
Employee Engagement and HR Service: Providing Employees with an Excellent Customer Service Experience
HR Service Delivery | Employee Experience | Talent and Culture
Est. Read Time: 3 min.
Achieving higher employee engagement requires facilitating positive interactions and employee experience throughout an employee’s lifecycle, addressing needs from pre-hire through employment to off-boarding. Previously, we’ve explored how better HR service delivery can support employee engagement and how an HR Service Delivery Platform can bridge the employee engagement gap. Here, we’ll take a look at how providing an exceptional “customer service” level of HR service delivery translates into the best possible support for employees, increasing productivity and engagement.
What does providing employees with a “customer service” level of interaction mean?
In the same way organizations strive to meet the needs and expectations of their customers, organizations should also aim to meet their employees’. A “customer service” level of interaction improves employees experience, leading to higher engagement and better employee retention.
These interactions can be manifested by fulfilling, or even exceeding, employee expectations for technological capabilities, access to good information, and efficient assistance. It can also be achieved by anticipating employee needs, accounting for an employee’s entire lifecycle rather than focusing on isolated questions or issues. A “customer service” level of support is personalized and positive, and positions the employee as a central focus of support processes.
HR technology plays a crucial role in meeting employee expectations
As more and more sophisticated technology plays an integral role in our daily lives, employee expectations of technology encountered during the work day are growing increasingly higher. Modern and agile HR technology can help meet employee expectations, not only by being easy to use and learn but also by elevating HR’s capabilities to provide excellent service.
On the employee’s side, an HR Service Delivery Platform makes it simple and easy to find relevant information and materials. Empowering an employee to find information on their own time, quickly and easily without having to ask for help saves time and potential frustration, and has a positive impact on the employee.
On HR’s side, excellent technology can support better communications between HR and other departments, improved accountability and a reduction of errors, reduced manual labor through automation, and much more. An easy-to-use platform can save HR a tremendous amount of valuable time, helping the department shift from a reactive state to proactively fostering employee engagement. Employee file management, case management, advanced analytics, and agile process automation make it easier for HR to help employees and resolve inquiries faster.
Better technology lets HR provide a “customer service” standard of support to employees
Quickly getting employees the support and information they need has a direct and positive impact, letting employees get back to work faster. When technology improves HR efficiency and effectiveness, employee interactions are also improved, automatically elevating employee experience and engagement. Excellent technology allows HR to provide an exceptional “customer service” level of support to all employees, yielding real business effects as employee engagement improves and productivity levels rise.
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About Nicole Lindenbaum
Nicole Lindenbaum is the Director of Product Marketing at PeopleDoc by Ultimate Software. Nicole leads the global messaging strategy for PeopleDoc by translating technology into business benefits HR can actually understand. With significant experience in HR technology, Nicole writes and speaks about HR service delivery, employee experience, digital transformation, and the future of work. Nicole holds a BFA from Syracuse University and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.