Employee Experience: Why It’s Important for Companies

What it is

Employee experience is everything that quite literally, an employee experiences at work from interactions with co-workers and bosses, the tools or software they may be using, teams, and many other things. Look at it in holistic terms covering the full spectrum of an employee’s experiences from interview dates until the last day of employment at the company.

Think of employee experience the same way you would think of customer experience. All those things connecting your customers to your company would be similar to all the touch points used to connect your employees to your business.

 What it is not

A bit of clarity on what employee experience is not so that all are on the same page:

 Committees, benefits, and perks: Foodie Fridays, casual or theme days, annual events, free stuff are fun things to have, but they do not define the employee experience. These are great perks to have but are not the root of employee experience. They are the top layer of what happens when employee relations are done well.

 Employee Life Cycle (ELC): The employee life cycle is the actual chronological journey of the employee’s time spent with your company. This begins the day the employee was contacted for their interview through onboarding, development, off-boarding, and all points around these. ELC, while significant, time wise, is one part of the employee experience.

Employee Value Proposition (EVP): The EVP is focused more on what the organization provides (beyond compensation) in order to engage, attract, maintain, and retain happy employees. Once again, this is only one component of the overall employee experience.

 Employee experience covers everything from the perks and benefits, hiring and keeping talent, performance review days, how well a manager engages and supports an employee to the point where they have shown concern over challenges the employee faces. This also covers following up on those employee challenges or concerns and well as responding impactfully with annual employee surveys.

 How important is it?

 Deloitte recently published a study indicating almost 80 percent of executives worldwide rating employee experience as either important or very important. Not surprisingly, this is positive. Employees who have good experiences are generally happier, better engaged, and highly productive. Ultimately this affects the bottom line by achieving a better delivery.

 Who is responsible?

 Employee experience is the responsibility of most to all of the people in your organization. It begins with the top management and works its way down through the organizational chart. Senior executives in the top management roles are generally the root of the positive (or negative) spiral in the employee experience.

 The employee themselves have power, as well. They can decide whether they fly off the handle or react calmly to stressful interactions or situations. Employees will ultimately, in effect, affect other employees by their own behaviors.

 Therefore, improving all employee relations will significantly impact the employee experience. Human Resources and executive leadership can do what they can, but they can only go so far. Each employee, sticking to the genuine framework of excellent employee relations, will contribute to the overall experience.

Improving the employee experience.

 Taking a holistic look at the employee experience, a few things may be possible to try to help bring your companies employee experience to a higher level.

Make use of great technology: Good technology and useful communication tools streamline your interactive engagements and processes. This will instantly impact company culture. Look at intranets where employee experiences are shared as well as a central repository for everything employee culture related.

 Encourage open and honest dialogue: Open channels of communication are vital for employee dialogue to happen. Employees need to know how to connect with their leaders, departments, and with each other. It is an excellent way to build trust with your employees.

 Make memories: Employee interactions do not always need to be work-related all times. Employee interactions need to be thoughtful, empathetic, and respectful, regardless of position. Make genuine relationships, and you will make stronger teams.

 Delegate: Leaders and management teams can only manage if they have the authority to do it properly. Giving all managers decision making authority or the ability to make the call goes a long way. Giving your line employees responsibilities of decision making will take this even further.

A thriving workforce, successful business, happy customers, and steady growth all begin with your employee experience. Treat them well, and the ripple effects will permeate positivity in all corners of the business. Take the time today to examine your employee experience!