What is the Future of Employee Experience in 2022?
Employee Experience is everything an employee encounters from the moment they apply for a job posting at the organisation all the way through to their last day, and including everything in between from onboarding, training, day-to-day, reviews, promotions or secondments. Depending on the emphasis an organisation places on the moments that matter can determine whether the perception an employee builds of the organisation is positive or negative. The Great Resignation has led many businesses to really stop and consider their employee experience. Many that have resigned over the last year have stated that their reason for doing so was to seek better pay, better opportunities and the more importantly the desire to have the freedom to work remotely and embrace flexibility. For any reason given, the overall statement from the movement is that employees want improved employee experiences.
Why is Employee Experience Important?
Employee experience, as many companies are learning can affect the bottom line and business impact of the organisation. It is important for employers to understand and measure the impact of employee experience efforts. If an employee perceives their experience with a company as being challenging and stressful, there are two things that can happen. Firstly, they are less likely to be productive while working for the company, meaning that may have poor work ethic and potentially fail to meet company goals. Secondly, word of mouth and first-hand experience is far more valuable for reputation building than many other channels sales channels leveraged by organisations. So employees that feel they’ve had a negative experience are far less likely to discuss the company favourably whether that be to their network or on social job platforms.
How can Employee Experience be Improved?
The good news is that positive employee experience can be developed by collecting and analysing the right information. In our 2020 research, Delivering Value at Scale: A New Operating Model for People Analytics, business leaders listed employee experience as the second most important area where they can deliver business value with people analytics. In our most recent series of the Digital HR Leaders podcast asked 5 thought leaders, how they believe employee experience will evolve over the next 12 months and beyond. With this information, employers can turn their energy into creating employee experiences that they will see encouraging results.
1. Focus on Employee Engagement
Employee engagement at the organisation is basically, people connecting with people. Companies need to recognise that those who are working for a common company goal need to feel a part of the overall mission. This comes from employees connecting to business leaders and co-workers.
The key is to get them together. According to Thimon De Jong a social psychologist specialising in the future of human behaviour and the Founder at Whetston, if you can’t get them physically together such as in the office or workspace, find a way for them to connect. Because of the pandemic and many more people working remotely, engagement has greater challenges. Employers should go beyond the laptop and find technology that assist with bring people together even when they are miles apart.
2. Hyper Personalisation
Understanding the unique challenges employees in different departments and in different industries may have to overcome on a daily basis will help employers improve their employee’s wellbeing and employee experiences.
It is all about making life easier overall. According to Steve Scott, Managing Director and Global Head of Workforce Management and Analytics at Standard Chartered Bank, just like Netflix or Spotify make “nudging” recommendations from past searches, organisations can make personalised suggestions with learning or career pathways for their employees. Also, personalised reminders that save employees from possible embarrassing missed deadlines or prompts to go speak with a colleague they have not spoken to for some time all just make life easier and makes for a more positive employee experience.
3. Improving and Increasing Employee Feedback
Receiving feedback from employees gives a company an honest look at how things are functioning and how it is really affecting those that work under the policies and procedures they put out. With real data collected from the employees, companies can make more useful decision that enhances the employee experience with the organisation.
According to Melissa Arronte Employee Experience Practice Lead at Medallia, getting rid on anonymous or confidential feedback is a direction employer want to consider going. Employee feedback can be personal and contributed to the person giving it. This gives the employee a sense that what they have to say is important and that companies what to hear feedback because we are all on the same side.
Feedback can also go to each other, not just upper management. And it doesn’t have to be formally written. A quick call or a short video embraces the new technology that is changing the face of HR.
4. Employee experience doesn’t Equal Better Performance
It is important to recognise that employee experience is not just about employee engagement. There needs to be an understanding that the bottom line is that employees who can perform their job well and be productive will encounter a heightened employee experience over those that are just engaged with the company.
For those that are scratching their heads, the logic is this. As described by Charles Jennings Partner at the 70:20:10 Institute, when an employee has the capability to complete the job’s tasks well, they have a greater sense of job satisfaction and just feel good about themselves. So, for the upcoming year and beyond, employers want to be sure they give their employees everything they need to perform their jobs at top performance.
5. Great resignation & hybrid working
It is projected that the Great Resignation is not over yet. Still, many employees are considering switching employers, looking for a more work/life balance and prioritising their families and mental health first. But because of this, there is a greater chance that employees can feel disconnected from the company and alone.
Recognising this, Rene Gessenich, Head of Strategic Workforce Planning at Novartis, explains that companies will want to be open to radical flexibility, including location, times and ways people work. But he also mentioned that with flexibility and the emergence of hybrid working, business want to strive to bring people together on a team level. Companies will improve employee experience when their teams can work efficiently under any circumstance of work they are engaged with.
Key Takeaway
With the new year, business leaders and HR professionals will see continued focus on employee experience and how it assists companies with their bottom line. Organisations that prioritize employee experiences see happier teams, less turnover and more productive employees.
Learn more about building great Employee Experiences
Are you interested in learning more about Employee Experience, and how you can build the best employee experiences in your organisation? Take a look at the myHRfuture Academy, we have over 40+ on-demand HR training courses, over 800+ expertly curated learning resources and over 200+ hours of learning to help you become more experience led, data driven and business focused.
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