Cognizant: Streamlined employee experiences result in organizations better equipped to compete and thrive
Knowledge management systems can be a valuable technology enabler
The lessons B2C companies have learned about the path to superior customer experience (CX) can be applied in B2B enterprises to streamline employee experiences — powered by a modern digital backbone and technology-enabled workflows — resulting in organizations that are better equipped to compete and thrive. That’s the message consulting firm Cognizant* delivers in a recent article entitled “Experience Goes Enterprise-Wide Compliments of CX”.
“Like CX, memorable [employee] experiences are personalized, seamless and intuitive,” Cognizant writes. The authors specifically recommend identifying “pain points [employees] might encounter, such as navigating the organization to find the right person and information.”
That is precisely what a well-designed knowledge management (KM) system can do. Indeed, Cognizant calls out “providing knowledge management that’s accessible and user friendly” as one of the top strategies for fostering the type of employee experiences to which advanced organizations ought to aspire.
However, knowledge management systems should not be treated as a “generic” technology; rather, they should be optimized for specific functional areas and use cases to most profoundly impact the employee experience. As Cognizant puts it, “Great experiences come from better, technology-enabled workflows. For example, tools that . . . let you mine the vast reservoir of information in your organization’s knowledge management systems, providing greater transparency and self-service.”
Consider the specialized use case of a knowledge management system optimized for market and competitive intelligence research. It should not only enable each user to search for documents on a topic of interest, but also should present a substantive digest of each relevant document that highlights key insights contained within it, rather than simply a link to it.
In addition, since many professionals today (especially those of the Millennial generation) are collaborators and feel better about making decisions once they’ve gathered input from colleagues and recognized experts, what would be more useful than a blank SEARCH box would be something approximating a referral engine – a portal that would not force them to slog through pages of vaguely defined search results, but instead would directly send them the useful, targeted information they’re after. Rather than search for content, the user would browse to content, which is an experience more comfortable and familiar to individuals who came of age on social media.
Those are the kinds of optimizations that a purpose-built knowledge management system can include to enhance the employee experience, capabilities beyond what a general purpose KM solution might offer.
Cognizant concludes, “Applying the well-honed principles of customer experience to launch similarly personalized, intuitive interactions across the enterprise can pay off in stronger, more resilient operating models.” Not to mention more productive and satisfied employees.
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* Cognizant is one of dozens of authoritative sources contained in Northern Light’s Thought Leaders Content Collection, available to SinglePoint subscribers directly from Northern Light, and to individuals and companies through Amazon’s AWS Marketplace and the Amazon Data Exchange.