The new architects of employee experience

They kept businesses running when the world shut down, engineered the return to hybrid workplaces, and have emerged as key drivers of AI adoption in business. 

As if IT teams don’t already have a full plate these days, some are embracing an even bolder mission: partnering with human resources teams (and AI) in redesigning digital employee experiences. 

“It’s not just about training a chatbot,” says Josh Bersin, founder of Bersin & Partners, a top research and advisory firm on HR technology. “It’s about finding the pain points where AI tools and processes can improve an employee’s work life—and HR can’t do it alone.”

IT’s boots-on-the-ground influence is also helping foster a new AI-driven culture that builds employees’ sense of purpose, not just their productivity. 

“Technology alone doesn’t build trust,” says Murali Swaminathan, CTO of Freshworks. “When IT teams invest the time to guide their colleagues through AI adoption, they’re not just resolving issues, they’re actively shaping a culture of unwavering trust.”

AI on board for onboarding

The first step in the employee journey—onboarding—can often make or break their experience with a company. It’s a complex, time-consuming workstream that HR and IT are working together to redesign. Companies that have infused AI into their onboarding include Unilever, IBM, Google, and Airbnb.

For these companies and others, time-saving, AI-driven improvements to conventional onboarding include:

• Personalized welcome messages

• Automated meeting scheduling 

• Benefits document management 

• Integration of new hires into internal systems 

• Skill assessment and training module assignments 

Core IT services power each of those workstreams—and the redesign effort is paying off. Employees onboarded with AI-powered processes are 30% less likely to quit within a year than those onboarded without AI-powered tools, according to a recent study by Paychex, while 85% of those onboarded with the assistance of AI tools report higher satisfaction with their onboarding experience.

The real untapped potential is in personalized onboarding by job role or location. 

“Beyond a standard onboarding process, there may be a French or Canadian version, or a sales or marketing version, all different offshoots for different roles or locations,” says Bersin. “AI tools can allow for really personalizing the process.”

Revamping employee “customer” service

Beyond new digital processes for ultra-personalized onboarding, HR and IT teams are collaborating to redesign how employees are supported on a daily basis, and even to create AI-powered platforms to help boost skills and advance careers. 

Take Walmart, for example, which has reshaped its employee call center, improving the experience and outcomes dramatically. The call center answers HR policy and benefits questions for 2.1 million employees in 24 countries around the world—with policies differing by country.

Read also: Employees want more AI—and leaders are listening 

Walmart’s IT and HR teams built an AI chatbot that could answer any policy question in any country, and do it correctly 95% of the time. Previously, human-only call centers provided correct answers for only 70% of calls.

At some companies, IT is also partnering with HR to upskill workers and advance their career mobility within the organization. Working with HR leaders, Delta Airlines’ IT team designed an AI-powered talent intelligence hub to assess an employee’s skills and identify training opportunities to help them advance their careers within the organization.

Since the hub’s 2023 launch, the airline giant has filled more than 25% of open management positions with workers from existing frontline roles, according to an internal analysis by Bersin & Partners.

Cultural change agents 

IT teams’ most lasting impact on employee experience may be in fostering a culture of trust in AI tools that help them do their jobs more efficiently and strategically. Not only can AI automate repetitive tasks, it can put mountains of data and analytic tools at their fingertips, empowering workers to focus on more meaningful and satisfying work, as long as employees embrace it.

As the group responsible for tech deployment, frontline IT teams do a lot more than put AI tools in workers’ hands. According to Freshworks research, they’re becoming cultural change agents. They’re actively building confidence in AI across the organization, with one in three employees crediting IT teams with increasing their trust of AI. 

They’re also helping employees tap those tools to achieve quality results. Nearly 73% of employees surveyed by Freshworks say their IT teams are helping them to get the most out of AI. One in three IT workers say they have directly coached other employees on using new AI apps, and nearly half (46%) of IT workers report that they have personally recommended a new AI app to another employee to help reduce their busywork.

Little wonder, then, why the mission of improving employee experience has fallen to IT organizations: When it comes to AI, they practice what they preach. According to the Freshworks study, 85% of IT workers say that AI is making their workdays more positive and enjoyable. 

Now they’re in a position to spread the word.