What is employee experience and how can it be improved?
Good employee experience is more important than ever to reduce staff turnover and attract high talent. Here's a few ideas of how to improve employee experience.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that companies need to improve their employee experience to reduce staff turnover and attract high level talent.
But what exactly is employee experience and what actions need to be taken to improve it? Here, we take a closer look at this elusive goal and give you some helpful tips to point you in the right direction.
What Is the Employee Experience?
It’s possible to define the employee experience as what employees feel, observe, and encounter during their day-to-day lives within their organisation. It’s influenced by things such as work-life balance, the physical workspace, the prevailing staff culture, and the available resources for enabling productivity.
Essentially, employee experience is a combination of practical and professional factors (equipment, available software, work hours), and people-related factors (culture, relationships, organisation wellbeing and health initiatives). Think of it as a melting pot of all the things that impact a person from the moment they step in (or log on) to work, to the moment they leave (hopefully not skipping and singing from joy).
The Importance of Employee Experience
Many organisations are operating in highly competitive industries, meaning that attracting and retaining talent is challenging. When organisations offer a great employee experience, they gain an advantage over their competitors when it comes to attracting and keeping this talent. Well, considering the great resignation is running rampant on all HR blogs, this seems relevant right about now! Furthermore, when companies provide an optimal employee experience for their people, they can benefit from more engaged employees which, in turn, adds up to higher productivity and greater profitability.
How Can Companies Improve Their Employee Experience?
Although more companies are beginning to recognise the importance of a good employee experience, they still don’t place it as a high priority. Employee feedback is usually collected through annual surveys, and there’s rarely a designated team to design and deliver employee experiences based on this feedback.
Here are some considerations for improving your employee experience:
Organisations could look to update their employee engagement tools so they can regularly check in with how employees feel. This allows leaders to stay on the pulse of their organisation, and to understand what their employees expect and need at a given time. Using a single employee experience platform that pulls together 1:1s, the use of goal setting, professional development, employee recognition, and idea generation will also help to improve productivity and workflow.
Supporting remote workers is also becoming paramount. Employees and employers are now taking advantage of hybrid and remote working opportunities to improve work/life balance. This is beneficial, but it also raises some issues that must be addressed. All employees, whether remote or in office/on site need to have equal opportunities for progression and development. To this end, products that facilitate cohesive working should be implemented in order to coordinate efforts between at home and in office employees. Also, leaders and line managers need to show empathy for their workforce and really get to know their teams. This is especially true for remote workers, who may feel entirely disconnected from their employers and their colleagues. Forging strong working relationships with all staff members is critical for a good employee experience.
Showing the human side of the company is another vital change that needs to be implemented to boost the employee experience. Workers today want to know that their employers understand them and care about them. If they feel like they’re just another cog in the machine they’re likely to go and find an employee experience which focuses on them as a person.
From recognising employee achievements and milestones to arranging fun activities for the whole team to enjoy together, whether remotely or in person, leaders must make a concerted effort to make their teams feel a strong connection and sense of community in order to foster better collaboration and a more positive workplace culture.
Implementing Positive Change for Employees
When you make a dedicated effort to focus on improving the employee experience, you will find that you benefit from a more positive and productive workplace made up of happier people. By simply taking on board what your workers need and want, and by offering greater support alongside a more empathetic attitude, leaders will see enormous changes for the better.
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