Cognizant has been tapped by SmartestEnergy, to help modernise its employee support services. Cognizant will partner with the energy company to help improve the responsiveness of its internal helpdesk.
In a competitive labour market, companies need to do more to obtain and retain skilled workers, even as they pivot to digitally-driven business models. Poor responsiveness in employee support services, including HR and IT support, can be detrimental to this end – eroding trust from employees in their employers, and reducing engagement in the process.
According to Gallup estimates, the cost of employee disengagement – driven in part by poor support from bosses – costs companies around $9 trillion in productivity, every year. But addressing this could help to boost profitability by around 15%; at a rate of $16,000 per employee each year.
SmartestEnergy is an energy company, looking to help UK businesses navigate the energy transition. And as it looks to supercharge that mission, it has turned to global IT consultancy Cognizant, for help improving its employee support services, and boosting its productivity with higher employee satisfaction.
“SmartestEnergy has selected Cognizant to transform our employee support services due to the team’s commitment to helping us realise our people-powered mission,” said Claire Talbot, global vice president of IT at SmartestEnergy. “Our plans for global expansion in the US, Australia, and into further European geographies require having the right strategic partner in place. This collaboration with Cognizant will help us provide our employees with the tools they need to manage internal customer requests more effectively, so they can continue to play a vital role in ensuring our customers can navigate the energy transition towards net zero with confidence and clarity.”
Multi-channel alliance
The alliance will see Cognizant transform the first and second-line IT support functions of SmartestEnergy’s internal helpdesk. This initiative is designed to enhance the employee experience, accelerate service responsiveness, and implement a shift-left strategy to improve issue resolution.
Through the omni-channel approach, Cognizant aims to help SmartestEnergy increase chat channel adoption and streamline service request processes to speed up support turnaround times. The resulting reduction in support backlogs and implementing zero-touch device provisioning and management capabilities, aims to boost the productivity of employees and freeing support staff to focus on more complex issues.
“SmartestEnergy is a forward-thinking leader in the renewable energy space, and we’re proud to support its mission to drive the net zero transition,” added Rohit Gupta, UK&I managing director at Cognizant. “We look forward to enabling SmartestEnergy’s strategic programmes and improving its IT operations and employee support capabilities as part of this initiative.”