Employees are the core of an organization’s success as we know that engaged employees inevitably drive the quality of customer experience.
No one knows better about how to improve the employee experience better than the employees themselves.
The key factor to drive employee engagement, and to create exceptional employee experiences, can be summed up in one word: Impact.
If you are seeking to create an employee experience that matters, start with impact.
It includes everything that an employee learns, feels, and goes through at work.
New-age employees or millennials want to do meaningful work. It has to align with their values and beliefs. They want companies to appreciate their uniqueness and provide ample scope for development.
In the last 2 years, we have seen the future of work has evolved considerably with a great test for HR leaders, especially in the area of agility.
With the change in employee expectations, we can find the rules of employee experience have changed drastically in the new normal.
That brings the challenge for HR leaders to manage the diverse workforce expectations, driving talent strategies and programs that can accelerate the positive business outcome.
The organizations need to prepare themselves in identifying the current challenges and addressing factors that may prevent them from delivering exceptional EX. Let’s look at them:
1. Employee Expectations
With the evolving needs of the employees, the expectations have been a varying factor. The definition of benefits in total compensation itself is getting evolved. Example: Learning development opportunities earlier considered as a perk for top performers are now considered an essential factor by employees prior to joining an organization.
Do the benefits you offer improve the EX? HR leaders need a tool that designs the experience based on the feedback and the expectations of the employees.
2. Employee Life cycle
In the era of remote and hybrid workplaces, creating a similar experience for all your workforce is a challenge. Collaboration can be tough and that results in transparency taking a hit- since the organization has to ensure all are on the same page. Onboarding plays a vital role and this process may suffer if not planned well for a remote workforce. Similarly, managers connect with the employee for their necessary development if not practiced may result in the employee feeling not recognized at the workplace.
Maintaining visibility and transparency through the insights and metrics on ramp-up and productivity can help in designing actionable plans to improve EX and retain top performers.
3. Technology
In a post-pandemic world, with the changing needs of technology and skills, the development of the workforce is the challenge in the era of the Great Resignation. HR leaders and their teams need to equip themselves to utilize technology effectively to optimize performance.
Social interactions getting scattered with an increasingly distributed and less connected workforce, and the ability to understand and interpret employee sentiment continuously is a challenge that can be resolved by leveraging a digital tool that can act on ad hoc surveys to get meaningful employee engagement.
Business leaders are prioritizing investment in technology to improve access to quality data. Hence, it is crucial for HR leaders to find improved ways to listen to employees, and lead with empathy and also to ensure to have the right technology to support and engage employees to enhance the employee experience.
We all know every organization is designing the best experience for their people to attract and retain top talent and thrive in the future of work. I define employee experience as creating an organization where employees ‘want’ to show up rather than ‘need to’.
Apart from the above-mentioned EX challenges, a key question has always remained in the past – Does EX is only owned by HR?
And now the question is about the Digital Employee Experience. Does HR even own it?
The Employee experience journey gets initiated by the CEO and the Exec team and is the foundation of all efforts. The HR team owns the EX by placing the EX is central to the organization, by being responsible for strategies and programs to make the experience a reality. The leaders ensure to drive the Employee Experience by sharing their guidance on strategy. And it is championed by every employee by participating and collaborating and providing feedback on the experience.
