Employee Experience Report
Over the past month u&u has placed a national focus on running events, conducting research and initiating conversations on ‘The Employee Experience’ (EX). In conjunction with two industry partners, Strativity and Crewmojo, we held two highly attended forums in Brisbane and Sydney for our HR/Talent Acquisition Community. We have also just completed a survey campaign of our very own u&u candidate network, to try and uncover trends, analysis and figures on employee expectations and perceptions. You will see the results of that survey throughout this paper.
Disclaimer on our data:
Forrester Research believes that businesses began to appreciate the importance of EX more off the back of COVID as they saw how rapidly customer and employee behaviour could change.
HOW DID WE DEFINE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE?
Forrester Research defines it as ‘total experience’ i.e. ‘adjusting your people, processes and technology to deliver a coherent brand experience across all touch points that makes sense from a customer point of view’.
The u&u survey makes it clear that the phrase ‘employee experience’ means different things to different people. For 75% of our respondents, employee experience = culture. It’s the social activities, the office collaboration, and the emotional employee journey. Interestingly the bookend experiences of onboarding and offboarding (61.67%) as well as learning and development (58.33%) were equally associated with EX.
In Sydney our ‘EX Factor’ event echoed the results above and spoke to the importance of offboarding. Our expert panel noted that more than any other stage in the employee lifecycle, offboarding sets the tone for how people talk about your brand in the market. For those that leave a business it determines all future conversations they have about ‘their last job’. For existing employees, seeing how people are treated on the way out will hugely impact how much they choose to advocate your brand. As a result, we have observed several businesses beginning to create alumni programs for their previous employees By creating a community of past employees, you not only protect and enhance your brand but also give yourself a chance for future talent acquisition opportunities. To borrow a phrase from our strategic partners Employer Branding Australia, how well does your business ‘leave the key under the mat?’
WHAT DO EMPLOYEES EXPECT THROUGHOUT THEIR EMPLOYMENT JOURNEY?
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"Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first" (Simon Senek)
As you will see from the graphics below, it’s difficult to pinpoint universal employee expectations. Recognise Bank, a digital SME provider in the UK discovered this fact in early 2020. They began by doing what most businesses do, which is surveying their people. What Recognise Bank did after the survey however, is the most interesting part. Instead of creating policies and implementing solutions that catered to the majority, they catered to the individual. Instead of an employee benefits program for example, it was ‘an employee benefits menu’. In other words, individuals had the autonomy to benefit and take different things from the company that suited their lifestyle or interests. The result was profound in terms of their employee engagement but significant impact was also felt with respect to customer engagement. Employees became more creative and more confident in voicing ideas for the customer journey such as quicker loan approval processes.
Anecdotally we have heard a lot of our candidates and clients speak about leadership programs and upskilling the management teams within their business. So much has changed over the past 2 years with respect to new employment policies and ‘ways of working’; from vaccination policies, flexible/hybrid models, talent attraction challenges, EVP strategies etc. The role of the manager has become increasingly difficult and perhaps never more important in helping employees navigate these changes but also create an environment where people thrive. According to our survey, employees have recognised that importance - 30.51% of respondents ranked leadership and management as being the most important factor in their day-to-day work experience. The leadership and management team was also listed as the factor that businesses could improve the most (42.37% of those surveyed).
"Highly engaged teams achieve on average 10% increase in customer ratings and 20% increase in sales" (Gallup)
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE OF EX HOLD?
We have all been forced to rethink the employer/employee relationship this year. Expectations and needs of both parties have fluctuated and people strategies have been forced to respond accordingly. With further instability foreshadowed in the political and economic landscapes for 2023, it will be a fascinating relationship to observe over the next 12 months. People strategy, employee experience, workplace culture, whatever you call it, the focus and importance placed on the people within businesses will remain crucial to future business success.
From a job architecture perspective this importance has been reflected over the last 12 months. Employee experience seems to be solidifying into a discipline, sometimes as part of a wider People & Culture/Human Resources division but in many cases it has become a discipline in and of itself. Chief Engagement Officer, Head of People Experience, Employee Experience Specialist are job titles that are becoming more and more popular in the employment landscape.
Technology has it’s part to play too but as we learnt from our Sydney ‘EX Factor’ panel members, technology has to support your people experience, the employee experience shouldn’t be determined by your technology.
Finally, it’s not all bad news. Our survey results reported that 76.86% of employees would recommend their current employer as an employer of choice to friends and family. Based off that, even improving one aspect of the EX-journey will majorly improve the retention and engagement of your people.