Daria Dolnycky
National Consumer Industry Human Capital Leader, Deloitte Canada
As consumer business organizations look to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, decisions around both the customer and employee experience will be a critical focus.
One of the most significant differentiators for consumer businesses’ recovery is how to build a bond that makes customers and employees feel connected to their brand,” says Daria Dolnycky, National Consumer Industry Human Capital Leader at Deloitte. “Strong emotional connections will develop trust and drive loyalty, which will translate into long-term business stability and growth.”
To support this, businesses need to empower employees with skills and capabilities that will allow them to be empathetic, curious, creative, and flexible in the way they engage with customers and solve problems on the fly. According to Dolnycky, while having good technical skills is important, it’s almost taking a back seat to the human skills — critical thinking, emotional and social intelligence, and imagination — that are less quantitative but arguably more influential for sustainable recovery.
Organizations must also organize their teams to be entirely focused on the customer. Improving productivity through digitization and automation to allow employees to focus on human interaction with customers is now essential to thrive.
Dolnycky encourages organizations to dismantle traditional silos and bring teams together from across the organization to work cross-functionally and collaboratively, to generate new ideas and unleash their creativity in order to solve customer challenges. And while the pandemic has naturally cut a lot of red tape, businesses need to think hard about restarting some of those traditional processes. “Ask the question, ‘Will bringing this process back be in the best interest of my customers’ or employees’ experiences?’” advises Dolnycky.
