What HR and TA leaders need to know about employee experience platforms (EXP)

HR is in the midst of a rapid digital transformation and modernization process. To stay competitive and address changing demands from executive leadership, employees, and candidates, HR and TA leaders must act decisively to modernize their systems and evolve their service delivery.

However, upgrading a human capital management (HCM) system or applicant tracking system (ATS) can be costly and time-consuming. And if your system functionality works fine, why replace it? One reason is that poor user experience (UX) is driving candidates away and limiting employee productivity.

This is where an Employee Experience Platform helps: you can enhance your usability without the high price tag or lengthy implementation process of purchasing a new system or upgrading your old one. 

What is an Employee Experience Platform?

An Employee Experience Platform is a software platform that enables organizations to take complete control of the look, feel, and interactions a person will have while using your systems – without actually replacing the underlying HCM application or ATS.

In more technical terms, Employee Experience Platforms update the front end of your current applications and systems, without influencing or changing the back-end functioning. It’s like taking a house with “good bones” and renovating it to make it more livable. 

In this case, you’re building on the solid foundation of functionality and security provided by your existing software, and creating a new experience layer on top of it that makes it modern, mobile-optimized, and easy to use.

Beyond updating the way your software looks and how people interact with it, the Employee Experience Platform drives a ton of value for your HR and TA objectives.

What business outcomes does an Employee Experience Platform provide?

Employee Experience Platforms address multiple HR challenges, including:

1. Better communicating your employer brand and attracting talent in today’s highly competitive market.
2. Ensuring the candidates you attract submit applications.
3. Increasing employee productivity and engagement.

Better communicating your employer brand and attracting talent in today’s highly competitive market.

If you’ve upgraded your careers site in the past few years, it likely has sections that describe your employer brand to prospective candidates. This may include information on working at your organization, your employer value proposition, and what sets you apart from hiring competitors.

However, all of your employer brand efforts can be undone if your ATS is outdated and frustrating to use. If your ATS provides a negative candidate experience, it will drive down candidate perceptions of your brand.

For instance, if you’re marketing your company as a modern tech workplace where employees focus on developing cutting-edge solutions, but you use an HR system that feels like it was created in 2008, you’re painting your brand in an inconsistent light.

An Employee Experience Platform can update the look of your systems so it matches your external brand. It can also link disparate systems together to create one consistent experience that feels fresh and branded to your organization – where candidates only have to log in to one central portal.

Ensuring the candidates you attract submit an application.

The average industry applicant drop-off rate is 74% and trending higher, according to Smashfly. And, if an application takes more than 15 minutes to complete, candidates are 365% more likely to drop off.

The most qualified candidates drop off first. They have options and won’t take the time to deal with a bad job application process.

This shows that candidates expect more from talent acquisition systems. Low unemployment rates, a candidate-centric market, and the streamlined experiences they’re accustomed to on the apps they use every day as a consumer have raised the bar.

With an Employee Experience Platform, you can provide the same sort of experience candidates have as consumers. Ensuring your system looks great, acts intuitively, and the job application process is fast to complete will result in greatly reduced drop-off rates and more candidates in your pipeline.

Increasing employee productivity and systems engagement.

Most HR systems are outdated, frustrating to use, and time-consuming to learn. Compounding the problem, organizations use multiple systems, each with a different UI that employees must learn.

Employee Experience Platforms make self-service processes and administrative work easier and faster to tackle. Using an Employee Experience Platform, organizations can create a consistent and unified experience that spans multiple systems and employee interaction points. This means that employees can learn the systems more quickly and handle tasks more effectively.

Employees will be more engaged and willing to use the system because they will be less frustrated. The employee experience solution can also simplify workflows and tailor them to the way teams work.

Improving your UI with an EXP will also eliminate many employee inquiries. This will add valuable time back into your HR or IT support team's day.

Enhance your employee experience without replacing your existing systems. Learn more about Skuid EXP and get started today.

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