Feel that? It’s the connection between employee experience and technology growing stronger by the day.
In fact, 49% of employees are now considering leaving companies whose leadership fails to offer the necessary technologies and infrastructure for success in the modern digital workplace.
A strong connection indeed.
This is why today’s CIOs and HR leaders are increasingly finding themselves working together to elevate the employee experience. To keep your organization competitive in the fight for attaining and retaining top talent, while protecting employees from damaging security leaks, partnering with your CIO can be the answer to getting your team the resources it needs to do your job effectively (and with fewer migraines).
One specific function your CIO is particularly interested in partnering with you on is leave of absence management.
If your leave management system involves spreadsheets, email threads, shared drives to store sensitive information, a siloed 3rd party software, and an HRIS system that exists in its own orbit, you might just become your CIO’s best friend by seeking out a modern leave management solution.
How HR Can Build A Relationship With The CIO
To quote the Rolling Stones, and most of our parents when we were children and wanted a new shiny toy, you can’t always get what you want.
But if you try to build a relationship with your CIO, you just might find you’ll get what you need; a new leave of absence management system that alleviates administrative burdens, provides a seamlessly supported leave journey for employees, and keeps employee data safe and secure.
Here are some steps you can take today to nurture your relationship with your CIO:
Engage with your CIO around strategy: As an HR leader, you should actively participate in all facets of business strategy, including IT. By doing so, you can offer crucial insights into workforce planning, evolving employee and manager expectations, and the integration of technology.
When done correctly, this collaboration can be mutually beneficial as it’s the best way to ensure both departments are aligned and equipped to meet your organization’s strategic objectives effectively.
Improve internal relations: You might find that engaging with your CIO around strategy is challenging because of organizational silos. If so, you aren’t alone. Silos aren’t just dangerous when it comes to your leave of absence data, they can also play a major factor in hindering your relationship with your CIO.
Breaking down silos isn’t impossible, however, and it will involve an intentional implementation of cross-team communication. Setting up regularly scheduled meetings with your CIO can help foster a strong partnership by allowing both teams to update each other on recent activities and identify areas needing collaboration.
If you’re feeling adventurous, form a cross-functional team with representatives from each department. This can help keep everyone informed about emerging technologies and people-related matters, enabling better integration and cooperation.
Ensure your technologies are keeping your data secure: When trying to secure a new leave management system, your best bet to have your CIO as an ally in the process is to ensure the software takes data privacy and security as important as seriously as they do.
If your existing leave management process isn’t keeping your data secure, don’t try to hide it or be embarrassed. For one, this is frighteningly common, and second, a good CIO partner should thank you for pointing out potential data security risks within the organization.
Come ready with solutions: Like any relationship, if you’re only presenting problems and never presenting solutions it’s easy to wear out your welcome. Your CIO might already be on board with ditching your leave-tracking spreadsheets in lieu of a more automated and secure solution, but to get that “yes” and strengthen your relationship further, you need to not only demonstrate that there is a problem, but that you have the solution to the problem.
Chris Nardecchia, senior vice president and chief information and digital officer at Rockwell Automation says, “A close partnership between the CIO and CHRO that aligns technology, data, and business process design and workflows can help redefine desired work behaviors, which in turn reshapes the culture. Elevating the employee experience is key to removing friction, improving the customer experience, and attracting and retaining talent.”
By sharing data and insights, HR teams and IT teams can work together more effectively to meet employees’ needs and the needs of the business. The right leave management software, therefore, is not just good for HR and the employees your team is trying to support, but it’s good for the health of the organization overall.
Picking a Leave Management System Your CIO Will Say “Yes” To
If you want your CIO to advocate for a modern leave management system, identify a solution that not only solves your problems as an HR leader but solves your CIOs data privacy and security woes as well.
The right software should automate manual tasks associated with your leave management while keeping your organization compliant, your data secure, and your employees empathetically supported.
Tilt’s leave management software keeps operations running smoothly whether you’re managing one leave at a time or one hundred. By automating leave plans for all leave types Tilt ensures that employees are getting the guidance they need in their time of need without your team having to lift a finger.
Tilt’s leave tracking capabilities mean you no longer have to rely on manually updating spreadsheets and it removes any concerns over document version control or the wrong people seeing information they aren’t legally supposed to see.
By storing all leave data and documents under one secure digital roof, and incorporating security measures like data encryption, access controls, and a robust 24x7x365 threat detection and incident response capability, Tilt keeps data security at the forefront of your leave management system.
For more details, and a breakdown of our SOC 2 Type II report (with no exceptions noted) visit https://trust.hellotilt.com/ and forward it to your CIO so they can better understand that data security is more than a checkbox, it’s a way of life at Tilt.
Tilt Recap: Bringing the right leave management software to your CIO will allow you to both solve a major problem. For you, Tilt removes all the administrative headaches associated with leave management while delivering comprehensive support to employees. For your CIO, Tilt shores up data security gaps and ensures your leave of absence management doesn’t leave your organization exposed to threats.
Partner With Your CIO Today For Better LOAs Tomorrow
Bill Balint, CIO at Indiana University of Pennsylvania understands the importance of partnering with HR leaders, who “are being charged with addressing a broadening employee support landscape. Automating certain activities can help maximize precious time HR staff can then use to perform tasks truly requiring their expertise.”
Get your CIO to help you champion Tilt as your organization’s next, and last, leave management system. Building a relationship with your CIO can take time, but you can make major inroads by bringing to light the current data risks of your existing solution and presenting them with a solution like Tilt that melts all their data risk worries away.
Tilt is leading the charge in all things leave of absence management through easy-to-use tech and human touch. Since 2017, our proprietary platform and Empathy Warriors have been helping customers make leave not suck by eliminating administrative burdens, keeping companies compliant, and providing a truly positive and supportive leave of absence experience for their people.
