Supporting employee success again and again

“You can’t just proclaim you’re doing a good job. Other people have to proclaim you’re doing a good job”

Mark has served as CIO for companies like Okta, Arrow Electronics and Visa.  He specializes in enterprise software, high tech distribution and financial services.  His most recent book is Truth from the Valley, a Practical Primer on IT Management for the Next Decade, was released in 2020.  

On this episode, Mark discusses the challenges of personalizing the employee experience at larger companies, streamlining IT operations at the service desk and automating busywork.  He also shares tips on how to tell if initiatives are being effective, how to avoid the IT ticket circus and the importance of trying out new digital tools.

“We developed this process we called zero day provisioning, ZDP. And if we got a feed of employees coming on board, even at close of business, and even if they were remote workers, we would have a complete kit for them at their home or in their new office location first thing. So they could be processed and it was all pre-configured, et cetera.  New employees would explicitly comment on what a great onboarding experience it was.”

• The larger and more dispersed the company is, the harder it becomes to create a personalized employee experience and communicate across time zones, cultures and languages.
• Onboarding employees successfully and seamlessly is critical to ensuring workers trust the IT organization.
• If you have a personal interaction with an employee in a support capacity, look for some way to add value to the conversation.

“You’re the technology quartermaster for the army, and you’re just trying to give everybody the kit that they need, both at a generic level, and then at a more functional level that’s responsive to the needs of individual departments and work teams.”