While we are now all used to the shift to remote work due to COVID, we are now also looking at an additional shift where employees are voluntarily leaving their jobs (primarily in the United States). These shifts are resulting in a world where it is not enough to provide employees with a job. Large numbers of help wanted signs, and businesses closed due to a lack of staff are obvious examples of this shift. Employees feel like they can get a new job easily, so it is up to employers to find creative ways to hire and retain talent (see the figure at the start of this blog post for a classic example of this).

One of the key methods to retain talent is to provide them with a positive digital employee experience. I recently had the opportunity to get a look into what we can expect for the upcoming release of Tachyon V8. Logically, the Tachyon V8 release continues the shift of focus towards empowering employees through providing employees with a positive digital employee experience. 1E presented several different methods to improve employee experience through Tachyon V8. A few that I found interesting are discussed below (Employee Wellbeing Campaign, Executing a new software rollout adoption plan, Tachyon Welcome).

Employee Wellbeing Campaign

The first topic they raised was the idea of launching an Employee Wellbeing campaign. An employee wellbeing campaign can identify employees who are working on their devices well beyond an 8-hour work day. These employees can be at risk of burnout and can be targeted for specific sentiment surveys to check on the well-being of the employee more directly.

Tachyon already had components available that provided Sentiment surveys and Informational surveys. Tachyon V8 adds “Interactions” and “Announcements”.

• Interactions: Allows the 1E client to react to a user action, application action, or device behavior and prompt the end-user.
• Announcements: One way communication to the end user with captured user interaction. These can be used to announce changes or to provide notification about outages.

The combinations of these four forms of communication (Sentiment surveys, Informational surveys, Interactions, Announcements) provides a platform to identify employees at risk of burnout and help to address these risks.

Executing a new software rollout adoption plan

Effectively rolling out new applications or new application versions is another area where Tachyon V8 brings new capabilities. Instead of just deploying a new application, Tachyon can help you identify the champions and detractors for the application in your organization. Understanding what users are champions of a new application can help to prioritize them early into the software deployment. These champions can also be directed to training would be the most useful for these early adopters. On the flip side of the coin, people who don’t want the software can be de-prioritized for deployment so they can avoid it as long as possible. Their training may be focused on specific new features that would be the most beneficial for them when compared with the previous version.

Based on my experiences, I would expect that these types of approaches would help to decrease the friction on a company for when operating systems must be retired. As an example, eventually Windows 10 will no longer be a supported operating system. This means that Windows 11 will need to be adopted and Windows 10 will need to be decommissioned. A change of this nature is often met with resistance from some end-users. By prioritizing deployment of Windows 11 to internal champions you can leverage these champions to help to positively influence the less enthusiastic employees of the benefits and new features available in the new operating system.

Tachyon Welcome

While it was only discussed briefly, it sounds like “Tachyon Welcome” is designed to address the work-from-anywhere employee onboarding and devices. The solution provides device provisioning or device replacement by augmenting Windows autopilot.

My thoughts (Mergers/Acquisitions & Time Draining applications)

There would appear to be a lot of benefits for companies who are going through mergers or acquisitions. For an acquisition, it would be helpful to identify employees who are performing actions that would indicate that they may be interested in leaving the organization. Specific targeted steps for at-risk employees could help with employee retention. Another area where 1E could be useful in a merger or acquisition is software asset prioritization. Through surveys companies can identify what software solutions the organization uses that are an asset versus those that are a liability. The organization can then focus on integrating the good software solutions and discontinuing the usage of bad software solutions.

Another area that Tachyon V8 interests me is the concept of identifying time draining applications. These could be badly written applications or applications with bad processes (such as a complicated time entry system) or they could be applications that decrease the focus of employees from work (such as social media sites). Identification of these time draining applications can help the organization to identify applications that should be redesigned or applications to consider blocking from being used on company assets.

Additional resources

• The Great Resignation: Great Resignation – Wikipedia
• Tachyon V8: Tachyon 8 – Focus On What Matters Most (1e.com)
• What is DEX: What is Digital Employee Experience (DEX)? – 1E Blog