Personalizing Employee Experience: How to Tailor Your Approach

The moment a person applies for a job they start building a collage that is made up of everything they learn, feel, do and think, up until their last working day. This is what we call the Employee Experience (EX) and it is a critical element to any company’s success.

Research by Jacob Morgan, author of the Employee Experience Advantage, showed that organizations with a good employee experience strategy had “more than four times the average profit and more than two times the average revenue.” ?In his book he explains: “For the people who are a part of your organization, their experience is simply the reality of what it’s like to work there. From the perspective of the organization, employee experience is what is designed and created for employees, or put another way, it’s what the organization believes the employee reality should be like.

EX does not only have a positive impact on productivity and profit margins, elements such as employee satisfaction, engagement and retention rates are all results of a good employee experience.

However, an employee’s experience changes over time. This means companies that have never considered this important element to business success before can still have the opportunity to influence this positively. This also means that consistency is required to maintain a good EX.

Considering the employee experience requires scrutiny of all the stages of the employee lifecycle: recruitment, onboarding, development, retention and exit. If your company invests a lot of time and resources into recruiting new candidates who leave before their probation period, you may want to consider how much attention is given to onboarding. Are they properly welcomed into the organization? Do they have the right tools and training to do their job? Will they get the training needed for the function in a timely manner, Do they understand their employee benefits package and feel that they are taken care of? How are your exit interviews informing you about your development and retention plans?

Companies can no longer compete without factoring in the holistic employee experience. This means that 3 employee experience environments must be carefully designed and maintained within your organization: the physical workspace environment, the organizational culture environment and the technological environment. Ultimately, the best way to improve the employee experience is by listening to employees. Ask them what’s missing and get to work putting solutions in place.

Eventually, you will need to assess the effectiveness of any changes you’ve made. The employee engagement survey, absenteeism, employee referrals, retention rates are some key performance indicators to measure your EX. Remember, the employee experience is evolving, so celebrate when you identify areas where you are excelling but also, use the indicators to address areas for improvement.

If you realize your company has failed to consider your EX, there are steps that you can take to address this problem. Listen to understand your employees’ needs, talk to your leadership team about these concerns and work with your HR team to develop an employee experience strategy. If you don’t have the expertise on board, you can reach out to an HR consultant with the skills to help companies improve their employee experience.

Progressional People Caribbean advises employers on how to care for and develop their workforce. Providing proven processes in talent development and talent appreciation, thereby creating a great company and becoming a trusted employer.