Do your employees feel like they’re drowning in notifications? In today’s hyper-connected world, staying afloat often translates to a constant bombardment of alerts—emails, calls, texts, you name it. While workers and teams seem more connected than ever, this information overload can have a negative impact on productivity and collaboration. In fact, recent studies have shown that Australian employees spend up to half of their working week (57%) on emails and meetings.
Of course, communication is key to collaboration and creativity among teams, especially in today’s hybrid and remote workforces. That said, it can become a double-edged sword. This heightened connectivity often bogs down employees’ abilities to do their best work and can serve to stifle creativity rather than foster it.
This communications overload scenario is the reality for most teams across departments within a business. However, the good news is that there is a solution to streamline internal communications, requests, and tasks.
IT teams have long recognised the value of IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions in streamlining and improving efficiency. These systems use artificial intelligence (AI) to help automate routine tasks, prioritise requests, and provide self-service options for employees. Instead of having a human do this alone, AI quickly supports simple tasks such as automating service ticket routing, leveraging virtual assistants to answer frequently asked questions, and developing a continuous feedback loop to enhance the end-user experience.
A survey of SolarWinds customers found that its AI features in ITSM solutions enabled IT teams to reduce ticket resolution time by 24% and save an average of 23 hours per week. These benefits can now increasingly be leveraged beyond IT teams with the move to what is being called “Enterprise Service Management,” which enables other departments to build their own AI-driven ticket management system.
Taming the Communication Conundrum
The expansion of Enterprise Service Management (ESM) provides every department across an organisation with its own service portal, ticket management system, and service catalogue. This empowers HR, legal, marketing, sales, and other departments to enjoy the same increase in efficiency and productivity that IT teams have seen for years now. The integration of AI into ESM services further facilitates inter-departmental cooperation, enabling the entire organisation to enhance service delivery, better manage requests, and speed up workflows for improved employee and customer experiences.
Consider an HR department. HR plays a pivotal role in an organisation’s success, from recruitment and onboarding to benefits administration and employee engagement. They are frequently inundated with inquiries, from leave requests to payroll issues and everything in between. Traditional communication channels like email, phone calls, and instant messages often result in bottlenecks and delays, leaving HR departments struggling to keep up.
With an ESM system, HR departments can transform their operations and significantly reduce the need for email or phone calls. For example, leave requests can be streamlined through the ESM system. Employees could submit requests through the portal, which would then automatically route them for approval to the appropriate managers, with notifications and reminders built in. This helps reduce the administrative burden on HR and ensure that requests are processed promptly, enhancing employee satisfaction.
AI: The Strategic Lever for Enterprise-Wide Success
The benefits of ESM get even better with the integration of AI, which has already proven it can be a powerful tool for businesses. AI algorithms within ESM can analyse data generated by various requests and interactions, providing valuable insights to all teams. AI-powered ESM solutions can go beyond just appropriately directing ticket requests, for example, by providing personalised responses based on the employee’s profile and past interactions. AI will also be able to identify trends in employee inquiries, helping departments proactively address common concerns and improve company policies and workflows. With the promise of AI, the entire organisation is poised to become more productive and efficient.
AI will have a profound impact on our businesses and teams. But, counter to some concerns, we foresee this to free up our teams’ time for more impactful work rather than lead to a loss of jobs. We expect people to work alongside their new AI “colleagues,” taking on roles that AI is unsuitable for. These include using their human creativity and ingenuity to innovate.
Imagine a workplace where employees at every level feel empowered, not bombarded, and are free to focus on what matters—helping colleagues, supporting customers, or developing new products and services. AI has the potential to unlock unparalleled creativity and efficiency across businesses and industries with the helping hand of ESM.
