Bring the Noise – Redeploying capacity through enhanced Employee Experience

Bring the Noise – Redeploying capacity through enhanced Employee Experience

by | Apr 25, 2024 | blog

In today’s evolving business landscape, a modern operating model isn’t only a luxury—it’s a necessity. Organisations must swiftly adapt to talent shortages, restructuring, and disruptions. But how? The answer lies in strategically identifying and addressing the “noise” within operations and redeploying capacity to gain efficiencies. Redeployment isn’t only about moving people—it’s about optimising capacity, leveraging existing talent, and ensuring agility to enhance employee experience (EX) and foster loyalty. However, that’s only half of the equation.

Over the past few years, customer experience (CX) has been a key driver across industries, notably within superannuation where the focus has shifted towards attracting and retaining members through investing in seamless interactions, personalised services, and intuitive interfaces.

But here’s the twist: CX and EX are intrinsically linked. Whilst EX and CX have historically been treated as separate entities there is a definitive link between the two. But what is it?

Let’s look at it in a “Noise” context:

  • Customer Noise: Imagine a customer navigating through your services. They encounter roadblocks—delays, confusing processes, or unresponsive channels. This “noise” impedes their journey toward their desired outcome – Customer noise manifests as frustration, dissatisfaction, and ultimately, churn.
  • Employee Noise: Now shift your focus to the employee’s journey. They face their own set of impediments—inefficient tools, convoluted workflows, or unclear expectations – Employee noise leads to disengagement, burnout, and reduced productivity. It’s the interference that hinders their ability to deliver exceptional service.

In most cases, the noise faced by customers mirrors the noise faced by employees.

So how can organisations tackle this?

  • Overlay Journeys: Map your customer journey alongside your employee journey. Identify touchpoints, pain points, and moments of truth. Pinpoint the areas where noise disrupts the flow.
  • Cost of Noise: Noise isn’t only annoying; it has tangible costs. Calculate the impact—financially and operationally. Consider the cost to serve—people, processes, and technology.
  • Agility as the Amplifier: Agility is your volume control. Be nimble in addressing noise. Iterate, experiment, and adapt.

IQ Group’s Modern Operating Model approach (powered by Xep3) focuses on engagement and knowledge transfer to address practical issues effectively. Recognising the importance of real data to understand these issues, IQ Group through XeP3 involves both employees and customers directly. This collaborative approach serves as a catalyst for change by breaking down barriers, and generating insights that quantify issues and opportunities. Ultimately, this empowers organisations to make informed, data-driven decisions based on a comprehensive understanding of their processes.

If you have any questions or would like to chat with one of our friendly team members, feel free to comment or contact us.

By Shane De Silva, Consulting Director

Automation does not equal efficiency

Automation does not equal efficiency

by | Apr 15, 2024 | Uncategorised

It’s no secret that organisations are diving headfirst into investing in automation, seeing its potential to make things more efficient through cutting down manual work to focus on more impactful work.

Superannuation funds are seizing this momentum, with 73.2% investing in data transformation, 69.6% in automation, and 21.4% in AI/Machine Learning (1).

But here’s the truth: Automation doesn’t always deliver the efficiency we anticipate.

To truly benefit from it, we need to take a step back and view it holistically. It’s not about quick wins; it’s about making things within an organisation work together smoothly – from customers through to suppliers, considering costs at every step, focusing on delivering customer needs, and being able to adapt to change effectively.

As Bill Gates aptly put it, “Automation applied to inefficient operations magnifies inefficiency”.

So, why doesn’t automation always lead to efficiency?

  1. Data transformation – Automation relies on things on reliable data. But when we automate critical processes, we can compromise the accuracy, availability, and reliability of our data.
  2. Suppliers – You need your suppliers and partners to be successful. It’s not just about cutting costs; it’s about working cohesively with suppliers to make the process efficient at every stage. Your supplier’s process is still your process.
  3. Customer experience – Customers drive success. Automating the customer journey isn’t just about saving money, it’s about making their experience better to create loyalty and lasting relationships.
  4. Employee experience – Employees shape the future. It’s not about saving time with automation, it’s about empowering employees to innovate in an environment that welcomes new ideas and creating centaur teams (2).
  5. Technology costs – Automation may seem straightforward, but carries additional, and hidden costs that we need to consider when automating.

In short, automation isn’t a magic fix for efficiency. It’s a powerful tool that needs careful consideration and planning to produce productivity over disorder.

Remember – automation today is the standard of tomorrow.

Written by Shane De Silva

For more information please feel free to contact Shane at sdesilva@iqgroup.com.au