Aussie Broadband hunts AI dividends for staff

Aussie Broadband is investigating how AI and automation might assist staff with locating information and tapping internal knowledge sources, freeing up time to engage with customers.

Chief people and reputation officer Jane Betts told an investor day briefing that people “tools, frameworks and systems” are set to play an important role in helping realise a new three-year business strategy called ‘Look-to-28’.

Such tools, frameworks and systems are necessary to help people grow and learn, Betts said.

“If you do that, your staff will be happier and they’ll stay with the business longer.

“Skilled and motivated teams are key to driving innovation but they’re also more productive and more efficient.”

On the topic of productivity and efficiency, the telco has “already started to investigate the ability of automation and AI to streamline and ensure knowledge is curated to our staff, allowing them to spend more fulsome time with our customers without having to go and look for information, and allowing all of our team to be able to create excellent customer experiences,” Betts said.

“When we take care of our people, they take care of our customers and I believe that’s how we’ll become ‘the telco people love’.”

‘The telco people love’ is a new ambition that Aussie Broadband wants to achieve through its three-year business strategy.

It did not specify what AI and automation technologies are in the frame for its current work.

Betts said that both Aussie Broadband and the unified communications as-a-service provider it took over, Symbio, are committed to “using data-driven insights” to measure employee engagement.

Aussie Broadband uses Workday Peakon employee engagement software for this purpose, alongside employee net promoter score, while Symbio uses Culture Amp as its employee experience platform.

Within Peakon, Aussie Broadband’s “current engagement level is eight out of 10,” Betts said.

“That puts us 0.1 away from being in the top 25 percent of organisations using that tool, but we don’t want to rest there – we actually want to aim to be in the top five percent of all organisations in the Workday Peakon tool for engagement.

“Similarly some of you may be familiar with the employee NPS, which is a very exacting and difficult measure. [Our] score of 46 is an amazing result and is in the top 25 percent  of all organisations, [although] again we want to leverage that up to be in the top five percent of organisations.”

Symbio, likewise, is “in the top 25 percent of telco and technology comparators” tracked by Culture Amp.

“So, the two teams together are well-positioned as a business to work with our people towards a well-managed integration [of the two companies] and a best-in-class people experience,” Betts added.