracking, and secure, cross-border transactions, revolutionizing HR practices.
The applications are extensive and transformative, marking a new era in HR. I could continue with numerous examples, but let's pause here.
Pallavi: Thank you. As you've mentioned how AI is revolutionizing processes and technology, could you also share examples of how conversational AI and virtual assistants are utilized in HR to improve engagement and employee experience?
Ajay Gachhi: Certainly. This area has become commonplace, with nearly every organization deploying chatbots or virtual assistants to enhance employee experience (EX). These tools, constantly evolving in maturity and features, significantly impact EX.
Currently, examples include employee chatbots handling leave balances, payroll inquiries, benefits tickets, and other service inquiries. Virtual agents assist in onboarding, providing new hire guidance, managing tools, and supporting recruitment with candidate chatbots and virtual assistants for scheduling, status updates, and background checks.
In learning, virtual assistants recommend courses, provide skill updates, simulations, coaching, and facilitate real-time feedback in performance management.
The integration of conversational AI with other AI technologies such as generative AI, machine learning, and NLP enhances these capabilities, creating intelligent and personalized digital assistants that offer tailored assistance, proactive recommendations, and improved emotional intelligence, ultimately transforming how employees work and engage with services.
I hope this addresses your question, Pallavi.
Pallavi: Yes. lastly, pivoting towards the analytics, Our last question to you is what role does HR analytics play in providing actionable insights in enhancing Employees experience?
Ajay Gachhi: HR analytics is one of the most powerful tools for gaining insights, creating value, and enhancing employee experience, right? If you look at analytics, there are multiple levels of maturity—five, to be precise. The higher the level, the greater the value and employee experience. However, many organizations, even mature ones, remain stuck at lower levels—Level one, two, or three—engaging only in reactive reporting and operations. This approach often results in a poor employee experience.
This stagnation occurs due to foundational issues with digital systems. Essential principles such as single-source data, harmonized master data, integrated processes, and systems are crucial to advancing up the value chain.
Even Fortune 500 organizations witness extensive reliance on manual Excel manipulation across departments to gather basic data such as demographics and headcount or to meet immediate senior management demands. This manual effort severely impacts employee experience and hampers progress up the value chain, causing widespread organizational challenges.
HR analytics, however, transforms this experience by aligning with all employee experience principles. It contextualizes feedback, demonstrates outcomes, and illustrates progress. The process promotes transparency, traceability, and aids in running planning processes seamlessly within the workflow. This tailored approach—whether for CXOs, business heads, HR, or employees at all levels—provides timely and relevant information, enhancing overall employee experience.
For instance, personalized dashboards and analytics cater to specific roles, offering meaningful summaries, charts, graphs, and advanced visualization techniques. Beyond standard transactional reports, HR analytics excels in strategic workflows, social media planning, salary composition, and forecasting simulations. Integration across applications and processes enhances talent management effectiveness, correlating performance with rewards, learning with skills, and engagement with attrition and retention.
Predictive analytics further augments decision-making by identifying likely scenarios and early warning signals, enabling proactive measures. Optimization analytics guide decisions on hiring channels and cost effectiveness, while forecasting aids in predicting future manpower demands.
Prescriptive analytics suggests optimal actions, such as defining successful hiring profiles for seamless organizational assimilation. Statistical analysis identifies problems, while KPIs and metrics through dashboards and balanced scorecards measure process effectiveness and efficiency across roles, from recruitment metrics like time to hire and cost per hire to quality metrics.
Benchmarking promotes innovation and optimization. These examples underscore how robust analytics significantly enhance employee experience and organizational value."
This revision aims to improve clarity, coherence, and grammatical accuracy while preserving the original message and emphasis on HR analytics' transformative role in enhancing employee experience and organizational efficiency.
Pallavi: Thank you Ajay. Okay. that brings us to the end of this episode.
thank you for sparing time and joining us and sharing all your insights with us and our listeners It's been an enlightening conversation.
Ajay Gachhi: My pleasure entirely. Thank you so much for having me.
Pallavi: Thank you, on that note, thank you to all our listeners. Don't forget to subscribe to our tech trends he leads across all our podcast platforms, and stay tuned for more episodes where we continue to unravel the latest in tech trends and innovations.
Until next time. This is Pallavi Signing off.
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