If there’s ever been a time to know – and improve – the employee experience, it’s now. Face it, in today’s business environment, employees have more say in terms of where they work, and why. It’s imperative that you hear from them, and much more frequently than the obligatory annual survey.
Managing your employee experience means much more than improving staffers’ day-to-day work life, although that’s key. Assessing and enhancing the employee experience can help you gain actionable insights that can help improve employee and corporate performance.
Read on for more.
What is Meant by the Employee Experience?
Beginning with a person’s job candidacy through to their company exit, employee experience is a worker’s perception about their work journey. Basically, employee experience is what staffers encounter and observe during their organizational tenure. It’s also been described as the quality of one’s emotional link to their employer.
How Important is Communication About Improving the Employee Experience?
To avoid creating mistrust, be transparent from the get-go about what you’re doing and why. Early on, apprise your managers and supervisors of your reasoning for soliciting employee feedback. Not having these leaders on board, combined with poor planning, can ruin your intent. The last thing you want is for an employee to feel surprised or caught off guard by your efforts. Make sure people know what the results are and what will be done with them.
After that, explain your motivation behind the survey to the broader workforce.
How Important are Surveys in the Employee Experience?
Surveys are getting more important all the time. If they’re designed properly and executed right, such surveys can offer honest insight that you may not glean from employees in conversation. You may need external help, but an improved employee experience leads to improved retention, less absenteeism, and an overall happier workforce … all of which translates into better productivity.
The rub is that such surveys should not be hastily thrown together, nor should they be unduly long and complex. With that route, you may not get what you’re looking for. But the real problem comes in if you conduct a survey … then do little if any follow up. If you raise expectations then let people down, you’ll wind up with subpar morale and poor retention levels.
What Should I Do with Results?
Other than release results, or at least highlights, to employees, you should begin crafting action plans. These are formal plans, so make sure hoped-for outcomes are clear, reachable, and specific.
Ideally, each action will have a senior leader who will champion its cause. This will also promote development of future leaders, IF said leader has the authority, and is given sufficient independence, to exact the necessary changes. Be sure to regularly check in with the manager regarding process.
You should also let leaders know that the action plans will be a top priority throughout the year and use various communication platforms to update employees. In addition, be sure to celebrate with employees when action plan goals and milestones are reached.
As the pandemic continues to turn HR and other business models on their heads, it’s imperative that you’re listening to employees to improve their work life experience. That is, if you wish to retain and motivate your employees and attract new ones. Such feedback can also help with your company’s diversity and inclusion efforts and enable you to draw parallels between employee experience and performance. Regular and ongoing feedback collection will allow you to craft solutions and continuously improve the employee experience … as well as your bottom line.
