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    Technology firms use expertise to improve employee experience

    Synopsis

    Most companies have gone beyond social networking tools to create a bouquet of applications, which allow employees to do a variety of things.

    ET Bureau
    PUNE: When employees of Pune-based KPIT Technologies drive to work, the company’s ‘smart parking system’ assigns them a parking slot, identifies who they are and even wishes them if it happens to be their birthday or work anniversary. When they leave after work, an update flashes on their phones about the time it will take them to get home, based on traffic data from Google Maps.

    KPIT isn’t alone in offering such tailormade services to its employees. Technology firms are increasingly using their core area of expertise – technology –to improve employee experience at their campuses.

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    Most companies have gone beyond social networking tools to create a bouquet of applications, which allow employees to do a variety of things, from connecting with colleagues in the same vicinity to managing various approvals and accessing concierge services.

    At Persistent Systems, for instance, 25 employee-focused apps facilitate leave approval and workflows to providing the daily canteen menu. One app, Lighthouse, is a repository of all businessrelated documents, updated from employees’ emails. It picks the final version of the document from the email and attaches certain basic attributes to it, whether it’s a client proposal or research report, which makes it searchable by anyone in the organisation.

    “The app knows who can access what level of data and this has empowered people to get the information they need directly, instead of finding the right person to go to, resulting in a 60% increase in employee productivity,” said Mohit Bhishikar, chief information officer at Persistent Systems.

    Over the past 12-18 months, most technology companies have strengthened their digital transformation practices that help their clients make the transition into a world where consumerisation of IT has fundamentally changed their existing business models.

    “The idea of using technology has resonated with forward looking companies. Our new ACE (appreciation, coaching and evaluation) app allows us to give and receive feedback on a constant basis,” said DP Singh, vice-president-HR at IBM India and South Asia. The IT firm has tackled attrition using data analytics and predictive HR tools, Singh said. “We have been able to get back a few hundred million dollars by identifying the propensity of people to leave in certain clusters,” he said. The system sends auto-generated emails to the list of passive candidates after it matches the skills they have with positions that may be available at the company.
    The Economic Times

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