Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms provide an unparalleled ability to increase connectivity amongst employees, which has already had a huge impact on the retail industry. More connectivity allows different teams — from the corporate level all the way to the sales people on the floor — to communicate seamlessly. This is not only better for operations and customer experience, but also for internal company culture and mentorship.
For example, in 2021, Nike announced a goal to increase the representation of women globally at the vice president level and above to 45 percent of its workforce, as well as increase the representation of racial and ethnic minorities at the director level and above in the U.S. to 30 percent by 2025. With that announcement came understandable speculation around how the retail giant would achieve such an ambitious goal. The answer, perhaps surprisingly, was that it would utilize SaaS at the enterprise level.
Nike leaned on an algorithm-based technology to pair mentors and mentees to build meaningful interactions that laddered back to the company’s overall goal to increase diversity. SaaS allowed Nike to take an automated approach to make those connections, which ensured that the process of matching didn’t become just another task on someone’s to-do list. This avoided any potential for resentment toward the program and also helped to guarantee that the program was ongoing given that the technology would remind employees and their mentors when they were due for a chat.
What started as a means for more mentorship grew into a business-centered program that focused on creating visibility and career development opportunities for both mentees and mentors. It gave minority employees the chance to connect with leadership in a beneficial way — creating a safe space that allowed for more trust, cross-cultural awareness, and team-playing mentality. It also allowed employees from different departments to connect about going-ons throughout the company, which brought a different perspective to potential challenges Nike was facing and how to overcome them.
SaaS platforms have allowed retail establishments like Nike to shake up the way their employees interact. As SaaS continues to make its way into industries across the globe, we can expect to see it revolutionize the way retail stores operate in 2023 and beyond.
Dave Wilkin is the co-founder of 10KC, a talent experience platform for inclusive mentoring, employee connectivity and skills development designed for the new world of work.
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