3 ways to create a great employee experience using workplace apps

The pandemic has radically shifted employee expectations. Employees now want more flexibility and meaningful interactions, and less bureaucracy at work. According to PWC, “Employees want their employers to provide a workplace experience that matches what they’ve come to expect as customers and in other areas of their life: Meaningful, personalized, user-friendly and digital.”

Investing in the employee experience at your workplace is a no-brainer. Studies show a direct link between higher employee satisfaction and higher customer satisfaction and profits. Happy employees are more engaged and more productive. A good employee experience also reduces employee turnover. The employee experience is more than just culture, it also includes the physical workplace and technology. Workplace apps are a great way to improve the employee experience. After all, smartphones have become an essential part of our everyday lives—even replacing the need to carry keys or a wallet.

If your company is looking to uplift your employee experience, consider an approach that reinforces your tech-forward identity. Here are three ways you can create a great employee experience using workplace apps.

1. Create a seamless welcome experience for employees

Imagine it’s your first day of work. You arrive at the office, but you can’t get in. You contact the front desk. You take your health check. You wait for your access badge to work. You arrive at your desk, but you don’t have Wi-Fi credentials. You contact the front desk once again. You feel bothersome and anxious for the rest of the day.

The first day of work can be an exciting yet stressful day. Having tools in place to reduce unnecessary stress makes a big difference for your employee’s first experience.Now imagine another first day of work scenario where you have a workplace app in hand. You arrive at the office and are granted access through the app on your phone. You show your pre-approved health check to the front desk team and walk right in. You find your desk on a map within the app and are automatically connected to the Wi-Fi. You feel settled and at ease. You meet your new colleagues with a confident smile.

Beyond the first day, your company can use workplace apps to make the day-to-day more seamless and delightful. Workplace managers can post announcements, like what’s catered for breakfast, to excite employees on their commute to work as they check the app to see which coworkers are going in that day.

2. Foster meaningful in-person collaboration

Workplace apps can make a big impact on the employee experience throughout the day as well—especially if your company embraces hybrid work and hot desking.

If done right, workplace apps can foster meaningful in-person interactions by making it easy for folks to get together and collaborate on-site. How? By allowing employees to see what days their teammates are planning to be in the office, book desks near key collaborators, and reserve rooms to meet with in-person and remote coworkers.That is why you should look for a workplace app that makes the hybrid employee experience a top priority. Your workplace app should combine the power of hybrid scheduling, hot desking, and room booking so employees can manage everything they need in the workplace in one place. Features should include the ability to:

• See who’s coming into the office
• Set your schedule for the hybrid workweek
• Invite co-workers to come in on the same day
• Book a desk near your team or key collaborators
• Favorite key co-workers and get a heads up when they’ll be on-site
• Book the right meeting room or desks with the right amenities

By removing the barriers to collaboration, a workplace app can be a powerful tool to enhance your company’s employee experience and reinforce a collaborative culture.

3. Enhance the tools your employees already use

There isn’t one mobile tool that can solve all employee experience challenges. That is why it’s better to find a mobile solution that can integrate with the tools your company already uses.

Take Slack for example. If your employees already use this app regularly, you want to look for other workplace apps that connect with Slack. That way you can make employee workflows, like checking into meeting rooms or finding hot-desks, available directly in Slack. Another example is building access. Most companies with building access controls have already invested money in those hardware systems. Many of these systems are dated and require employees to carry around physical keys or badges. What if they could get access instead through a convenient mobile app? Rather than replacing your entire access control system, look for a workplace app that can connect with it. Even better, find an app with the capability to function as an all-in-one badge for access to workplace amenities, like printers, parking, smart lockers, and more. There are so many workplace tools nowadays—and countless more to come in the future. If you’re ready to incorporate mobile as a part of your employee experience strategy, make sure to choose a solution that is future-proof. Opt for one with many workplace integration options—and the possibility for more in the future. The ability to align communication, technology, and physical spaces through integrations makes mobile’s potential to improve the employee experience limitless.

Tap into mobile’s potential

As workplaces continue to re-open, now is the ideal time to reimagine the workplace. By leveraging workplace apps to improve the employee experience, your company can gain an easy competitive advantage in attracting, onboarding, engaging, and retaining talent.With the right workplace app, your company can reinforce its tech-forward brand and collaborative culture as well. Considering a mobile solution to elevate your employee experience? Start a free trial of Envoy’s workplace platform today.