A human-centred approach to choosing employee tools
Last week’s movement in the employee engagement platform space (Meta’s retiring Workplace and encouraging customers to migrate to Workvivo) prompted us to reflect on STCK’s recent experience helping clients make important decisions about workforce tech.
We recently partnered with a client facing a critical choice: selecting the right employee engagement platform for their predominantly young, deskless workforce.
Our approach? Human-centered software selection.
Here’s how it unfolded:
1. Breaking through the crowd
In a growing and constantly innovating marketplace, various platforms appeared to offer exactly what our sponsors felt they wanted: a name-brand comms platform. But we knew that beyond glossy websites and exhaustive feature lists, we had to be clear on which platforms could achieve what the client really wanted - greater employee connection to each other and information in a deskless frontline workforce across 100s of locations.
2. Early testing, real insights
We rolled up our sleeves early and conducted interviews and user testing across different platforms. The goal? To uncover what our client's employees truly value. And guess what? It wasn't just about features; it was about experience. These predominantly Gen-Z employees leant towards the tech that felt familiar—like the apps they already used on their mobile devices. The ability to see, share, and create engaging content seamlessly was a game-changer that put a couple of platforms above all the others in their minds.
3. User adoption as the North Star
Our secret sauce? Prioritising user adoption as the ultimate goal when developing requirements and assessing against them. For our client, a successful tool wasn’t simply about getting internal comms out or having one-way news; it was about empowering employees with information and community to thrive in their jobs.
4. Balancing act to make the right call
We balanced user needs with technology, security, compliance, and commercial needs to reach a well-considered recommendation for our client. After all, the right solution for employees also needs to make sense from a business perspective to be sustainable.
Facing a workforce tech decision?
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