Employer branding can drive digital transformation
By Andy Getsey, Co-founder, Employera
In a recent 2022 report Gartner found that 63% of leading organizations report increased funding of digital transformation initiatives designed to boost productivity and make it easier for employees to get things done. In 2020, Gartner also found that about half of digital transformations fail.
Why such a high failure rate? If you follow the budgets, digital transformation is still primarily about improving efficiency, often with the secondary hope that downstream effects will help with recruiting and retaining top talent. But the greater efficiency brought by digital transformation is primarily an organizational goal, and it requires significant organizational change to succeed. Organizational change is no easy feat. Previously, Gartner found that 46% of CIOs reported that culture was the biggest barrier to digital transformation success.
From an employee perspective, aspects of individual experience like culture, policy, compensation, management style, etc. are greater drivers of satisfaction and retention than efficiency improvements, so it makes sense that improving overall employee experience should become a co-equal partner of digital transformation.
In fact, organizations that involve their employees in the definition of the problems, and the design of potential solutions that digital transformation is meant to solve significantly increase their success rate from 34% to 58% (Gartner 2020). In 2019, Google found that activities that improve employee engagement around transformation include increased consultation with frontline employees (42%), and improved communications (32%), among other things.
Modern employer branding can help. An employer brand is the sum of the experiences employees and candidates have with any organization: its people, culture, compensation, infrastructure, policies, processes, technologies, communications, reputation, etc. Regardless of whoever is formally tasked with employer branding, the creation of employee experience and employer brand is cross-functional. So is the responsibility for improving it.
Involving a modern employer branding team—an experienced leader/facilitator, and representatives from HR, TA, Experience, Branding, Marketing, Communications, IT, Divisions, and the C-suite—to address the human aspects of the working experience alongside digital transformation initiatives will improve both productivity and overall employee satisfaction.
Both are needed for sustainable organizational success.
Many enterprises don’t think this way yet. But they should. Without expanding digital transformation initiatives to improve overall employee experience, most will continue to fail. Expensively.
Want a perspective on your digital transformation, employer brand or employee experience? Want to share ideas about employer branding or talent communications? Get in touch at https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygetsey/.
Andy Getsey is a co-founder of Employera, an employer branding, experience design and talent communications agency that helps large and mid-size companies attract, inspire and retain great people.
About Employera
This is the Era of the Employee. Employera builds, promotes, and drives employer branding through all the touchpoints in the employee journey, from talent acquisition to alumni status. Our services include Employer Branding, Experience Design, Internal Communications and DE&I Communications. We work with some of the most dynamic companies in the world, from well-known global brands to mid-sized companies and hot startups. Employera’s senior leaders are at the top of their fields, and come from major global companies, consulting firms and academia. We’ve worked on the inside as function leaders, and on the outside as expert consultants in all the service lines we offer. Our diverse points of view create powerful ideas and practical bottom line impact.