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The research around people practices is wide and deep and we know today much more about how this works than 5 or 10 years ago. This is fantastic and helps us in our daily life as HR professionals. But it also sometimes leads us down the wrong path when we design new processes and practices. We think too complex and subsequently design too complex.

Sophistication vs. Simplicity

We all pride ourselves in knowing the latest and best in management of people and people processes. And that is indeed very important and required to make sure we can have a positive impact in our so critical resource of people – today more than ever actually. So when we design practices like Management of Talent or Performance or highly sophisticated Rewards systems we bring in all the latest research and theory that we have read up or learned via workshops or educational sessions. We pride ourselves about it and prepare fantastic presentations for our fellow HR colleagues to show what we are planning and how it all should work.  We bring it then from the powerpoint slide into action and … are surprised that somehow the reality looks different? We somehow don’t get the outcome we expect? Maybe there are even colleagues that complain about our fantastic idea?

So what has happened?

Why is that? We have done it all how it is laid out in the research and theory we have learned? – and we made a big effort in building it into the tech stack and process. We even ran detailed education sessions for everyone in the organization that is supposed to take advantage of this new practice and strive because of it. But this is not what we see – not what is happening. What we often see is a mediocre adoption, and if colleagues must participate, they do often so with the bare minimum of engagement and focus. They hardly take advantage of what we offer. Of course, you always have some that totally strive for it and are the happiest and greatest in this new practice. But these are the minority. 

We might not like the answer, but it is very simple. We fell into the Sophistication s. Simplicity trap.

The reason of why this happens is that we design not with the consumer in mind. The reason why is because we are failing to provide clarity on what we want to achieve – clarity for our consumers. What we should never forget is that our consumers, our colleagues that we actually want to support with this new practice are not HR colleagues. They are sitting in Finance, Sales, Marketing, R&D, and other departments. They have a different day job than figuring out HR practices and how they might take advantage of it. HR and our practices are not front and center of colleagues’ minds. Their actual work is. In addition, what we were able to create as HR professionals, we were able to create because we know these HR practices inside and out. We breath them every single day, educate ourselves on them every single day and understand the latest and smallest tweak of wording or process that (theoretically) makes it more nuanced and impactful.

Problem though is that our non-HR colleagues don’t have this knowledge, don’t get excited about the latest nuance – and are mostly not interested or don’t have the time to take a learning course on “how to do Performance Management” or “how does our Rewards system work”. So what should we do then? – should we make them take the course, should we mandate education on these topics? – in the end, we know that if they would understand and take advantage of our practices and processes, we would strive more as an organization, right?! It is not too much to ask for…just these few hours every quarter or so – and then when we make some updates again of course.

This is the wrong thinking

This unfortunately is the wrong approach. First of all we must understand that HR is and continues to be a support function. We don’t make money, we don’t directly increase sales or reduce costs, innovate new products, etc. – this means that we should not demand to take a big share of mind in our colleagues’ heads. But that we should make sure we minimize share of mind while ensuring that we can provide sufficient lubricant to make our colleagues strive. Because, and let me be clear here: I believe in HR and our practices.

But what I also believe in is impact. And that is what we sometimes forget when designing sophisticated practices: Impact. The only way we get impact is when our colleagues outside HR actually understand what we “want” from them and can and are taking advantage of it. Performance Management can only work if our colleagues actually intuitively understand how it works and how to use it. A Rewards system that is supposed to “pay for performance” can only work if our colleagues actually understand (and buy into) it. Only if they understand it, it will truly apply and work for them (and for us). People need to understand what they are doing and why – only then it works.

So what now?

So how will we get to such state? – the answer is pretty simple…as simplicity is what we need. Designing for it though is everything but simple. What will help here is “Design thinking”.  Design thinking guides us the way and there are a few core principles I suggest to take into consideration:

(1) Always design from the consumer perspective, with the end-user not only in mind but being at the heart of the design process. 

(2) Lay out the key achievements you want to reach. What are the 1 or 2 goals that you want to reach? Or the 1 or 2 problems you want to solve? Be clear about it and don’t ask for too much.

(3) Make sure you understand why your consumer should care about these achievements. What is in for them? Not what is in for you and HR. They must understand and buy in. 

(4) Design simple and intuitive solutions – as soon as you need a training course or a multi page guide book to understand/ follow the practice or process, it is too complex

(5) Make sure you implement a measuring system as part of your deployment so that you can assess if you achieve your 1-2 key outcomes. – if not, you will know fast and can course correct

If you keep these 5 principles at the core, you have a pretty good chance that your practice or process will be successful and you actually have an impact. Simplicity will bring us forward as a function, I am sure about it.

After a few post with minor tech focus, today I will bring a full tech focus back to this blog. It is the beginning of the year and we are all trying to figure out what to do this year, where to focus and invest. It is also the time when many Analyst reports come out. One of the topics I see getting more attention is the inflation of tech tools in the HR space. It is amazing how much money went into this space the recent years – but on the other hand, not too surprising as there were tons of money in the financial system. This money though has led to many new players entering the HR tech market with specialized solution around single topics like surveying, well-being, talent marketplaces, skills management – and many more. So what to do with this trend? Should you follow?

A brief history

The trend I describe above is nothing new. For those of you who are as long in this function, you will see remarkable parallels to the 2000s and even before. The HR tech market always sees waves of divergence, followed by waves of conversion. This is what brought us where we are today with significantly improved integrated systems like SuccessFactors or Workday (from the old PeopleSoft or SAP HCM). There are always new ideas out there that make it into specialized products to “add on” to your existing tech stack. Some of them stick, some of them are acquired and integrated into the bigger integrated platforms – and some are quickly dismissed as not value adding. This has been the game in the past, and I believe that this is what is happening now as well. With money slowly getting more expensive and scarce, many of the recent start-ups will dry up or be integrated (e.g. Peakon into Workday) into the bigger integrated systems. – but also, some will stay with us for a while.

What to do?

The question now is for every HR tech lead – but also for the HR functional colleagues – what should you do? Are these trends lasting? Is it important to have an e.g. internal Talent Marketplace? – do you need a specialized skills-solution? Of course, I cannot answer this question for you as I don’t know your current tech stack or workforce or situation. But I would like to provide my thought process around these solution and the HR tech market situation to guide any decision you might need to take.

For the last 20+ years, the integrated solutions have always resurfaced. Why is that? – It is because of its simplicity around the basics, table stakes like Master Data Management, statutory reporting as well as integration into the wider enterprise tech stack – may it be payroll systems, or identity management systems, etc. I suggest that the majority of enterprises (1000+ employees, multiple countries) should have an integrated, central, single system of records. The importance of such system for the functioning and efficiency of the wider organization cannot be underestimated. But it also is the key system for your core HR work – including your core HR self-services like personal data management.

Now, when you have such system anyway, should you build on top with specialized solutions? – I would give that more than one thought. Of course, any specialized solution gives you the “best of breed” for the specific case. But wait, all the high-glossy promises and shiny demonstrations you get from the sales teams of such solutions – will it work exactly like this in your environment? Will it therefore really bring this additional value? The answer is more often NO than yes.

First of all, any HR system to work requires data, people data – you have these people data in your integrated core system, so you need to build an interface (or do you really want to work with separate master data?). Interfaces like this are by default complex: are they bi-directional? what data do we send/ receive – which truth is stored where? – and it gets even more complex when you go for more than one system, especially if the two specialized systems are supposed to talk to each other or work from each others insights. This complexity adds a lot of workload to your HR tech team. But it is not a one off – it is a regular review and adjust as most of these systems are SaaS based and have heavy upgrade cycles of twice or even more annually. In each upgrade cycle you have to review and test and potentially adjust your integration. 

But ok, this is the back-office. It is ok to be complex if the value of the specialized solutions outweighs such investment. Does it? – yes, in theory – and in the high-glossy sales presentations. Bringing the value into practice in your organization though  might turn out to be more difficult.

The Experience Case

Every new technology adds not only complexity to the back-office, but also for the front-office. Employees need to know “where to turn for what”. And usually, HR tasks are not common daily tasks for them, so adding any complexity where they need to think which system to turn for what task is tricky. Employees require a simple, intuitive entry point that guides them through. Any add-on system you bring to add value will make this job more difficult and could lead to employee frustration and less likelihood of system usage. It doesn’t stop there though – every new system has a new and different UX philosophy than your other systems in place. This means that if your employees make the effort to remember where to turn to for what task, they might get frustrated as they don’t know and need to learn how to use the new system. This brings hesitancy and frustration – not ideal for a good experience and system adoption. And last but not least, depending on how you set up the integration between systems, there might be an additional layer of frustration: currentness of data. In today’s world, employees expect seamless integrations and seamless exchange of information. So, if you just changed e.g. a reporting line in your core system and then went to a separated engagement system and you cannot see this move/ change of reporting line, you get frustrated – and call for escalation of this case. The system is not working as expected.

Now, the above is not necessary your situation, but often close to what I have seen in organizations. Does the perceived value of a specialized solution continue to be superior and value adding after the above complications? – if the answer is yes, go ahead – or check out what potentially less superior but fully integrated solution your core system offers. It might be sufficient for what you need and it might be much easier to implement and achieve adoption (and potentially cheaper as well). And only adoption actually pays out, not the theoretical superiority. Sweat your current assets as much as possible, drive the innovation agenda of your current tech partners to get it where you need it to be. This is cheaper, more efficient – and very likely more effective as well.

In one of my last posts I introduced the CXA – The Chief Experience Architect. Today, I would like to spin the wheel a bit further and introduce the concept of a new Experience Function. 

Home is where the heart is

The home-base of the Experience Function is the HR Function – my home for a long time and where my heart is. But not only because of this. It is also the home-base due to its main interactions with employees. HR processes and policies are guiding each and every employee every day – they are experienced by every employee every day. This makes this function special and the best home-base for a new Experience Function. However, not all of what currently sits with HR should be part of the Experience function – and, some aspects that HR tried to push out need to come back as well. 
Let’s think of the HR function in its facets of 

• Centers of Expertise or Excellence that are accountable for setting the philosophy and policy on core experiences like Performance Management, Talent Management, Rewards, etc.
• HR Business Partner that are the key-account managers and the business interface to other functions or business units
• HR Operations – often nowadays consolidated under Business Services entities – that are delivering day to day HR processes (or experiences)
• and last but not least HR Technology that is enabling the above mentioned philosophies, policies and administrative activities

I know, I already put it out there in the way I described the different building blocks of the HR function – but to be explicit: three of the above (CoEs, HR Ops and HR Tech) are forming the main experiences that employees see and feel on a daily basis and therefore should be part of the new Experience function. One not – HR Business Partners.

Re-think HR

This basically concludes that we need to rethink what HR is when we want to build up an Experience Organization. I propose to focus HR truly on Business Partnering. Having true experts in Business Partnering continues to be a real asset and a differentiator in the Human Resources space. Focus on the overall team and key individuals to make them better, to build the right team and to support the strategy are core. Going back to the resource based theory that I also mentioned in my earlier posts (here) the only asset a company has, the only strategic differentiator that is not imitable is the human resource – as individual as well as as collective, as skills as well as culture. Everything else is sooner or later easy to imitate or substitute – not though the human resources. And a focused HR function on business partnering can make sure that this resource is making an even bigger difference than it does today. Especially, if such core-HR function is freed up from all the operational matters and daily administrative burdens. It can take business partnering and managing the talent serious and will be accepted in that regard because it is what it brings to the table. In the more traditional setup – regardless if within HR or within a business services function – business partnering is often interrupted by HR operations or administrative HR processes not functioning the way they should. If you once and for all split this out completely, business partnering has a real chance to flourish.To support proper business partnering, certain aspects of CoEs that are not focusing on philosophy or policy, but on active management of talent or organization effectiveness should be placed into this core HR function as well, so that it can work and function independently.

The Experience function Part 1

And when business partnering can flourish, so can the rest of the former HR function – but in a new function: The Experience function. Under a Chief Experience Officer and supported on the strategic setup and enablement (as described here) by the CXA, this new function will be the sole home of the Experiences an employee sees and feels on a daily basis. This new function is a newly formed organization that focuses on experience only – and makes sure that all experiences are treated equal. Now, when referring to “all” experiences, what does this actually mean? This includes of course the remaining pieces from the former HR function as outlined above:

• all of HR Operations of course – and as always for the function that owns the Operations part – is the hygienic factor. Operations need to be delivered flawless and with a simple and engaging experience. This by itself is a big piece to get right and will focus a lot of attention to get it right: What is the right sourcing approach? How do I create a breathing Operational function? How much automation vs. personalization is required? – This needs to be set up and delivered right before anything else is looked at as this is core – no one will ask for anything else if payroll isn’t right or not on time. So get Operations right and make sure it is a focused, expert delivery activity.
• but also the former HR CoEs should form part of such an organization as they conceptualize key moments in an employee’s work-life. What is the Rewards strategy and how is it connected to Performance Management? How are objectives set, measured and reviewed? What is the companies approach to Learning and how can it be delivered? What is the organization’s view on work-life balance, benefits and flexibility? How do we build an inclusive workplace for everyone? – more than ever the experience of these core policies and philosophies are important to ensure an engaged, motivated and long-term focused employee base. The Great Resignation might not be what we thought initially as it is more focused on US front-line workers, but also globally, we are seeing a shortage of key-talent and a focus of this key-talent to join companies where the Experience is right (see my predictions 2022). 

Being able to build ONE cohesive Experience strategy and making sure it is delivered as cohesive and frictionless as possible is core, and such an Experience function can take care of it as it owns the Experience end-to-end. Not only the administrative parts, not only the process & technology enablement, not only the philosophy – but all under one leadership team. This is the future of Experience Management and important to get right if you rely on your Talent (read your employees) to be the key differentiating factor.

The Experience function part 2

There is however, a but – as I wrote, it is important to have ALL of the daily touching and culture building processes and accountabilities within ONE function. Above though only focuses on the HR parts. What is as important and makes the extended case to split up the HR function is to include the remaining non-HR-based activities into this function. The additional core processes, philosophies and policies to capture are related to the workplace – the digital one and the physical one. These are the two other main experiences that touch every employee on a daily basis – regardless if home-office or office. Physical and digital workplaces define and form culture in the same way the HR philosophies and policies do. They are key moments for an employee to get their best work done on a daily basis – and they need to be frictionless, enabling and simple. Therefore, both should be carved out of their current structural set-up and placed into the Experience function. 

Like this, a true Experience function can be built that will be a differentiator in employee and therefore business performance. 

I know that I have laid out my case here in a significantly shortened way and have not brought sufficient light into every aspect of my thinking, my hypothesis and my conclusions. I will try to make this into a book about the “Future of Experience” – can though not promise when I will be able to deliver on that. But for now, this is my thinking and I will share further bits and pieces on a regular basis – as in 2021.

Looking forward by looking back. My 2022 prediction is based very much on what we have seen and learned in 2021 and before. It is partially of course influenced by Covid19 and its implications – but I still believe that Covid19 did not actually change anything but just accelerated trends and what’s to happen anyway.

The Situation

When you analyze the employment market from the last two years and predictions for this year, you see a very strong dynamic accelerated by certain trends but moreover realities to face:

• Women left in significant amounts the workforce – this has been shown here as well as here. And the question for 2022 is if they will come back and how they might come back. Signs are positive – and I believe that these signs are a good indication. It is a matter of time though as the new variant is hitting us and many have more to shoulder now than before. So only when the pandemic transitions into the endemic stage, women will have the breathing space to come back – but not all of them and very unlikely to the jobs and environment they have been before.
• “The Great Resignation” which in fact has been more of a reshuffle of lower qualified jobs so far (read here) has hit many companies, will continue and transform from  “missing hands” to “brain-drain”. Late 2021 analysis shows that the direction of the great reshuffle is slowly moving up the seniority and qualification ladder. This will continueand lead towards a difficult situation for employers as key managerial or individual contributors leave.  – leave to other companies, but also leave into entrepreneurship
• Covid has accelerated trends across multiple areas by at least 10 years and keeping up with these changes and demands is not simple. But moreover, it led to employees rethinking their life plans and what they want to get out of their life, want to achieve, what they want to stand for. The push for purpose and meaning is getting stronger by the day, leading to a shift in priorities and what is important to join or stay with an organization
• Remote work and virtual meetings are the new standard. And they do have their advantages – absolutely, but 2 years into the pandemic we also realize that this cannot be it. We are missing the human connection and the true team-building. Of course,  the Metaverse is here to the rescue (really?). But a rising demand for real face-to-face meetings and sessions can be identified and will influence how we work and where we work in 2022.

The consequence

If this is the situation, what does it mean for the workplace? – it is simple. Employers have to transition from “saying” that employees are their most valuable asset to actually treating them like this. We are accelerating into an employee focused economy where it will be difficult to get or keep key employees and where the impact on the top- and bottom-line will be very visible.

Of course, we should not just sit and watch but need to take actions to counter this consequence. And as you should never just bet on one horse/ action, I am seeing two key-trends exploding (in a positive way) in 2022 – Employee Experience and Automation. 

Employee Experience

Employee Experience was just a small idea at the beginning of the pandemic, but given where we are today, no company can afford to not focus on the daily experience of employees at and with work and most companies need to invest and center their efforts on the Experience to keep or get critical talent. And of course the focus needs to be on the Experience as a whole, not on single areas or items. The advantages are just too big and so will be the labor-market competition. We are in a clear supply-driven market with open positions on record highs and employees asking for purpose, balance and meaning. But Employee Experience not only helps keep or get the required employees – it will also increase performance and productivity if thought through well. And so my prediction for 2022 is that we will redefine and widen what Employee Experience means and employers will invest in it greatly. 2022 is the year of EX break-through.

Automation

But let’s be clear – regardless how great your EX efforts are, you will still run into employees that value the “Euro more” more than any experience as there are and will continue to be short-term focused employees. No judgement. And not to forget that the acceleration of trends through the pandemic has further increased the demand for very scarce  skills – and due to the pandemic the building of these skills has slowed down. The perfect storm…and the opportunity for the next level of automation. More and more tasks, also complex tasks have to be transitioned to machines – may it be simple automation, may it be more complex decision/ interpretation that requires AI models. My second prediction is that this market will continue to thrive and will drive up the value chain/ specialist chain of employees not to free up resources but to “fill open positions”. And with that will be looked at more positive by employees as well as it is transitioning into a state where Automation helps counter the talent and capacity crunch and won’t threaten your job.

These two are to be watched in 2022 – and if you are in the automation or experience market – congratulations, a year full of work and excitement awaits you🙂 

A lot is currently in motion when it comes to Experience and Technology. Apart from the big conversations around the Great Reshuffle the possibilities, changes and developments across Experience & Technology are getting nurtured almost on a daily basis, are a constant topic. A new area has been formed: Employee Experience. 

Employee Experience

Employee Experience has multiple definitions, can be seen and understood in multiple different ways – from a very narrow view of reinterpreting HR processes into experiences to a very wide view and subsuming each and every employee interaction within a company into it. I don’t want to say what is right or what is wrong – I don’t even think that we need such categories of right or wrong. Baseline is that in any shape or form, looking after and actively shaping the Employee Experience has a positive impact on a company’s ability to compete in the market. 

There are multiple reasons as to why Employee Experience is important and there are multiple ways you can interpret Employee Experience – narrow or wide – but it all has one thing in common. Among cultural aspects, Technology is THE important factor to create a superior Employee Experience.  It is the enabler and driving force for Employee Experience. And at the same time Technology needs to be not the prominent aspect of the Experience. It is the backbone, not the front-end. It is there to improve and connect the experience, not THE experience itself. This is what many companies offering Experience technology get wrong – and also what many companies that go down the route of Employee Experience get wrong. It is not about Technology, but about Enablement. 
In the last 2-3 years many technologies have surfaced claiming to improve the Experience, some call themselves  Experience Platforms. I don’t want to judge them – some of them are really good and utilized correctly can make a difference. Others are just a technology in need and search of a problem (try to avoid these). You can easily identify them in the way HOW they approach and sell itself – they place the technology first, not the problem or actual solution they bring.

The Experience (market) will grow

This market has come from nowhere and will grow even further given the importance and clear business outcomes of Employee Experience. But also, we have finally entered (quicker now thanks to the pandemic) a labor market that places the seller, the employee in the focus as there are much more interesting opportunities for employees than there are employees for these open positions (of course, this is not in each and every field and not for each and every job-class the same – but the direction is clear). These employees can then freely choose which opportunity to take – and the Experience at work will form an important decision-criteria to join and to stay or leave. I don’t think you can at this stage underrate the importance of Employee Experience. If you are not yet there, go start quickly.
But where to start and how to get going? What is the right strategy? What are building blocks of a superior Employee Experience? How do I bring it to life? – these are very valid questions (and there are more) and there is not an easy answer – and also, there is no current role that is actually predestined to play in this field and bring a superior Employee Experience into the organization. Given the importance of Employee Experience – I make the case that it deserves and requires a specialized role – a “Chief (Employee) Experience Architect”.

The CXA

So, what is the role of such a Chief Employee Experience Architect? – it all starts with your definition of Employee Experience, narrow or wide. And within this frame of reference, the objectives at hand are very similar. 

• Rephrase or define
  • What is the right, fitting Experience for your company? What does you company stand for and how does this translate for employees? If you have an EVP, you should be able to rephrase it into an Experience statement. This statement is your North Star, your direction and decision support. It needs to fit and be right for your company
• Listen to understand
  • Second you need to build up a proper listening infrastructure. You need to understand the current employee sentiment. What is important for your employees, what isn’t. What is working well for them, what isn’t? – this is already the first area where Technology is important. For most companies, it is impossible to constantly listen to and understand employee sentiment without technology support. The right infrastructure will give you what you need with the least effort – and this is important as the sentiment is key to understand where your employees are but also transforming the Experience takes a significant effort – don’t waste too much energy listening
• Identify the key areas
  • Based on what you heard as well as what you defined as your Employee Experience, identify the Moments that Matter – the areas where you should make a difference for your employees to have a positive impact on the sentiment. You cannot address all you hear but you need to get some key Moments right. These can be specific for your company or generic – depending on how you define your Experience and how your employees feel

And now it is time to actually make a difference.

Build a superior experience

Until now, it was all research – now it gets into practice. With everything you learned and prioritized, build your Experience design and strategy to enable it – and put it into practice. This is a real long-term journey – and actually never really ends as you always go back to “Listening to understand” and cycle through the steps again and again. When it was good to have technology support and knowledge as part of listening and prioritization, it is now key as Experiences at scale can only be build with the right technology architecture, platform(s) and extensions – while at the same time Technology should never be the visible outcome. It is a means to a superior Experience, not THE Experience. Technology is also the element that connects and simplifies Experiences across multiple functional areas. And this is another key – the Experience Architect needs to work across functional silos within a company to make Experiences happen. You cannot build a superior Experience just within HR or just within Workplace or just an Experience Culture – it needs to be End-to-End to make a difference, to have an impact. This ability is key, both from the Architects capacity but also the willingness of the organization.

Experiences are a composition of culture + process + technology + UI to connect and simplify what makes a difference (Moments that Matter) and you need to build multiple of such experiences to actually create a superior Employee Experience across the company. This is the job of the Chief (Employee) Experience Architect. If you don’t have it yet – go and create it.

I believe that most of you have seen this or read about this – Facebook has renamed its parent company to “Meta”. And I guess we are also almost all on the same page in thinking that Facebook has done this because “Facebook” is a very negatively biased naming. But let’s face it: This won’t work. We will all remember that Meta is Facebook – if you wanted to change the bias, you should actually change what causes the damage and not “move on”.
Anyway. I was thinking about what he said, what Microsoft said but also reading and seeing the reactions. Here is my take:

The Metaverse

Mark is claiming that he is doing this because he believes that the Metaverse is the future; the future or new Internet, the next big thing. It is more than just virtual reality, it is a new “space” you live in, breath in and act like in real life: “Meta’s focus will be to bring the Metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses.” And I get why Mark is doing this when I see the FB numbers – he needs to quickly find a new revenue machine. And maybe this will work out (I doubt it though given the past of FB and the scrutiny around FB). Is it truly new?But is that really a new thing? the Metaverse (ok, I don’t mean where it originally comes from…check this out if you don’t know)? It is not and I believe we can see some current incarnations being pretty successful. I am not the only one who is thinking of Fortnite for example. Fortnite is already pretty close (given todays technological possibilities) to the Metaverse you could argue, and when you then have a look at statistics, this makes even more sense:

• 350 Million registered users (May 2020)
• 25 Million daily active users
• Of that 77% spend money within Fortnite – on average just more than $100

So, there could be something to it – the Metaverse. Or is Fortnite a very successful game and that is all it is? I think it can be argued either way. However, what is clear is that Fortnite is purely about entertainment. Mark though sees the Metaverse as more than just a game – and even Satya and Microsoft are claiming that the Metaverse is the future. But for them it is the future of work. Check out the announcements from Microsoft Ignite about Mesh. I have to admit that I did not try it yet, but I doubt that this will be a game changer – at least for the foreseeable future.

Get back to reality

Let’s step out of the Metaverse and into today’s reality: We are still in a new and very different “normal” thanks to our global pandemic. And in this reality we are meeting more colleagues in zoom or Teams than in real life. These capabilities really made the difference and enabled us to continue to work as productive as before (at least in desk-based jobs). But also, who of you isn’t “zoom-ed out”? Feels tired and exhausted by all these zoom calls and non-face2face interactions? It has been already diagnosed as an official stressor and psychological state (you can read more here). I doubt though we will be able to escape this soon. – and this is where allegedly the Metaverse should help us out? I am even sceptical about that. 

Let’s cut to it: The Metaverse is a mixed or virtual reality, it does not transport you into a new space like the famous holo-deck on Star Trek. You will still be sitting at home at your desk, not moving (or at least not much as your space is constraint), and not only wearing a headset but also a VR headset.  For those of you that have tried this, you know that it is a great experience and you can have fun – but then think of how long you use it for gaming or work-out vs. how long you would use it for work… these things are heavy and cut you out of your surroundings, isolate you – without immersing you like into a real F2F meeting. I don’t think this is any better than being “zoom-ed out”. Technology has to make a significant leap to really have an immersive experience without all the negative aspects that constrain remote collaboration today. 

We had already a failed incarnation – Second Life

Some of you might even remember Second Life – I would say that this was truly a first attempt at the Metaverse – and where is it now? It was a huge hype and many companies invested heavily in it – to lose it all. It wasn’t more than a nice gimmick or a game. For business, it was not the game changer it was hyped as – and I don’t believe Microsoft’s or Meta’s idea of the Metaverse will be any different. But let’s see how it will actually come to the market – there is often a discrepancy between what was announced and how the product actually will materialize (and when). However, there is also always the question: What is it here to solve? Any technology should be a solution not a hype. At this stage I don’t see any problem the Metaverse is solving – at least not at work.For Mark though, the Metaverse might work out better as I don’t believe he focuses on work, but more on gaming and social networking. He just needs to fix all the negative impacts that his social networks create, manifest, amplify – oh wait, he has done that by renaming Facebook, right?

So, I am not sure about you, but basically almost no day passes when I am not haunted by this word „bot“. May it be emails of companies reaching out to me to sell me a bot (of course always the best and a „different“ kind of bot) or when my stakeholders or co-workers are asking for a bot for learning course exploration, finding the right policy or anything else. There is no escape – in a good and in a bad way. And don‘t get me wrong, there is for sure something to explore around bots and I can see them having a future in HR Tech – but most of them have three foundational flaws that we need to tackle first.

Are we actually having a problem?

First, and that is something I see in both, the requests reaching me as well as the marketing messages that clog my inbox: They are a solution without asking what the actual problem is? This of course isn’t anything special for bots. That is very often the case with technology: There is a new, hyped product and everyone is getting excited, but what is the actual problem this new technology is supposed to solve? And (a) do we have a problem in the first place as well as (b) is the product really solving the problem? Or just creating new ones in addition to more work? Because implementing a bot is not as simple as it might seem, which brings me to the second flaw.

Bots are hermits

Second, today’s bots are in the most cases stand-alone and specialized, not integrated or only integrated with their specific application. So they are providing a very specific, focused service, but not more than that. They cannot connect to other solutions or help you if you have a question or need that is outside their remit. They just fail then and leave you behind – frustrated.

Are you really getting the solution?

Third, for most things that you want to get done, you need more than „an answer to a question“ or a „policy link“. For a reason we have changed our thinking in the HR space from process to Experience – but which bot can provide you with an E2E Experience? Almost none (and the ones that can also only for very specific use-cases). They are just providing you with a very specific service like an answer to your question or an explanation of „how to do“ something. They don’t provide you support through the complete E2E Experience. And again, where is this significantly better than what we have today? And how many bots would you need to cater for all use-cases? And how would an employee know which bot to use when? I believe that this just creates more confusion than being helpful.

I am not giving up, we just need to live through the hype-cycle

I think we are almost at the end of the hypecycle of bots. I can already see some more E2E thinking when it comes to how bots turn into true assistants and can integrate multiple activities into one Experience. The clear signal that we have reached the end is when the bot technology is no longer in teh email-subject or mentioned prominently, but only mentioned in the details of HOW a Tech solution is solving a problem for you. But before we get there, there are still some questions to be answered by the industry as well as by our stakeholders (I mean our employees). And we need to define what kind of Assistant-Experience we want to build.

Polar opposites of Assistant thinking

When I try to explain as well as explore the directions I see the Assistant space going, I start with two polar opposites – and I don‘t know which one has a future and which not or do both? It is not that straight forward (yet).

On one end of the continuum you have the “One Assistant to rule them all” – you have one Assistant that is either all-mighty or sits on top of all other (hidden) bots. As an employee you have one place to go, one Assistant that you can ask anything – any question or action – and this Assistant will be able to help you E2E, either itself or via instructing other bots to get the work done and surface the result again through the single Assistant interface. I would love that – but not sure if this is feasible and when this is feasible.

On the other end of the continuum you have the “iPhone approach”. You have one central device or place (for example Slack or MS Teams) and a set of separate Assistants each for its specific purpose (like the different Apps on your iPhone or Pixel or Galaxy…) and it is simple and clear which Assistant to be used for what, when, how. – it seems not to bother us too much in our private life, so I consider this a valid option on the other side of the continuum.

As I said, I am not sure which way the industry and our stakeholders will go – but what I know is that we need to explore and test & learn in this space quickly to get feedback, learn and can inform our future strategy – while at the same time we should not give in to any bot for any use-case (especially if we are not clear if there is a problem or not…)