The key to modern culture transformation: Technology

Culture is the new currency and it’s the key to attracting, retaining, and recruiting world-class talent. I recently discussed how technology can connect employees and help scale culture transformation. In addition to using technology as a source for employees to communicate, connect, and collaborate, we’ve also learned that technology can help create a top-notch experience for employees, allowing them to easily consume new knowledge, participate in data-based decision making, and improve productivity. Here are four ways technology is shaping our approach to the employee experience:

#1—Empower learners

With a culture grounded in Growth Mindset, we’re constantly working to evolve from a company of “know-it-alls” to a company of “learn-it-alls.” When we looked at our learning ecosystem, we realized it needed a serious reboot. Instead of implementing a new, yet conventional learning management system, we combined the power of our Azure cloud technology, SharePoint Online and AI, to create a more personalized, discoverable, and relevant experience for employees. We’re using machine learning to present curated content recommendations based on a learner’s role, organization, and location. Employees are also able to create “learning boards” by posting their favorite courses, which helps us crowd-source new and favorite content. It’s been a valuable effort, and in less than three years, we’ve doubled the number of employees visiting the site each month.

#2—Dispel myths, gain insights

When you’re moving through culture change, you can have a lot of legacy thinking in the system. As a 40-year-old company, we had our fair share of historical processes. We realized technology and data can really help in debunking myths, breaking down silos, and driving insights. Having our data in the cloud has given us the ability to bring many data sources together from different systems to perform richer analytics. One example was a long-held belief by our managers that to hire the best computer science talent, we should only hire from “top schools.” While we wanted to keep hiring from these universities, we also wanted to diversify, so we looked at our internal performance data by school, and realized that over time, employees performed at almost the same level regardless of school. And retention was actually higher by diversifying! This is a great way for managers to see the data, and it has allowed us to change our hiring practices.

#3—Change behavior; create new habits

Another significant way technology has propelled our culture evolution is by helping us identify employee behaviors that will thrive and habits that will succeed. We have massive amounts of data about what employees want, what they’re doing, and what success looks like—and we’re using a range of tools to polish that data into diamonds. For example, by looking at enterprise data from Workplace Analytics and correlating that with employee sentiment, we observed that employees had higher levels of confidence in managers with larger networks and contacts. We also learned that managers who sent more email after hours and on weekends got lower poll scores from their teams on work-life balance. While this may seem intuitive, we’re able to use the technology to create “best practices” for our managers and can proactively offer suggestions to help guide behaviors. We’re moving from data to insights to operationalized insights.

#4—Give them what they expect

A large portion of today’s workers are integrating technologies into all aspects of their work and life, and they’re looking for a culture to support the way they want to work—accomplishing routine tasks quickly and from any device, anywhere. Tools like PowerApps and our Microsoft Bot Framework have helped us turn tasks that formerly required many levels of escalation into self-serve experiences that improve job satisfaction and productivity. An example of this was employee requests for documentation to travel. We looked at our search query data and noted we were manually responding to 50K requests for travel letter documentation each month. Employees might wait several days for their travel letter, or potentially flag for urgent delivery. By using our bot technology, we’ve automated travel letters and they’re returned within minutes of the request or automatically rerouted for additional review. This is not only a positive outcome for the employee, it’s freed up capacity in HR to focus on more strategic work. We are now working on even more scenarios to enable!

Looking ahead

One thing we know about culture transformation is that it’s a journey, not a destination. By continuing to iterate and evolve throughout this journey, we’re finding the most important aspects are being humble about our progress, mindful of the change we’re asking our employees to help drive, and staying open to learning along the way.

I hope you found value in these learnings, and as always, I welcome your thoughts in the comments.