So significant that the term ‘empathy gap’ has been coined to describe it, the break between leadership perception and employee reality has come to play a significant role in both people strategy and wider business goals.
Despite the link between employee engagement and customer experience being proven, there still seems to be a sense that C-Suite, whether hesitating at where to start or cautious of taking a wrong step, aren’t making the progress needed in the area. Though HR are often allotted the task, they are often without the proper tools or support to reach the potential their organisation is capable of.
But a key player in achieving a genuine transformation for your people may already exist within your business.
Salesforce HR is an unfamiliar platform for some HR teams, but the technology can have a powerful impact on your Employee Experience (EX) strategy – and may also be what was needed all along to get full leadership investment.
In the digital age and an era of remote and hybrid work, these are some damning statistics. With poor technology, employees will inevitably struggle to ensure the service they provide customers is high quality, let alone the frustration that will likely surround trying to complete basic internal processes.
As the world’s number one Customer Relationship Management tool (CRM), Salesforce have built technology that many other platforms are now benefiting from. Certinia, formerly FinancialForce, have created a top Professional Services Automation tool utilising Salesforce technology. The xcd people platform was founded by an HR director who wanted to create a single HR and Payroll software solution that made a tangible difference for people professionals and noticed how building the system on Salesforce technology could be pivotal in that.
Because of this, many organisations have opted to prioritise Salesforce-based technologies across their organisation. The benefits of this to employee experience are massive.
There is ease of user-adoption, as the Salesforce interface is already familiar to the workforce. Smooth integration, enabling best-in-class security. Collaboration also becomes second nature, as information will update automatically across the integrated systems and greater visibility across the business will support improved communication.
Bridewell Consulting attested to the results of a single source of truth after implementing xcd and Certinia together. Read the full case study.
One of the most significant benefits of Salesforce technology is not only that it makes data accessible which makes tracking key employee metrics straightforward, but also, it’s almost limitless configurability means these reports can be customised according to an organisation’s unique goals and priorities.
This means that HR can take the reins and create flexible dashboards that homes in on the data which is most indicative of employee experience in their unique industry and culture – from productivity and performance to sickness and turnover. With the integrations available with Salesforce technology, even greater visibility can be achieved by analysing your organisation’s people data besides customer data.
For example, you may have a team who historically performed phenomenally but who have had a recent uptick in sickness and downward trend in their appraisals. While that people data is already valuable to HR as a red flag for action, HR can go in with an improved understanding of how to tackle the situation if they have access to data from a PSA or CRM tool which indicates the team have been assigned onto too many projects – hence a likely reason for their issues may be burnout.
The configurability of Salesforce doesn’t just benefit your understanding of employee experience, but also serves to actively encourage it.
Landmark were able to implement a bespoke performance module with the xcd people platform, and quickly saw tangible pay off as one of the first tasks the team at Landmark did in their first performance review cycle with xcd was put in a mid-year performance point and set objectives. Within one month Landmark had 90% of their employees with objectives in the platform, demonstrating the impact a tailored approach can make to employee engagement.
While one of the main incentives for investing in employee experience is its correlation with customer experience, it can also have a positive impact on organisational growth and innovation. Organisations who provide a positive employee experience generate 25% higher profits than organisations who do not. It also plays a role in attracting top talent, ensuring loyalty, and seeing greater innovation. This success is not just a win for C-Suite leaders, it also fosters higher morale among employees.
A further incentive for leadership is that on the path towards attaining the achievements that come with investing in employee experience any empathy gap in their organisation will begin to shrink. When the process is supported by the right tech, this will inevitably come with an improved visibility among leadership of their workforce. This includes culture-wide instances of overwork or poor communication to individuals that may be promising or unappreciated talent.
Finally, as the strengths of Salesforce aren’t limited to benefiting employee experience, but also operating as a cost-effective, modern, adaptable organisation, the platform not only serves to make employee experience a goal that is easier for leadership to get behind but also as a cornerstone for wider business operations.
Looking to understand the ROI of your current HR solution? Take a look at our guide to calculating the value of your HRMS.