Are you – the EX leader or aspiring to become one – struggling to improve employee experience in the context of:

• ongoing high turnover
• employees’ evolving needs and rising expectations
• abrupt changes in work behaviors?

What you need is the right set of tech skills and technology expertise.

Which will get you properly equipped to better juggle with all these challenges. To design and implement the best employee experience framework.

And this is precisely what you’ll learn in this blog post:

• Why you need tech skills to design the best employee experience
• How technology impacts the employee experience
• How to overcome the tech skills gap in employee experience leadership

… So you can use technology to streamline processes, design more efficient workflows, enhance productivity, and, overall, deliver an improved employee experience.

An EX that’s more adapted to and relevant in the context of hybrid work. And better aligned with employees’ new type of expectations.

Let’s dive right in.

TD:LR:

• In today's digital age, tech skills are indispensable for Employee Experience (EX) leadership, especially amidst challenges like high turnover and evolving employee needs.
• Tech skills empower leaders to streamline processes, enhance productivity, and deliver superior employer experiences. 
• From navigating complex workplace tech ecosystems to leveraging data for strategic insights, tech-proficient EX leaders drive digital transformation, improve operational efficiency, and foster innovation. 
• With AI and automation reshaping EX, future-focused leaders must embrace innovation, encourage continuous learning, and harness technology to create thriving, adaptive work environments for sustained organizational success.

Picture an Employee Experience Leader

Can you see them?

What are their key responsibilities in an organization? What roles do they play?

What department do they belong to?

An employee experience leader’s main role is to create and maintain a positive and engaging work environment. One that increases employees’ level of satisfaction, well-being, and productivity.

From recruitment and onboarding to development and retention, they’re there overseeing all the aspects of the employee journey.

An EX leader is that individual in an organization in charge of aligning employee experience strategies with the organization’s values and goals.

To achieve this goal, their responsibilities range from identifying professional development opportunities to designing employee recognition programs to promoting work-life balance.

In short, an EX leader’s role is to address all the challenges that employees might face while striving to do their best work.

Additionally, an employee experience leader ensures that employees have access to the right technological resources and tools that help them excel in their roles.

And they’re also the ones constantly analyzing (the right) data to assess and improve the employee experience.

In other words, an EX leader wears as many hats as there are equally valid definitions given to this role.

And they’re all accurate.

The Role of Technology in Employee Experience

One of the EX leader’s key roles is to stay up to date with technological advancements. So that they can anticipate and understand their impact on employee experience.

But what is the impact of tech trends on the employee experience? And their impact on the employee experience leader’s own tech skills?

All the (strategically selected) platforms and digital tools that make the tech ecosystem in the workplace help an EX leader:

• optimize workflows
• streamline processes
• enhance productivity

And when employees have all the technological conveniences to help them do their best work faster and with greater ease, their levels of satisfaction and engagement increase.

That’s the role that technology plays in improving employee experience.

Increasingly Complex Workplace Tech Ecosystem

The old cumbersome and inefficient back office databases have grown, over the last years, into an increasingly complex work tech ecosystem.

One including all the work tools (and there are quite a few) aimed at driving collaboration and enhancing performance and productivity:

• Project management platforms
• Various communication tools
• Data analytics systems
• HR software

An increasingly complex workplace tech stack that presents both challenges and opportunities:

While work technology grows better at empowering employees to work faster and smarter, managing such an ecosystem of different tools and systems grows tougher and tougher.

With challenges like:

• compatibility and security issues that the IT departments need to handle
• a learning curve for the employees to overcome
• integrating and managing a wide diversity of work technologies is no easy task.

A challenge that an employee experience leader needs to face. And overcome.

The Maze of Workplace Data and Analytics

Probably the most important tech skills that an employee experience leader needs to succeed in their role are data science and analytics.

And this is where the real challenge comes in.

With a maze-like ecosystem of data sources, workplace analytics tools, and various data collection methods, retrieving the right data and putting it to good use to optimize the employee experience becomes a daunting task.

As an EX leader, you’re juggling with multiple data sources aimed at helping you assess the current employee experience.

And they range from different employee wellness apps to HR information systems, to employee engagement tools and workspace management tools.

With such an abundance of data available:

• understanding what the data you’re collecting is signaling you about the workplace in your organization and the employee experience there
• turning that understanding into innovative solutions meant to improve the EX

… is a growing challenge. 

The Significance of Tech Skills for EX Leadership

Now, let’s put the spotlight on the “Why” and highlight the most valuable benefits that EX leaders gain from acquiring technical expertise.

Driving Digital Transformation in the Workplace

An employee experience leader who stays up to date and understands the latest technology trends and innovations is able to propose and implement the right set of digital tools and platforms in the workplace.

The right ones to streamline work processes, enhance collaboration, and enable remote work.

Equipped with the right set of tech skills, the EX leader is capable of understanding exactly where each new work tool would fit into the overall employee experience.

And how exactly it will improve EX.

In short, they’re capable of predicting and meeting the needs of the work tech-enabled workforce in the organization.

Improving Operational Efficiency

A strong understanding of technology equips EX leaders with the skill to identify inefficiencies and gaps in current workflows.

And with the skills to identify and implement emerging technologies that improve efficiency – by eliminating repetitive and mundane tasks – and improve decision-making.

Technologies that drive innovation in that work environment.

Making it more effective and efficient.

Leveraging Data for Strategic Insights

Knowing how to manage all that data at hand, interpret it, accurately, and get the most valuable insights into their workforce out of it: this is a critical skill for any EX leader.

And there are so many numbers to take into consideration when building (the best) workplace experience:

• Facility managers need data for optimizing space usage and service offerings to streamline employee interactions with physical spaces
• Sustainability managers need data to help them understand their organizations’ progress against yearly CO2 emissions targets (as sustainable workplace = purpose-driven workplace = higher retention)
• HR managers need data to draw satisfaction insights and qualitative feedback

All these areas are also of interest for EX managers. So how do they collect all these different types of data needed to build the best workplace experience?

The most advanced EX managers rely on all-in-one platforms like YAROOMS, where they can get all the needed data from.

With those numbers turned into powerful insights, they can then design the right policies that improve the workplace experience. That boosts productivity and efficiency.  

Promoting Collaboration and Communication

Once they understand technology and navigate different tools and digital platforms efficiently, EX leaders are able to identify and implement the right set of tools for virtual collaboration and project management.

The type of tools that will boost collaboration among departments and streamline communication. And this is a particularly important aspect in a hybrid work environment.

Attracting and Retaining Talent

Technology that makes them productive and provides them with opportunities for continuous learning and professional growth.

This is what employees expect to find in their workplaces.

This is why (only) tech-proficient EX leaders can attract and retain top talent.

As all the innovative solutions they identify, propose, and implement and the organization’s overall commitment to technological advancement will act as the best signals for top talent to be interested in working there.

And for the best-skilled employees to want to keep working there.

Encouraging Innovation

Tech-savvy EX leaders are the ones capable to:

• identify emerging trends
• initiate transformative initiatives
• introduce disruptive technologies
• set up those types of agile environments that foster experimentation

And probably the most valuable benefit of having the right type of tech skills that encourage innovation is that they inspire creativity in the employees themselves.

EX leaders who embrace innovation through technology are capable of demonstrating tech’s potential to unlock new opportunities. To solve current problems.

Which will help them foster a culture of continuous improvement in the organization.

Overcoming the Digital Skills Gap in Employee Experience Leadership

When the skills gap challenge is real – with a discrepancy between the tech skills that employees have and those that the organization actually needs – it’s the employee experience leader’s responsibility to… help fill in the gap.

And here are 4 solutions you, the EX leader, can adopt:   

Encourage a Culture of Collaboration and Knowledge-Sharing

And here are just 4 strategies you can implement today:

• Establish mentorship programs: bring in digital professionals to help employees develop the needed tech skills 
• Encourage cross-functional projects: foster a culture of knowledge-sharing and collaboration among employees of different levels of experiences and expertise
• Encourage cross-departmental collaboration opportunities
• Encourage peer-to-peer learning sessions among colleagues across departments or within the same department

Encourage Continuous Learning Initiatives

Invest in:

• webinars
• workshops focused on specific tech skills your employees might want to learn/improve
• online courses
• training programs tailored to your organization’s specific needs for tech skills

In short, as an EX leader, you’ll want to encourage and support employees’ initiatives to learn.

To build up their tech skills and stay up to date with the latest technological trends.

Provide Relevant and Easily Accessible Tools and Resources

Online tutorials, knowledge bases, software platforms…

As an employee experience leader, you’ll want to make sure these tools and resources:

• are intuitive
• are user-friendly
• support self-directed learning

Simply providing easy access to various digital tools might not be enough for employees to learn how to use them… immediately. To adopt them right away.

Make sure you offer the technical support and assistance they’ll need to overcome any learning curve or barriers in learning how to use those tools.

And instill that level of confidence in using digital technologies crucial for any digital transformation in the workplace that’s (way) more than just skin deep. 

Encourage Experimentation and Innovation

In other words, as an EX leader, you’ll want to foster a culture of continuous improvement.

Here’s how:

• Set up a supportive environment where employees feel encouraged to test new digital tools and different work tech
• Encourage them to come up with and try innovative solutions to day-to-day challenges in the workplace
• Reward innovative thinking
• Recognize their successes whenever they’re confident enough to implement their digital initiatives

In short, as you, the EX leader, encourage employees to embrace innovative thinking, you automatically contribute to the development of a whole set of technical skills needed across the organization.

What’s Next? AI and Automation in Employee Experience

Tech in the workplace is only growing. With AI and automation revolutionizing the employee experience:

• employee growth opportunities become easier to identify and implement
• HR functions become easier to optimize
• the recruitment process, itself, becomes more streamlined

What does this mean for EX leaders?
More data-driven decision-making.

All that easily accessible data, from a myriad of different sources, helps EX leaders:

• predict workforce trends more easily
• personalize employee experience
• anticipate and meet employees’ needs more easily, rapidly… efficiently

Additionally, AI and automation – when used strategically – enable EX leaders to create a more adaptable and efficient work environment.

A Call to Action for Future-Focused EX Leaders

Employee experience is – beyond all the tools, processes, and resources – about the way leaders act.

If EX leaders embrace innovation, encourage experimentation and continuous learning, and use technology to enhance the employee experience, every individual in that workplace feels that he can thrive and innovate in that work environment.

… And contribute to the organization’s overall success.

And this is the role that any future-focused employee experience leader must strive to excel at.