This usually prompts me to reflect on the generational gaps that exist in the workplace today, as well as how the workplace has evolved in the twenty-five years that I have been in corporate.

A changing workplace

One of the most significant workplace developments is diversity and inclusion (D&I), which has become one of the most talked about phenomenon in the workplace today, alongside trends such as the use of technology, remote working, and the prioritisation of human resources as a strategic company asset.

The recognition that having people from diverse backgrounds helps to build stronger teams has prompted employers to pay close attention to how they engage and nurture diverse employees, particularly the younger generation, which is quickly becoming the majority in the workplace.

Given the emphasis on D&I and the value it brings to the workplace, employers must consider employee satisfaction from the perspective of each individual employee.

As a result, ensuring a personalised approach to driving employee engagement has emerged as a critical focus area for all businesses and leaders.

In the midst of all of these changes in workplace priorities, technology has become deeply ingrained in our daily lives, particularly over the last two decades.

For example, innovations such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams have enabled people to work for companies located anywhere in the world from the comfort of their own homes.

As technology continues to shape society, it will undoubtedly play a key role in enabling future workplaces, particularly in empowering business leaders to better manage priorities such as tailored approaches to employee engagement.

Employee engagement is critical to achieving high levels of employee satisfaction, and technology can help make this possible.

Personalising employee engagement

One of the critical areas to ensuring a unique and personalised approach to employee engagement and satisfaction is talent management.

A 23-year-old graduate entering the workforce has very different career growth aspirations to a 55-year-old.

The younger employee is more likely to want to learn and advance quickly up the career ladder, whereas the older employee is more likely to be looking for stability as they approach retirement.

Managing this process successfully and ensuring a tailored and personalised approach to talent and career management for each employee鈥檚 specific needs, especially in large companies, can be difficult 鈥� if not impossible.

Employers can empower employees to reach their full potential by investing in tools and systems that automate learning and development, as well as enhance career planning and mapping.

Understanding employee sentiment

Employee feedback should be solicited on a regular basis to better understand employee sentiment and ensure that the company鈥檚 initiatives are aligned with employee expectations.

During the recent pandemic, for example, when most companies shut down and employees worked remotely, this became a priority.

Companies must invest in employee experience management tools to become better listeners.

This enables leaders to foster a listening culture and make decisions based on employee expectations, ensuring that each employee鈥檚 individual needs are well understood and met.

In conclusion, fostering a listening culture is critical to developing a purpose-driven approach that prioritizes diversity and inclusion, resulting in a committed and productive workforce that feels appreciated.

The post How Technology Drives Better Employee Engagement and Satisfaction appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

Cameron Beveridge, Regional Director for Southern Africa at SAP, believes corporate leaders are having to balance traditional business objectives such as revenue and profit with the demands of the modern economy that include building a healthy company culture, playing a positive role in society and being a good corporate citizen.

“The lines are being redrawn around what employees, customers and broader society expect of a modern business, especially as it relates to a company’s role in building a more equitable and sustainable world. Present trends indicate that we are moving toward a situation where environmental sustainability, fair employment practices and societal value trump pure profitability.”

Businesses have traditionally focused on creating maximum value for shareholders, and short-term financial profitability continues to be vital to a company’s growth and success.

However, as the mounting costs and headline-grabbing impact of climate change starts affecting more people in developed and emerging economies, consumers are increasingly demanding that companies also make positive contributions to the environment and vulnerable communities.

Looking beyond quarterly results

Studies have found that , while another study revealed that two-thirds of consumers and 73% of Millennials globally .

“There is growing recognition that companies need to shift their focus from purely delivering quarterly results that drive the share price, to ensuring they minimise their impact on the environment and prioritise creating healthy company cultures, ensuring adequate worker pay, and act as exemplars or enablers of more sustainable business practices,” explains Beveridge. “If your positive quarterly financial results were achieved on the back of environmental devastation, for example, consumers today are more likely than ever to abandon you for a more equitable-minded competitor.”

There are solid economic reasons for building sustainability into a company’s business model. One study found that companies with positive Environmental, Societal and Governance records .

“Business leaders still need to produce solid bottom-line results and ensure the financial sustainability of the business,” says Beveridge. “This is forcing them into a delicate balancing act where the correct course of action is not always clear, adding pressure to decision-makers already besieged by the disruptive impact of the pandemic, a constrained global supply chain, and growing economic pressures. Even the World Economic Forum, highlighting the importance for the private sector to look beyond the bottom line, .”

The new talent battlefield

One of the most obvious examples of the new business balancing act is in workplace culture and employee engagement. During the early stages of the pandemic, businesses around the world shifted to remote models that saw millions of workers performing their day-to-day tasks away from the confines of corporate offices.

“The past two years have marked a greater shift in how we work than the two decades preceding it,” says Beveridge. “In the services industry, workers who previously completed their tasks within an office space under the watchful gaze of managers and HR specialists were suddenly asked to maintain high levels of productivity from home. Now that offices are reopening, many of these formerly office-bound employees now prefer to work remotely at least some of the time, creating new challenges in attracting, motivating and retaining top talent.”

The shift in how people view work came under the spotlight when millions of US workers shifted to more fulfilling or more accommodating jobs in a process dubbed the Great Resignation. “This shift in expectations of what people want from their jobs is forcing companies to rethink their company cultures, their salary packages, and the types of support they need to provide to employees to ensure high levels of productivity and retention.”

Research indicates that , while UN data points to . Work-related stress is also growing and is now , with only 1% of workers saying they’ve never experienced it.

“Business leaders are confronted with the task of balancing their teams’ productivity against the physical and mental wellbeing of each employee,” explains Beveridge.

“As a company providing technology tools and expertise that help companies run better and become more successful, we are in the enviable position to act as both an exemplar of sustainable business practices and an enabler of more sustainable business models,” says Beveridge. “The shift to remote work created a situation where many employees work longer hours than ever before, raising the chances of burnout and forcing companies to implement additional measures to support employees that are working under immense pressure.”

Beveridge advises that business leaders deploy technology tools to dispel uncertainty in their business models and their human capital management strategies. 鈥淐ompanies have an opportunity to be both an exemplar of more sustainable business and employment practices 鈥� for example by reimagining their business models to focus more on longer-term sustainability and value creation 鈥� as well as enablers, by providing tools that assist other companies in their sustainability efforts. As we enter an era of great uncertainty and ongoing volatility, business leaders will need to leverage the latest technologies to ensure they can manage this new balancing act.鈥�

The post The New Business Balancing Act has Leaders Walking a Tightrope appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

As organizations depend on their people to be more agile, they should do more to support their employees鈥� emotional and mental health, especially when many feel so burdened by uncertainty. The employee experience is more important than ever. Caring holistically for people is not just the right聽 thing to do, it’s what employers must do.

Here鈥檚 a compelling business case for companies to put employee well-being and experience first: A strong sense of connection and belonging at work is tied to increases of up to 34 percent in engagement, 31 percent in retention likelihood, and 13 percent in performance, according to the . Created together with Thrive Global, 51风流SuccessFactors, Qualtrics, and Fortune, the Thrive XM Index is a comprehensive study of more than 20,000 U.S. employees at more than 900 companies. Companies have more tools than ever to support employee well-being and now, for the first time, they can connect the dots to business results.

The Best of Next: A Guide

When was the last time you felt like your best self at work? We want to help companies create more of those moments. Recognizing the impact of companies doing more to support employee well-being, Thrive Global and 51风流are working to help companies, no matter their size or industry, do just that. To help HR leaders and managers address two of the most important issues for all remote, on-site, and hybrid workforces, we created two guides: “” and “.”

We want to help organizations keep employees safe and productive to ensure business continuity now and beyond. With practical tips, expert interviews, and how-to videos, these resources can help people and businesses lower stress and anxiety and build mental resilience during this unprecedented time.

Why Listening to Your Employees Makes You a Better Leader

In , Christine Andrukonis, the founder of Notion Consulting and an expert in helping leaders change behavior, explains that leaders need to gain insight into more aspects of their employees鈥� lives to understand them and help them be their best at work.

鈥淚 like to say that 50 percent of the work is about the work itself and 50 percent of the work is about what’s happening behind-the-scenes for the people involved in the work,鈥� Andrukonis says. 鈥淎nd leaders have to have that mindset. Until they can appreciate that half of this success relies on human beings and what’s going on with them, it’s going to be really hard to optimize everything at one hundred percent.鈥�

Why Trust and Empathy Are Key Ingredients of Leadership

Empathy 鈥� being able to identify with what other people are feeling or experiencing 鈥� may seem like an elementary concept, but it鈥檚 a key driver of job performance, according to . However, only 40 percent of business leaders display strong empathy skills.

We understand that being able to put yourself in another’s shoes is critical for social development, but what about in the professional world? Fortunately, empathy is a skill that can be developed, according to one that shares practical examples.

The first step is working on our relationships, and the bulk of that is done through communication, according to Terrence Seamon, an executive career transition consultant at The Ayers Group. 鈥淎 leader has to be very real,鈥� Seamon says. This requires leaders to share their own questions, concerns, and challenges with team members and demonstrate authenticity and vulnerability.

How Well Do You Know Your Employees’ Growth, Ambitions, and Motivations?

Does your boss understand your passions? Is your company asking what really drives people at work? Even experienced professionals need to do some soul searching to find answers, and employers can do their part to help. According to , for leaders to shift from focusing on the job to focusing on people, they need to start by concentrating on employees鈥� capabilities and then design work processes and systems around them 鈥� not the other way around.

This is one of the key findings of a recent 51风流SuccessFactors white paper, 鈥�.鈥� Leaders need to understand that people are dynamic, with capabilities and motivations that change over time.

How to Shape a Workplace Culture That Works for Everyone

There is so much potential for organizations that want to invest in a culture that champions people of different ethnicities, cultures, abilities, backgrounds, and genders. But companies that embrace diversity and inclusion can find that it鈥檚 hard to get real results, despite genuine intentions. Minal Bopaiah, founder of , a strategy and design firm focused on designing a more inclusive and equitable world, to move the needle on creating an inclusive culture.

Bopaiah shares how several white business leaders wanted to do something meaningful by offering to mentor Black people in their professional fields. Bopaiah told them they had it backward. 鈥淵ou want to diversify your field?鈥� she asked them. 鈥淭hen I want you to go find the people in your field who are Black, or indigenous, or people of color who are already thought leaders in this space, so they can be your 尘别苍迟辞谤.鈥�

Fully recognizing that the best diversity and inclusion interventions are voluntary, Bopaiah suggests creating an environment that allows tough, meaningful conversations. We have so much to learn from one another, and leaders can offer support so we can do so inclusively.

A New Way of Working

The COVID-19 global health crisis has created unprecedented disruption and long-term implications for companies and people. By listening to people and leading with agility and resilience, companies can look to the future with optimism. Putting people at the center through human experience management (HXM) is the beginning of this healing process. This has been a difficult past year for everyone, so instead of getting back to business as usual I invite leaders to approach this year as changed individuals and choose empathy and humility to create a more positive and healthy work experience for all. Will you join me?

April Crichlow is Global Vice President and Head of Marketing for 51风流SuccessFactors.

This article first appeared on the 51风流Global News Center.

The post Make 2021 Count: Your Guide to Creating the Best Employee Experience appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

By now, you probably know the elevator pitch: By bringing together experience data (X-data) with operational data (O-data), decision-makers can understand not only what is happening with their business, but also why. It鈥檚 all about closing the experience gap for customers.

Ever since 51风流acquired Qualtrics in January 2019, it has made experience management (XM) a key growth catalyst for the Intelligent Enterprise strategy and is on a quest to make every company understand and apply the power of X+O. But don鈥檛 the same principles apply to SAP?

What few may be aware of is that 51风流has launched its own XM journey. The print was still fresh on the acquisition when Christian Klein, then chief operating officer and now also co-chief executive officer, put SAP鈥檚 Transformation Office to work on ways Qualtrics software could be used to improve its own processes. The goal: to create a world-class XM practice at SAP.

Turning insight into action through experience management at SAP is a multi-year journey, but much has been accomplished inside the company over the past year, and the team from the Transformation Office has even more ambitious goals for 2020.

To find out more, 51风流News talked to Oliver Staudenmayer, program manager for the company鈥檚 TopX Experience Management program and head of Employee Experience Management at SAP, and Christian Koenig, operation expert and project lead for TopX XM at SAP.

Q: What is the goal of the Best Run TopX Experience Management Program?

Staudenmayer: Our goal is to actively design and improve experiences that our customers, partners, and employees love and enable them to run at their best. Ultimately it means transforming SAP鈥檚 internal processes by using new technologies and trends.

Q: How did you begin?

Staudenmayer: After the closing of the Qualtrics acquisition at the end of January 2019, we wanted to move fast to show benefits of combining O-data and X-data. But before we could forge ahead on the many promising use case ideas, we first had to set up one consolidated platform, establish a process for incoming X+O ideas, and build a governance model for compliance and legal requirements 鈥� for example for GDPR and data privacy.

Second, we had to by educating employees about how to 鈥淟isten, Understand, and Act.鈥� Qualtrics software is not just a research tool or data collection exercise, it requires us to follow up and act based on the input. After laying the foundation, we now need to put even greater effort into education.

Despite the large number of requests, by July 2019 we were able to select the top 10 use cases. Several are already live and some were moved into 2020 because of the steep learning curve. But this is merely the beginning, and we are already working on additional uses cases.

Q: Where did the top 10 use cases come from and how were they evaluated?

Koenig: Some ideas came from the field while others came from the Transformation Office. We scored each use case by asking: (1) Is it a strategic fit? (2) Is it a true X and O use case, rather than just X data? (3) Can it improve our top or bottom line? (4) How much effort is involved? A matrix depicting impact versus effort helped us identify the quick wins and choose the top 10.

Q: What were the most promising use cases?

Koenig: That鈥檚 hard question to answer, because great use cases are still rolling in, but here are a few:

• For customers, Net Promotor Score (NPS), which is conducted quarterly, indicates on a scale of 1 to 10 how likely a customer will recommend 51风流to others. Customer NPS is one of SAP鈥檚 main KPIs and is reported in our Annual Integrated Report.
• For products, 51风流S/4HANA Cloud integration means customers can give direct feedback to help product engineers improve the user experience. Experience data helps developers gain insight into what users are thinking as well as whether functions, features, and design choices are actually hitting the mark.
• For employees, MyTeam Dashboard is a tool available to team managers at 51风流to support their HR-related management tasks. Based on 51风流Analytics Cloud, data is collected from managers to find out how helpful the dashboard is during compensation rounds and to identify training needs for managers to support them in their roles.
• The Feedback Catcher enables any employee to give feedback on whatever they like. It will be installed on the computer and on mobiles, and employees can give feedback on anything they like, whether it鈥檚 the purchasing process, online conferencing, cafeteria food, bicycle stands, etc.

Q: Do you think that Experience Management solutions from 51风流(Qualtrics) will change the way employees work in the future?

Koenig: The solution alone will not help us to become the experience management company. This is a journey that doesn鈥檛 happen overnight. The good news is that there is a great deal of interest in the topic and goodwill among employees. Every transformation requires a cultural change, and to become an experience company, we need to focus on the third imperative of 鈥淟isten, Understand, and Act.鈥� Acting on the feedback, showing results and transparency are key to a successful XM program.

Q: What plans do you have for 2020?

Staudenmayer: We have big plans to deliver what we are calling our 鈥渇lagship鈥� use case that seeks to integrate experience data across all four Qualtrics pillars: Customers, Products, Employees, and Brand. The goal is to achieve a holistic view over how employees are experiencing the processes across a company and then provide management with the data to act on it. The idea is that happy employees leads to happy customers 鈥� a goal that applies to every company, not just SAP.

Q: Speaking of experience management, what鈥檚 your experience been as project lead?

Staudenmayer: The good news is that there鈥檚 a great deal of attention on how XM can be applied in our daily work with customers, employees, and products. People are working together very constructively across SAP, focused on the larger goal of getting the use cases launched, so it鈥檚 been very exciting to be a part of this journey.

This article first appeared on the 51风流News Center.

The post How 51风流Is Using Experience Management to Make Itself Run Better appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

So what lies ahead for a sector under pressure to limit carbon emissions and create a different future for hydrocarbon-based businesses?

To start, there is no point in visionary planning for 2030 or for worrying about efficiency and productivity in the oil and gas sector unless steps are taken to prevent catastrophic climate change in the same time period. El-Molla is keenly aware of the need to address this issue 鈥� now.

We are focusing on gas in the interim as we work to fill 40 percent of our energy needs through wind and solar by 2030,鈥� he says. In addition to meeting the demands of the domestic market, the Minister鈥檚 vision is to help Egypt become a clean energy hub for the region. Thanks to a clear strategy and massive efforts undertaken by the Ministry since El-Molla鈥檚 appointment in 2015, that long-term goal has every chance of success.

This ongoing strategy for sustainable economic reform along with the discovery of the offshore Zohr gas field in the Mediterranean are behind the that Egypt will be one of the top 10 global economies in just 10 years 鈥� ranked number seven, ahead of Russia, Japan, and Germany.

Provide an Outlook

El-Molla spent 24 years in various operational and executive positions at and recalls turbulent times during the early part of the decade when two revolutions were followed by a period of instability and insecurity for Egypt鈥檚 120-year-old oil and gas sector. The Ministry is responsible for securing refined products for the entire country and for maintaining and ensuring production through joint partners. But during that time it was facing the practical problems of shortages and a decline in production.

Stability returned under the current President, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who realized the need for someone with El-Molla鈥檚 experience to lead necessary change.One of El-Molla鈥檚 first steps was to reach out to partners, vendors, and suppliers.

鈥淒uring difficult times it is easy for investors and multinationals to just shut down and leave,鈥� he explains. 鈥淚t鈥檚 critical to keep them engaged. They need to feel confident that their investments are protected, and that the government is a stable, reliable partner.鈥�

The next steps were more difficult.

Modernize for Change

Becoming the regional energy hub requires massive changes, so the Ministry created a comprehensive modernization strategy that addresses key areas such as production performance, refining and distribution, and enterprise resource planning (ERP). But the core area for overhaul was human resources (HR) development.

The Ministry is a fragmented organization comprising different holding companies, joint ventures, public sector entities, and investment groups. More than 240,000 people are part of it, but they were not connected to each other.

鈥淭he last organizational change was 20 years ago,鈥� El-Molla says. 鈥淲e need to communicate our vision of change, we need to connect people to the vision, and we need the right people to make it happen.鈥�

Pulling it together requires one global system, one consolidated balance sheet, and mostly importantly, one team. The Ministry first created an intranet to facilitate unified updates and messaging and get buy-in from employees. El-Molla knew from previous experience that people often feel threatened when new systems are implemented; they only accept change once they realize the system will help them work more efficiently and save time for more fulfilling tasks.

Together with his team, El-Molla then identified key competencies and announced internal openings for subject matter experts and core business disciplines such as finance and administration. Out of 3,000 applicants, they selected 700 motivated and ambitious individuals and then whittled that group down to 400. Those selected were sent abroad for on-the-job training and given mid-management roles upon their return, ready to fast-track the organization into the future.

鈥淲e now have the most diverse, highly qualified, dynamic team to take us to the next level,鈥� says El-Molla proudly.

With the right people in place, El-Molla can focus fully on the modernization process, which requires the right technology. was his first choice not only because he was familiar with it from his Chevron days, but because he believes it is the right ERP solution for preparing a national industry to work more efficiently with minimum losses at higher productivity rates.

El-Molla believes in leading by example. The modernization program at the Egypt Ministry of Petroleum will not only set an example for the nation; as it begins to show results, it will help unlock the potential of the entire region by improving the economy, empowering people, and creating sustainable sources of energy for generations to come.

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