Winning Talent Over - Forward Thinking Employee Experience

Authenticity is in high demand as consumers pay more attention to labels than packaging, and the Great Resignation shows a similar shift in the workplace. In a world where people are warier of where they spend their dollars, it is no surprise that people are more mindful of where their time is being spent, which is why employee experience is priceless.

Employee Experience (EX) is quite the buzzword right now in corporate America and rightly so! However, don’t let the overuse of this word take away from its true meaning and importance. While there are many different definitions of Employee Experience, we can simply understand it as the literal experience an employee has within an organization. This experience refers to an employee’s journey from hire to offboarding within an organization.

Why is this important now?

Employee experience always mattered but the impact this has on a company’s bottom line has drastically increased. The Great Resignation (Great Awkward, Great Reset, or however you like to call it) showed a power shift from employers to employees. There are many contributing factors that we could go down a rabbit hole about but the fact is that employees are being more selective with where they choose to work. This means that employers now need to win over candidates more than ever and must sweeten their offerings in order to attract and retain talent.

The interesting thing is that the offering has changed, people no longer just want a sweet salary and cool office perks. Staying woke has become the new life mantra, as people of all generations “wake up” to issues of social, ethical, and even environmental injustice. As it slowly seeps into different aspects of life, this new mantra is expanding from the horizons of consumerism and is cascading through the workplace.

Loyalty is No Longer Blind

Purchasing trends and habits have massively changed in the past couple of years as customer expectations have shifted beyond price, value, and packaging. Now, factors like eco-friendly production, sustainable disposal, humane working practices, and the usage of the profits also route the decision process.

Brands have realized that to keep customers they need to be proactive in giving them what they want. In a generation that is “woke,” you can notice the conscience consumerism all around you. Companies are being held to a higher standard and customers aren’t turning a blind eye when they swipe their cards.

The word ‘organic’ has grown increasingly attractive. ‘Cruelty-free’ is seen as a competitive advantage for self-care products. What were once auto-pilot trips to the supermarket are now intentional purchasing decisions driven by product impact. People feel a sense of duty in the brands they support and are more aware than ever of where their money goes.

Consumers want transparency, they want more than just a good product they support companies whose values align with theirs. These are no longer nice to haves they are essential - the same way that employees are now asking more from their employers.

Before companies such as Google won people over with their cool office perks but now people want more than what meets the eye. Like consumers, employees want more from the companies they work for, and in order to keep talent companies need to follow suit and walk the walk.

Enter Employee Experience

This is why many companies are adopting employee experience managers and why employee experience managers turn to technology like ConnectUs to enhance their team’s experience. Technology plays a key role in our day-to-day work life and it’s just as beneficial in contributing to the employee experience as it is for customer success. Especially as Millennials and Generation Z are asking for a better employee experience and more technology in the workplace.

The Value of Employee Experience

• Strengthens Sense of Belonging

  People intrinsically want to feel that they are a part of something bigger than themselves -they want community. True belonging cannot happen unless people are able to be their authentic selves, which is why companies must meet people where they are at instead of trying to change them to fit the company mold.

  Throw out the mold! People are unique and if you want your company to thrive you need your people to feel empowered enough to bring their whole selves to work - not a watered-down version.
  

• Improves Retention and Acquisition

  A positive Employee Experience is a foundation for employee retention and acquisition. A company’s reputation is more public than ever. With websites such as Glassdoor, it’s easier than ever for people to share their experiences which is why shaping a positive EX is crucial. Create an Employee Experience that drives people to stay and attracts people to want to work.
  

• Alignment & Clarity

  Part of a positive employee Experience is feeling well supported and set up for success. With alignment and role clarity, people walk into work knowing what is expected of them. This isn’t to say that things always go as planned. Even in a job that is unpredictable, expectations and objectives should be clear.
  

• Improved Productivity

  When people have a positive employee experience they are more satisfied and more productive. Happy employees are more productive employees.
  

• Uplifting the Bottom Line

  Cut through the noise and focus on giving your employees a positive employee experience and your bottom line will thank you. In order to keep your customers satisfied and coming back, you create an environment that supports their needs so everything else will fall into place. Employee experience is the same because when you support your people everything else falls into place.

  It’s like SEO (search engine optimization). It seems like there are endless tools for increasing your ranking on search engines but it all comes down to user experience. The purpose of the algorithm is to provide users with the best answers to their queries and the best way to get to #1 is to deliver the best content.

  When in doubt, take care of your people and put yourself in their shoes because when employees are satisfied, so is your bottom line.

How To Cultivate a Healthy Employee Experience

• Moments of Impact

  You can think of moments of impact as important milestones in a person’s life. For employees, these moments are onboarding, work anniversaries, etc. The same way you nurture your relationships with important holidays and memorable events, you should with employees.

  Life gets busy, work gets busy, but moments of impact are opportunities for us to show up for people when it counts. You might not always be there for someone, but by showing up in key moments you can nurture your relationships and show people they are valued. These key moments impact the Employee experience and can be the difference between employees feeling valued or undervalued.

  Note important milestones for all people and put a system in place to remind you to celebrate these moments. It doesn’t have to be a lot but the effort is what matters. Employee Experience platforms like ConnectUs, streamline this process by making it easy to take notes on employees and maximize moments of impact.

• Nurture the Employee-employer Relationship

  Let’s go back to the customer experience example, when customers have an account manager that person is the face of the company for that individual. Basically, these interactions are super important. This is the same for employees and their managers.

  The employee-manager relationship is integral to an employee’s experience and drives many factors including customer experience. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “people leave managers not companies.” While some people may not agree with this idea entirely - it’s undeniable that this plays a major role in one’s experience.

  There are many ways that managers and employee experience managers can nurture the employee relationship:

  • Regular check-ins and continuous feedback are crucial for both participants’ growth

  • Give managers tools, guidelines, and aids on how and when to interact with their teams.

  • Be clear on the job role and goals that employees must meet

  • Offer “psychological safety” – encourage your employees to be open and to discuss mistakes without fear of blame. Encourage a growth mindset.

  • Offer training and development to drive employee engagement and strong workplace culture

  • Prioritize and discuss mental wellness
    

• Empower your People

  To empower someone means “to give them the means to achieve something, for example, to become stronger or more successful.” This is huge for giving people a sense of not only responsibility but fulfillment. People are driven by purpose and instead of following orders, they get more fulfillment when they are given the ability to drive their outcomes. Give people the opportunity to think and act for themselves, along with the tools to be successful.

Improving Employee Experience with Tech

• Personalized Experience

  The right intentional technology can be used to create personalized experiences that people love and need. Managers, front-line employees, and sometimes even people in different locations may have different needs and different work environments. With the right technology, you can streamline those processes and make sure each employee has a positive employee experience that is tailored for them. Effective and efficient.

• A Centralized Source

  The more the merrier when it comes to people but not when it comes to communication channels. Yes, open lines of communication are important but when they aren’t centralized important information can be lost along with crucial context. Sometimes less is more and having a centralized source of information is not only helpful for organizational purposes but clear communication. Keep everyone aligned no matter what.

• Bridge the Gap Between Executives and Individual Contributors

  You know how they say that people who become successful or go up the ladder become less grounded, well this is only true if they aren’t effectively connected. It’s not that leaders lose touch on purpose it’s that they lose exposure and it shouldn’t be left to them to seek it. How can we expect people to seek for what they don’t know is lost?

  It is up to organizations to ensure that executives stay in touch with those in lower positions than them because at the end of the day executives serve individual contributors. They are given the power to make a change but cannot drive the right change without the right information from the source. Bridge the gap between individual contributors and executives because this connection is critical for the bottom line. With better communication and insights, executives can drive meaningful change based on the needs of those who are delivering it.

Consumers are putting their money where their values are and employees are doing the same with their time. Companies need to work overtime to make an employee's experience worth their dimes and time.

Here are some warning signs that your workplace needs to improve the employee experience.