CIO meets CHRO: The C-suite’s post-pandemic power couple

As executives in every industry expand digitisation investment in 2021, the rise of flexible working has made ‘experience-first’ an enterprise-wide priority.  The pandemic has fundamentally changed how and where we get work done—and the pressure is high to deliver engagement, retention and sustained levels of productivity as we navigate the future of work.

Supporting the demands of an agile, distributed, “anywhere, anytime” workplace presents a new set of challenges for the C-suite. Along with Zoom fatigue and work from home burnout, organisational silos have become more visible with remote working – culture doesn’t shine through as well through the lens of a camera. So how can managers monitor and respond to shifts in employee sentiment in a hybrid environment? How do leaders deliver embedded company culture to the homes of recent hires who are yet to set foot in a physical office?

Overcoming the employee engagement hurdles of a virtual office requires a human-centred approach at every level. Technology leaders are in the best position to lead these efforts, but they can’t do it alone. Not only does this scale of digital transformation require full C-suite support, one of the critical success factors is close collaboration between the CIO and CHRO.

IT and HR better together

Over the past year, IT and HR departments have been at the frontline of pandemic disruptions. Creating safe, productive and resilient work environments requires hand-in-glove alignment between teams responsible for technology and those shaping the employee experience—sometimes it’s easier said than done.

IT is often motivated by boosting speed and productivity metrics while HR is focused on how a candidate might feel when they’re navigating an exceptional recruitment journey. Over time, both functions are coming to realise the experience as two sides of the same coin.

The right experience can accelerate technology adoption, the behaviours you’re trying to incentivise and the economic outcomes the organisation is trying to achieve. Modern businesses are no longer implementing technology just to solve business problems: they’re reimagining moments in the employee journey that can have an overwhelmingly positive—or equally negative—impact on the end user.

Workflow IT

A great example of powerful IT and HR partnering is the remote onboarding process, something many executives had given barely given a passing thought before COVID-19. Talent teams, hiring managers and technology departments came together overnight to reimagine a predominantly physical experience as an entirely mobile process—and then coordinate across facilities, payroll and finance and others to make it happen.

At ServiceNow, the mission for our own IT and HR teams was simple: go beyond automating tasks and design for the moments that matter. New hires should be enabled to complete activities, view content and get help—all via an app. We built virtual experiences that supported our newest employees throughout their journey, leveraging intelligent workflows to provide intuitive, frictionless experiences for cross-departmental processes.

While some ServiceNow customers were initially hesitant to recruit and onboard virtually due to the lack of personal connection, physical distancing restrictions meant they didn’t really have a choice. Using the Now Platform, we’ve helped Indian companies onboard thousands of new employees over the past year, ensuring they could hit the ground running on day one.

Getting it right means employees have what they need right away and can start working quickly, from any location. Instead of new hires fixating on a stressful interview process and wading through manual forms, they’re delighting in a first week punctuated by meaningful interactions that validate their career move. When CIOs adopt the same ‘experience-first’ mindset as their CHRO colleagues, the onboarding process becomes seamless—for the new employee and those responsible for important touchpoints in the journey.

Technology in service of people

Building a truly digital workplace means looking at every layer of the enterprise through an employee lens: enabling collaboration at all levels within the organisation, treating your workforce as your best customers and identifying the experiences that matter most to them.

When IT and HR come together to provide their people with great digital experiences, they’re rewarded with increased engagement, higher productivity and greater business continuity. They’re also creating the necessary tools to unleash innovation and agility.