Reworked TV
In Brief
- IT plays a critical role in onboarding. Onboarding traditionally has focused on introducing new hires to the company culture and administrative processes. While both are important, IT also needs a place on the agenda as a bad tech experience can color an employee's first impressions of a company.
- Early tech onboarding impacts productivity. The longer the gap between the first day and IT onboarding, the greater the impact on productivity. Using data on cost of lost productivity can help IT leaders move themselves up in the onboarding agenda.
- Enhancing employee engagement and satisfaction. A well-handled onboarding process affects long-term employee engagement.
In this inaugural episode of Reworked TV's series, Three Dots, editor in chief Siobhan Fagan discusses why IT and HR need to collaborate when it comes to employee onboarding with Spencer Mains, head of digital workplace experience at Pacific Gas and Electric.
They cover how leaving IT out of the onboarding equation affects productivity, employee experience and long-term employee expectations. Spencer also shares his outlook on treating employees as customers and why employee joy is a metric he tracks and strives for. Tune in for more.
Table of Contents
- Introduction to Three Dots
- The Digital Workplace Experience and Onboarding
- What Onboarding Looks Like at PG&E
- The Relationship Between Onboarding and Productivity
- Why IT and HR Have to Collaborate
- Joy: A Necessary Part of Digital Workplace Experience
- Where Tech Fits in Digital Workplace Orientation
- Breakthrough Thinking in the Digital Workplace Experience
- Your Co-Workers Are Your Customers
- Next on Three Dots ...
Introduction to Three Dots
Siobhan Fagan: Hello and welcome to Three Dots, a human-to-human digital workplace chat. Three Dots is where we'll be speaking to digital workplace practitioners and experts to get an inside look at the trends, the challenges and the success stories driving today's modern workplace. I'm your host Siobhan Fagan, Editor-in-Chief of Reworked and I am thrilled to be here.
Our first guest is Spencer Mains. Spencer is head of the digital workplace experience at Pacific Gas & Electric and has over two decades of experience in the digital workplace area. I can't wait to bring him on.
The Digital Workplace Experience and Onboarding
I have to say, Spencer, that when I think digital workplace experience, onboarding really surprised me that that was a topic you felt passionately about and that you wanted to talk about? I think that oftentimes people think of onboarding as sort of the HR realm. So why don't you talk a little bit about why you care so much about onboarding?
Spencer Mains: Yeah, I just think, you know, I've been involved in information technology for probably about 25 years now, um, and been to a variety different companies. And there's there's variations on people's perception of the value of .
Generally, from my experience, it is typically about the company culture, about the company history, about some of the policies and procedures, you know, and who's your, you know, who's your buddy, that's going to help you for the next couple of weeks, that kind of thing.
But what's generally taken for granted is the the technology side of onboarding. And it's taken for granted, not in a malicious way, it's just generally not thought about as a critical component of that experience. And it's becoming increasingly relevant over time. So maybe 25 years ago, it wasn't quite as relevant that it was perfectly okay to not receive your computer equipment for you know, a few weeks, you know, and maybe your phone didn't need to be activated, you know, right away, because you're going to be in a lot of meetings anyway. That's not the case anymore. And it's particularly relevant post COVID.
You know, so when you come on board, you literally in some cases cannot work unless you have a day one productivity effort, which generally revolves around technology. And that's not just received in your computer, but that's having a full understanding of the various applications that you probably will be interfacing with, just to do your work. And it can be as benign as how do I even join a meeting or scheduling meeting so I can join other colleagues that I may or may not really be able to meet in person.
And so well, I just wanted to finish the thought that, that, you know, unless you make this a relevant part of that experience, you know, the history and the culture of that company is really important. But in the absence of the technology, a lot of that stuff isn't quite as material because you just can't be productive.
What Onboarding Looks Like at PG&E
Siobhan: I want to dig into this further. But first, I want to kind of set the stage for our audience about what onboarding is like, specifically at Pacific Gas & Electric. Obviously, you've got frontline workers, you've got desk-bound workers, wherever it is, but I know that you do have a hybrid policy. So what does onboarding look like? Do people come into a central office? Can you set that stage a little bit?
Spencer: That's what we're currently doing. And it was a bit of an opportunity for us and the technology side of the house is, we are a distributed workforce.
But what we do in a very intentional way is if you're a brand new employee to this organization, whether you work in the field, or if you're what we call an office worker, you are required to come in to a central location and go through a full day orientation around PG&E, or best practices or strategies, we call it True North strategy, you know, what is our mission.
What was absent of that, for the longest time was a technology deliverable, meaning that you could arrive at the central location, and leave that location without any computer equipment or without any orientation on how to even get started. And what we noticed was there's a huge hit in productivity for these brand new people. So they came in, they felt all warm and fuzzy about joining this wonderful company, but they would leave without a laptop. And maybe that would arrive at their house. Maybe it wouldn't, and it could be a couple of weeks, and that's a big problem.
So what we did is we recognized, and we partnered heavily with HR, is let's get the equipment ordered prior to arrival. And let's have that ready and prepped and configured. And we will do our own orientation. You know it during that day and believe it or not, there was no IT orientation, there was a phone number you could call. And you could ask for help. But that was that was the long and short of it. And we felt that was very inappropriate, and a bit of a letdown because I think people actually get excited about receiving their equipment, it's sort of, it puts a thumbprint that I have arrived, I am here, I exist. And you know, I have the tools that I need to carry forward.
So believe it or not a year ago, we had people coming on board, and it could take an average of five days before you are actually connected to the network with your equipment. And that's a bit of a shame and kind of an embarrassment. It's not right for our ratepayers, it's not right for their colleagues. So we we we quantified that as as lost productivity. We showed the numbers, it was in the millions of dollars of lost productivity, we have people who were actually sitting idle. And we changed that. And so the whole goal, the mission became our stand was, no one will leave this organization on the first day without being properly outfitted with technology. And that isn't just a laptop, but that's literally verifying that they have connected in there ready to go. And they have the basic understanding of how to navigate the various applications that they need to do their work.
The Relationship Between Onboarding and Productivity
Siobhan: I want to talk a little bit about you, you've raised productivity a number of times, and I know that that's a way that you quantify some of the arguments that you make and how you actually got this time on the docket for onboarding.
But when we think about onboarding, and you talked about how people are coming in, they're all excited. You know, this, like, for some people, it might be the first job they ever have, like, what else are the risks of bungling this? Like what what happens when somebody's sitting there, potentially at home, five days, no laptop, maybe connecting through their laptop, maybe not able to because they don't have the right security clearance, etc.? What else is at risk here?
Spencer: Well, there's a variety of things are at risk. But you know, one of the ones that I think is very relevant is a lack of engagement, you will question if you made a good decision by entering that company, and and you know, with the lack of, of a holistic approach to, of having you join this organization, and I really have a strong belief that that the technology experience is part of that holistic approach, you're risking engagement with an employee, you've set a seed that maybe there are other problems in this organization. And those those can only be highlighted more as a result of, of having a dissatisfied experience.
And, you know, I think there's some statistics around that, a great onboarding experience, you've raised the potential of someone staying engaged in your company, by 69%, right, they just feel like they've made a very good decision, they feel like they're fully engaged in the organization that is joined. And I think we kind of forget how scary that moment is, when you join a new company. And you don't want to give more reasons for people to second guess a decision that they made. These are, you know, incredibly big decisions that people have made.
In some cases. They, they, they might be getting a big break. Right? Or they may be leaving one company for another. And you know, if it's the technology component, if the digital experience, if we're absent there. I think in today's world, you really question whether or not you've made a good decision here. So that's one of the risks.
The other risk, and it depends on the company. But for us, you know, we're, we're part of public safety. You know, if the power isn't working, if the heat isn't working, there's risk to, to our neighbors in Northern California. And if you have a vital employee who's come on board, and maybe they work in the field, and they're just not connecting, and by a circumstance, let's say we have a storm event, and they're in the field, and they just aren't ready to go. We're putting our public at risk. And we cannot afford to do that.
And that that's pretty extreme. It's never really happened here. But we don't want to be part of that story. You know, the story needs to be that that you didn't think about the technology necessarily. It's just it's just a given that it's there, right? You can't assume that, that that is taken from granted, right? You have to have it taken for granted in a completely different way that it should just be there and it should just work, and that's the last thing you really should be thinking about. So that's our point of view on sort of that risk spectrum.
Why IT and HR Have to Collaborate
Siobhan: Absolutely. You said that you're now working with HR that you now have this as part of the onboarding experience but when you first had to identify that lost productivity when you first had to raise the point that some people were potentially going for days without the access to technology.
You said at the beginning that you, you know, the technology was an oversight, not maliciously, but so did it come as a surprise when you said, hey, you know, can can we be part of this onboarding experience? Can we get woven into this somehow?
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Spencer: You know, it wasn't a surprise, which was a surprise, meaning that we've haven't had anybody really pay any attention to this. And we've been asking for this for a while, seeing this as a gap. But no one really owned it.
And, you know, a couple things that I observed, I came on board, I run digital workplace, and my onboarding experience initiatives, technology was actually wonderful. All my equipment arrived, it was during the pandemic. But all my equipment arrived. You know, a couple days before I got started, I had people reaching out to me saying you need to do these five things. And I made a big assumption that it must be like, it must be like this for everybody.
Right, well, it turned out, but you know, one of our virtues at this particular company is curiosity. You know, if you're curious about how things work, you'll uncover things that maybe need to be paid attention to. And I was very curious about this, because in a previous organization that I was with, onboarding was part of my part of my experience. And I was curious, is it like this for everybody? And it turned out that it's not. Depends on who you are, and what role you play.
So if you're a VP in the organization, you will definitely get your equipment on the first day of work. Right, but you know, I don't like to look at it that way. I don't think there should be favoritism. When it comes to outfitting people with a great digital experience, it really shouldn't matter what role you play in this organization, everyone's a human being, they all play a part. And so everyone should be treated the same.
So we didn't have a standard that existed. And then, you know, when I inquired a little bit further, so how long is it taking for some people? And we have, we have data, we have metrics around this, we know when an account comes online. And so we inquired, like, we know this person, or people are starting on this day, let's just take a group of a couple 100, out of the 200 people who came online when, and we discovered it's like, well, some of these people are coming online, like five days into their journey. Others are coming online on day one. And we noticed that there was a big gap there.
And so by using data as as sort of our truth, we're able to uncover this. It's a problem. And then, you know, sort of to your questions, like, was I surprised? Well, I was surprised that people weren't really owning this and caring that much about it. Because it wasn't a surprise that it was taking that long, people sort of gave into the process, there's like, well, this is kind of how it is.
And by using data, it's like, well, this is a problem and making the correlation around some of the risks that were involved in the cost of the organization. And, and even taking some of the joy out of working here, right, which is an index that we use, are you happy at this company. And when we make correlations that I'm kind of happy, but it's kind of hard to work here, because I don't even really have the equipment to do my job. And it makes me a little less happy, a little less engaged.
And so when we, you know, made all those correlations and presented the case that we really shouldn't be operating this way, we need to pay a lot more attention to it. In that lens, using that lens, it changed the narrative in the story a lot. So it wasn't just about tech anymore. It was just about a human experience. Right? And that that's a different kind of conversation, which gets everyone's attention.
Joy: A Necessary Part of Digital Workplace Experience
Siobhan: I am so happy that you brought the joy up. You have mentioned joy in conversations that we've had previously. Again, I'm gonna say that's unexpected. I do not expect to be talking about you know, digital workplace technology and hearing joy. It's nice, it's good.
But I was wanted to know, like, are you mixing qualitative and quantitative data when you are giving this feedback? When you're saying, like, we can see that these people are onboarding, but at the same time, we are actually talking to the people, that phone number that you shared earlier that people could call. Did you notice the number like that number not being used as much like so what how is what is the mix of data that you're using to report this?
Spencer: Well, it's a little bit implied that you can't be fully happy. If you're having to call the service desk just to connect to the network, right? That's that's not a joyful moment. That just can't be right. So it really starts with having that vocabulary and really you know, been very deliberate about making that connection.
So, you know, I don't think a year ago that we would have considered the technology component, that deliverable, as as an aspect of joy at work. We very intentionally changed that dialogue, if you will, meaning that it isn't completely going to address joy at work. But it certainly is a component of that. And you can't ignore that. And we shouldn't be ignoring that, because we can be better.
And so I think, for us, it's a matter of when we survey our employees, and we do this twice a year, you know, how's it going here? Making that part of the conversation making that part of a very deliberate question is very important, because that's part of your voice of your coworker. A lot of companies are really good at getting the voice of the customer. Right? There's correlation if you have happy customers, so they'll probably return in purchase more, or they may, you know, continue to work with your professional services, whatever it is.
But what is the voice of the coworker? And traditionally, you know, you ask about, do you have a good manager? Do you understand our virtues and values, things like that? But, you know, how often are you asking for in a very deliberate sense, how's the technology here? And I know, my instinct is always been this, like, if that's not a good experience that's encroaching on your overall happiness at work, it just has to be because you weren't hired to deal with the tech. You know, some people are, but most people aren't, most people are hired to do a different type of work. And when technology gets in the way of that, you know, that that's encroaching on their happiness. Right? And it's not it's not the full picture, but it's certainly a component.
So all I'm really suggesting is, is what we're doing is making it part of our mindset, you know, don't ignore this as part of, of the full deliverable to your coworker experience. And technology certainly is and make that a top of mine aspect. So if you're a hiring manager, and you bring someone on board, for example, don't just rely on the service desk to deal with somebody's technology issue, you know, you should have a much higher aptitude there as well. And so, you know, we can do that through training as an example. So, some people are more comfortable with technology. So when they bring on a new hire, they they're familiar with that landscape, and some of those problems can be solved immediately, you know, one-on-one with one another, that makes sense, you know, and that becomes part of our mission, because managers are rated on you know, happiness as well. Do you do your so subordinates? Are they happy with you? Right.
And we're just saying, there's also a piece about the technology, which can make a difference, you know, if you're a bit of a Luddite as a manager in an organization, because you just have dismissed technology as a component. And you've heard a millennial or a Gen X. And they find technology is a really critical factor to, to being engaged in organization, if there's a gap there that's on that's on the organization, in terms of just getting everyone in some level of parity around how it works. So that's how we look at it.
Where Tech Fits in Digital Workplace Orientation
Siobhan: Could you share what the your part what the digital workplace part of the orientation looks like? Do you do you get up in front of the people on that day that they come in? Is it like a formalized like, handoff of the computer, like your cap and gown kind of thing, like, here's a diploma, here's your laptop, what what does that look like?
Spencer: Well, the way it looks like now and the way we want to look, the way we want it to look in the future is different.
So the way it looks now, it's a really interesting question. It's a very good question is we are not on center stage yet. The best that we can do today, right now is we have a slide that comes up during breaks. You know, if you need help, this is what happens next, you know, later today, after this session, this is where you go, that's, that's the best that we can do. Right? But it's under constant negotiation is defined a 30-minute slot where we spend a lot more time and attention on it.
So today, you join the organization, you walk into a big conference center, you're in a room with your your fellow colleagues who have been hired that day. And then there's a slide during the breaks that sort of mentioned that when this is done, you will go to a different room, and you will receive your computer equipment, and you'll have kind of a low-level orientation. Right? And it's not sufficient. Because what we're noticing is and we survey people on the spot, we use a little QR code. You know, how was your tech experience, right? And we know from the numbers that something like 69% are taking that survey that day, and we know that they're fully engaged. But we know that the balance, they, they either didn't get the message, and they didn't arrive, or they got there and their equipment wasn't ready because our hiring manager didn't follow through on their part. And, what we measure is, again, that productivity, we know who's productive on that first day, and we know who isn't. Right. And, and that's what the day looks like right now.
So the best that we're able to do is least for I think, 89%, who arrive on that day, they do receive a laptop, they do receive their phone, they receive ear pods, and things like that on that first day, an iPad in some cases. But we still have a long ways to go. And so the negotiation, if you will, for lack of a better term is to is to really persuade the thinking that make this a top of mind matter for your audience that's coming in, give us that 30 minutes to get them excited about the technology. So they're fully fully informed. Right. And so when they leave that conference center, they're fully outfitted not only with technology, but with the history in the richness of this organization. So that's what it looks like today.
Breakthrough Thinking in the Digital Workplace Experience
Siobhan: So, I might be going off track here. But you know what, onboarding is a big part of the employee experience journey. When we think of all of the different stages of the journey, do you see opportunities to weave your part, the digital workplace experience part, better into these other areas of the employee experience journey?
Spencer: I do. And we make, what we do around here is we have a thing called breakthrough thinking, it's not unique to us, there is an organization that does this is consultancy. And breakthrough thinking is really about learning where you should take a stand.
And so what that means is, is you take a stand because you want to elicit change in an organization. And so we want to take that stand and be appropriately aggressive about integrating and infusing the importance of technology and people's happiness and people's productivity. And really pay strict attention to why this matters. Right. And so it shouldn't be something that is a second thought it should be part of the initial thought. Right. And, and I think that's a bit of a leap for people to make, and not all people are this way. But some people just they see it as a secondary part of of an organization. And we're saying no, it is an immediate part of the organization. Right.
And so, we do see ourselves, weaving ourselves, further and further into the organization. And one way that we're doing this is we're looking at taking data as a service, meaning that we're taking the data based on quantitative and qualitative feedback that we received from our co-workers. And we're feeding it back into the organization by asking the right kinds of questions, like what what was your experience with, with the timecard system, you know, just really basic stuff.
And feeding that back into the only organization saying, This is literally the experience that's happening. And we're looking at from enterprise level. And we provide that as a service back saying, these are literally the numbers behind what people engagement is what that application and environment is. And here are some of the qualitative aspects that we're learning about that. And there's various tools where you can quantify things, you know, AI is actually a really wonderful thing in that sense, where it can take a bunch of quality qualitative data in sort of summarize what the experience is like.
And when we take it from it from a point of view of a service from a technology point of view that this is the story that's, that's been experienced? And how do you want to change that story? And we can assist you because maybe some of this is on IT, but maybe some of it's on you. Right? You're the owning the owner of this application environment, or the owner of this part of the experience like, like a corporate real estate, you know, when people walk into a physical office, what is that experience like in terms of technology? No, are there two monitors there? are they hitting a standard? does it actually work? Does the conference room experience, is it a good one? Right? Do we have an outfitted properly? And is it operational? Those are the kinds of things that that we look at in the most holistic way possible?
And by getting, you know, by getting those results in from the surveys, and I think some companies do this, but but we're being very, very intentional, deliberate, that technology is part of the question. Right, and then we complete that into sort of what I described a little bit earlier. It's like, is it is the full experience being taken into consideration here? That's kind of how we're approaching it.
Siobhan: Yeah, no, it absolutely makes sense. I mean, I think in the ideal state, and it's harshly why people potentially take it for granted is if the technology is working, then you're not supposed to notice it, you know, you're you're getting on with your job, you're getting work done, and you're happy.
But when it's not working, when when, you know, either your computer is non existent, or the software is suddenly changed, and you don't know how to operate in it, you know, that's, that's just going to stop everything. So that absolutely makes sense.
I want to thank you for breaking the AI seal. I didn't think we were going to in this conversation. So well done on that.
Your Co-Workers Are Your Customers
Siobhan: Last question, and this is kind of related to I noticed that your title at a previous job, and I thought this was an interesting idea: what is enterprise customer success?
Spencer: Yeah, well, it's of every large corporation, you know, fortune 500, fortune 200, the architecture of the organizations are generally about the same, they may spin some of the titles a little bit better than the previous organization where I had that title, it was essentially the same thing that I'm doing now at PG&E, but their whole spin was customer success. What that meant was internal customers.
So we treated all of our co-workers as customers and and that part of the organization that was its point of view, like, what is this success look like? You know, how long does it take to get help with your IT issues? What is what is your digital dexterity index? And what that means is like productivity, right, so it was just basically trying to, for lack of a better way of phrasing it, make it a little less IT-centric, and make it more about the customer. And that's why we do it. That's why we call it digital workplace. Because it's, it's about a customer journey, and their their experience within technology. And really, you know, bringing in and shining a light on that.
Siobhan: I just thought it was such an interesting, I had never seen that title before. But I also thought that it was, as you said, very similar to what you're doing in that it's that mindset, when when people think of their employees as their customers, it kind of brings it to a new level. So I really appreciated the the mindset change that that brings and the fact that you're carrying that forward in your work today.
So anything we didn't cover that you'd like to bring up, Spencer?
Spencer: Well, you know, a couple of things. And it's sort of our it's back to a conversation we're having just prior to this last question is, you're absolutely right, we generally hear from people when things aren't working, and that's okay. That's the way it should be, you know, it's not always going to work, there are going to be problems.
You know, a shift that we're trying to make, is celebrating that stuff that does work. And the reason why we do this is, in terms of, of IT as a delivery, engaging in recognizing and making people feel known is very important. It's a level of engagement, that is very meaningful to people.
And so, you know, if our mindset was strictly about what's going wrong, that that's not a very comfortable space to be in. Right? It's kind of an obvious thing. You know, things do break in technology, things in business in general don't always go well. But, that's kind of lazy.
You know, a bolder organization is going to take time to celebrate what goes goes well, and that's a metric that we actually follow. We do follow in a very deliberate sense, through recognition on a daily basis, what victories did we have yesterday? What went great? What did our customers say about us, that make a difference in people's lives. And that's a level of engagement, and it's very motivational.
So we do measure what goes wrong. And that's, that's actually very obvious and simple, and what we shouldn't be doing, but measuring what's going right and doing it in such a way where it's not overly flowery, but it's just factual, like people literally are saying these things about their experience. That's very, very important. And so I encourage people, you know, not to ignore that part of the equation.
And in technology, when you have those victories, you know, it's very meaningful to the people who might own that deliverable. It's also meaningful to the organization, meaning that something is going really well here, and I'm very happy that it is because you know, that's kind of the point here, was like we're delivering something that works, and in our business when things are working very, very important.
Next on Three Dots ...
Siobhan: That's a great note to end on, I love the focus on celebration, recognition, joy and victory. I mean, who can complain about that?
So Spencer, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for being my first guest on this show. I think we're setting the bar pretty high, but I really enjoyed our conversation.Spencer: Well, thank you for having me. It's an honor. I appreciate that.
Siobhan: And that's our show. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it with a friend. Word of mouth marketing is the best marketing that anyone can ask for.
And please tune back in for our next episode when I'll be speaking with Chris Harrer, the associate vice president digital technology internal communications at Comcast. Chris is joining me to discuss a huge intranet overhaul he undertook at Comcast to build a next-generation digital employee experience platform for Comcast 100,000 employees.
Please stay tuned and come back to Three Dots.
