How using bots can help boost your Employee Experience

Here’s how smart organizations are using smarter technology to exceed employee expectations.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT | 5 MINUTE READ
bots for employees - Workplace from Meta

COVID-19 has put a spotlight on many areas of modern business. Company culture, IT capabilities, internal comms to name just a few. But there’s one area where the post-pandemic spotlight is most intense: the Employee Experience (EX).

Why? Because EX is how organizations create a more meaningful experience at (and of) work. Where employee engagement is designed to change behavior, EX is designed to change culture by focusing on things that only people can respond to – like purpose, trust, meaning and pride.

The keyword here is people. Because only people can effect the changes your organization will need to make to continue navigating through uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

Untangle work with Workplace

From informing everyone about the return to the office to adopting a hybrid way of working, Workplace makes work more simple.

But technology plays a part, too. Over the months of lockdown, we’ve watched organizations of all sizes use technology to bring people and teams closer, find new ways of collaborating, and improve company culture even in intensely difficult situations.

Some of the most exciting of these use cases revolve around the use of bots that provide the ability to automate so many things that slow us down. Here are some of our favorites.

How can bots add value to your Employee Experience?

How can bots add value to your Employee Experience?

Workplace bots help people perform a variety of tasks more efficiently and seamlessly. Take the new DocuSign e-signature bot, for example. It allows people to send and sign documents easily and securely through a simple bot. Something that sounds so simple, yet makes the whole process - the entire user experience - better.

By making work a little less painful (and maybe a little more delightful), businesses can build culture and transform collaboration. And by improving how, when and where people work, they improve how people feel about work.

Using bots to make mundane tasks more manageable

Time is valuable. A lot of organizations face time-sensitive challenges that require a quick solution. And one way to help solve timely HR challenges is to use bots - something Mercado Libre has been using to foster culture in scalable ways.

Finding ways to democratize recognition has been key to boosting team motivation and engagement, and bots have provided people with easy ways to recognize colleagues who have lived the company values and cultural principles. Workplace bots have also helped the Mercado Libre team perform day-to-day tasks like providing unbiased interview feedback to potential candidates in real time, and to schedule several Quarterly Development Sessions with team members.

RHB Singapore used Workplace bots to automate and manage mundane administrative tasks, like the scheduling and booking of meeting rooms and handling of FAQs. Tasks are now error-free and RHB employees can spend their time much more efficiently on areas that affect the bottom-line, like delivering enhanced customer experiences.

Using bots to bring new company values to life at WW

WW, a wellness company dedicated to helping people live healthier lives, started exploring the use of bots on Workplace to communicate with their staff more effectively. They worked with our partner The Bot Platform to develop an employee recognition bot named “Ripple” to encourage peer-to-peer nominations and promote corporate values and behaviors. True to its name, the bot has caused a ripple effect through the organization and has automated WW’s existing processes to bring new corporate values to the forefront.

Using bots to automate workflows at Clarins UK

With an increased number of people working from home, coupled with an already large number working in the field, Clarins UK, created a new digital productivity bot for their field and office teams in the UK; called Clarins Assist: People Directory. Employees simply open the bot using Workplace Chat and search for the key details of any Clarins UK individual working in an office or field role simply by searching by their name.

The bot then retrieves their job title, desk phone, mobile phone, email address, department and location/floor. The bot also enables employees to make direct calls to the Head Office Reception Desk and IT Service Desk as well as providing them with the list of Fire Wardens and First Aiders, both seamlessly and easily.

How can bots help remote workers?

How can bots help remote workers?

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many businesses to close and workers to suddenly shift to remote environments. Many organizations needed practical ways to keep their organization connected and deliver valuable information. Once again, bots offer a smart solution.

Using bots to onboard remote workers fast at Moneypenny

Moneypenny, a company handling outsourced calls and live chat for thousands of different companies used bots to create a rapid onboarding assistant to help transition their employees to remote working as smoothly as possible.

The bot was developed with The Bot Platform and asked employees questions about their hardware, internet speeds and home working environment to ensure employees were adequately set-up for long-term remote work. It significantly speeded up the process and ensured Moneypenny’s teams had the essential tools they needed to deliver excellent customer services for their customers.

Using bots to survey remote workers with Huminos

Quick, easy to schedule and smart surveys are an essential way to take the pulse of employees when they’re working remotely. 700 companies have installed bots developed by Workplace partner Huminos to understand the implications of working from home during and after the COVID-19 lockdown. These organizations have used these bots to send millions of messages to employees. In doing so, they’ve collected real-time feedback about employee concerns and can make better decisions when planning for a return to work.

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Using bots to look after remote workers

Checking on employee mental health when they’re working from home is a critical part of the Employee Experience.

Creating a happy workplace is hugely important to Moneypenny and checking on employee mental health when they’re working from home is a critical part of this. Moneypenny was quick to use bots for this purpose too, using a ‘How are you doing?’ bot to check on employee well being and gauge their work-life balance. Within 24 hours, 75% of staff had answered the survey. They also used a Grab and Go bot where employees get a slot to pick up their snacks and meals in the office and fun quiz bots too

Other organizations had the same idea:

  • Ransa, a leading logistics company in the andean region and Central America, used a COVID-19 bot to share daily prevention tips to avoid the spread of the virus, strengthen work from home skills, and promote mental health
  • Panasonic India also used the Huminos COVID-19 bot to simplify 1:1 communication on Workplace chat, share FAQs on the pandemic, and gather information through surveys. This helped them facilitate quick solutions based on the results data
  • Norwegian renewable energy and telecommunications company Lyse used a bot developed by Workplace partner Prepp for employee onboarding in a new remote only environment. The bot sends push notifications to employees containing important information, and messages requiring new starters take relevant and useful actions to get them up to speed.
  • Clarins UK created a bot that reminds people at 6:00 PM local-time to finish work for the day and retain a healthy work-life balance
How can bots help employees returning to work?

How can bots help employees returning to work?

As some businesses begin reemerging from lockdown, they need to find ways to communicate new policies and procedures with employees, especially those working on the frontline. Some Workplace customers are using bots to ease the burden of reopening by coordinating schedules for returning to work and disseminating information.

Using bots to share essential information at BP – A Beneficência Portuguesa de São Paulo

Latin America’s largest private hospital, A Beneficência Portuguesa de São Paulo, implemented the “BP Responde” bot through Alest Consultoria on Workplace to manage the distribution of critical information as they began navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.

They used the bot to quickly equip their frontline workers with all the most up-to-date and accurate information. This was particularly important as health and safety information was continually changing, and they had to share it quickly and accurately. Given the bot's success and fast adoption, the hospital is now using “BP Responde” for non-COVID updates, including new projects, processes, and general FAQs for employees and hospital workers to get updated regularly.

Using bots to keep returning workers safe at Flight Centre

Flight Centre Travel Group, one of the world’s largest travel agency groups, employs thousands of people globally. Due to varying stay-at-home orders imposed by local and state governments amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Flight Centre’s teams around the Americas are returning to the office at different times.

To ensure the utmost safety of its large employee base, Flight Centre built a Workplace bot using The Bot Platform to prompt employees to answer a few questions - a new attestation the organization is requiring to ensure safety measures are met and the spread of COVID-19 is diminished.

Upon logging on to Workplace, a prompt from the bot will immediately ask the employee of their location: home or office; and if the office is chosen by the employee, they'll be asked to click on a link to fill out a form asking for more information. The tracker automatically appears for employees upon logging on to Workplace - eliminating undue burden on office managers, remote managers, and leadership to ensure it's reminding each employee to maintain safeguards and help everyone return to work safely and seamlessly.

Learn more about bots in Workplace.

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