This guide outlines how to improve your employee experience strategy and thus improve your business success.
Did you know that 65% of employees in the United States are satisfied with their jobs and 20% are passionate about their jobs? As an employer, you should want to exceed the average employee satisfaction rate. The concern presented by organizations in relation to their consumer’s satisfaction has always been very common. As a result, the experience of the employees took a back seat. In recent years, a new concept has been gaining more and more space within organizations: the employee experience.
This concept — which can be freely translated as employee experience — is part of a people management strategy that seeks to strengthen the link between the brand and its employees. With the enhancement of human capital, the employee feels more welcomed, and this generates the achievement of good results through the retention of talent. Do you want to find out how to implement the employee experience in your business and achieve high performance?
What is employee experience?
The employee experience concept is a people management strategy that acts on employee engagement. This is mainly done through the alignment of values and dialogue. In general terms, the employee’s experience is how he/she feels in the work environment and how the company transmits its values on a daily basis.
Employees are crucial resources for business performance
Therefore, understanding how the experience among employees is essential to achieve this goal. Thus, the employee experience develops a series of strategies that improve the employees’ routine, with motivating leadership, a pleasant organizational environment, a career plan, benefits, etc.
The experience of workers can be improved in several ways, the way in which this will be done depends directly on the profile of your employees and the available resources. There are no patterns of success, only good practices that can be replicated and must be measured through internal research to be optimized.
Why worry about employee experience?
The function performed by each employee is directly responsible for the success of the organizations. In other words, it is through the productivity of human capital that it is possible to achieve established organizational goals. For this, it is essential to employ talent retention strategies and also invest in practices aimed at improving the work environment.
The importance of the enabling environment
Considering the fact that an uncomfortable and conflictive environment generates a very high stress load, it is natural that productivity in these conditions suffers considerable declines. Therefore, maintaining a favorable environment is a fundamental factor that should be on the managers’ agenda, after all, the work environment is a result of the direct relationship between employees and the company.
What are the benefits of the employee experience?
Reduces turnover and improves interpersonal relationships
The employee experience is a strategic process that aims to improve the professional’s perception of the business in search of high performance. For this, it needs to align its values with employees and monitor so that everyone is an example of what the company believes. Thus, the brand creates strategies to align expectations and transmit the DNA to new employees. It encourages dialogue and transparency.
Promotes the employer brand
In this way, it becomes more competitive, as it attracts the best talent in the market. Professionals will want to be part of your business and will seek the application in their selection processes.
With social networks, brand promotion has gone beyond the sales conversion moment and, today, corresponds to its entire relationship with society. The brand needs to practice what it says, regardless of the interface.
Reduces human resource costs
For a long time, the HR department was seen as an expense area. However, with the strengthening of people management, the sector is becoming essential for the business and assuming a strategic position. Thus, the reduction of costs with human resources is already a reality.
How to implement the employee experience in your business?
To be able to improve the daily lives of your employees, first, you need to know the main needs of each one. Remember that each person is motivated by different values, but some points are of common interest. You can, for example, divide your collaborators into groups and work on the experience of each of these units differently.
Invest in People Analytics
To do this, you need to be grounded in data. Only with accurate analysis is it possible to implement intelligent strategies to optimize the employee experience. Also allied to Internal Communication and Employer Branding, People Analytics is a tool that cannot be missing in your strategic HR.
Draw a picture of the journey
Do you know the cycle of employees in your business? As is done in the customer experience, when we think about the employee experience it is essential to design the employee journey. Through it, it is possible to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement. After all, it is an exercise in mapping the lives of professionals within your company.
It is interesting to put this strategy into practice, since with it you can fight high turnover (turnover) and find ways to attract talent from the market. Improving the recruiting and selection process — onboarding — and also promoting more engagement is the result of a journey mapping done correctly.
Practice meritocracy
The employee experience works, above all, to encourage employees through positive experiences. Therefore, employees must feel satisfaction in the activities performed and valued at the same time they are challenged and encouraged to grow. Meritocracy is the best way to achieve this. Always recognize the commitment of your team members. One opportunity to do this is using gamification.
Develop the leadership
In addition, it is worth noting that a leadership that transfers responsibilities to employees is a great ally during the motivational process. This encourages the development of work teams as they gain more confidence and autonomy. Therefore, adding the employee experience to an organizational culture must go beyond a happy hour — it must effectively generate personal and professional growth.
Improving the employee’s experience within the company is essential for his/her motivation. A satisfied employee has a positive impact on the work of his colleagues, as well as on the organization’s results. Therefore, use the employee experience to analyze how your employees feel and look for improvements that are really capable of impacting the daily lives of your teams.
Satisfied employees are more productive employees. You’ll want to aim high for satisfaction if you expect to retain your employees. One way to make this happen is by developing an employee experience strategy. Keep reading to learn how to make this happen.
Assess your current strategy
Before you can develop an employee experience strategy, you should assess your current people management strategy. These are the three areas to take into consideration during this step:
- Cultural environment
- Technological environment
- Physical environment
Cultural environments focus on how employees feel while at the organization. The factors that influence the culture include:
- Compensation
- Benefits
- Organizational structure
- Leadership style
The technological environment focuses on what employees need to do their jobs like user interfaces and computers.
The physical environment includes things that can be heard, touched, seen, and tasted. For example, office furniture, art, and food are parts of the physical environment.
Identify issues and define objectives
To improve employee experience, you need to identify issues that employees are having. For example, HR departments might find it difficult to search for new employees while completing other administrative tasks. You can then take that concern and create a goal like using recruiting agencies to find new employees.
Based on the information you learned from each environment, you can define goals that will improve the employee experience. Some examples of objectives that you can use include:
- Communicating the company mission, values, and vision
- Training managers on the importance of employee recognition and feedback
- Enabling employees to give and receive feedback on the spot
- Implementing new technology for crisis communication
- Implementing employee wellbeing programs
You can use employee personas to create a more personalized experience for your staff.
Listen to employees
Creating a digital employee experience strategy involves listening to employees and identifying moments that matter. Some employees will care about career development the most while others prefer compensation.
As an innovative company, you should turn to your staff for inspiration to develop an employee experience strategy. You can create a method to collect employee ideas and design new approaches based on them. When you co-create the employee experience framework, you’ll have a better chance of designing the perfect employee experience.
Creating the best employee experience strategy
The process of creating the best employee experience strategy for your business won’t be the same as other businesses. The employee experience model is based on the unique needs and wants of your staff members.
To develop the best strategy, assess your current management, identify issues to create goals, and listen to your employees. It cannot be said enough that personalization is an essential part of the employee experience. For this reason and more, always include your employees in the process.
