The priority of today’s existing and potential employees is working in an environment that appreciates and values their contributions and personal lives. That implies that every employee expects more from their employer than the paycheck that comes at the end of the month.
The objective, in this case, is improving employee retention, increasing loyalty, reducing turnover, and enhancing a firm’s potential to attract quality talent. Additionally, the current job market is increasingly dynamic and fluid, which means that workforce mobility is high. That is something employers cannot afford to ignore.
The reason is that hiring new talent, training, and the induction process can be a time-consuming and expensive affair. So, your focus should be on improving the attractiveness of your entity to existing workers through strong corporate culture, as well as increasing engagement, loyalty, and advocacy. That way, your employees will become your brand ambassadors, which will increase the probability of attracting fresh talent.
That is achievable by improving the employee experience, which suggests that your workers will be at the heart of creating a pleasant, engaging, and cutting-edge working environment. As such, employee experience is one of the major factors that encourage individuals (and especially millennials) to work with you longer versus seeking opportunities elsewhere.
Therefore, employee experience should align with the needs of each of your workers and factor in the objectives and strategies of your enterprise at the same time. Here are some of the best practices that can help you improve employee experience in your organization and improve your company culture.
1. Prioritize Personalization
First and foremost, you need to appreciate that employees have a better understanding of improving employee experience. As such, you need the input of your team in this case. Avoiding the temptation to make assumptions about what your employees need or want is also advisable.
Instead, you should consider asking your employees what resources, spaces, and technologies they need to succeed in how they do their job. Note that knowledge about the characteristics and needs of your employees (and learning how to communicate with them in a simple, tailor-made manner) is the secret behind enhancing experience, engagement, and advocacy.
Data-driven dynamics is one of the options that can help you create a personalized experience for your employees. For instance, you can send each of them a tailor-made video to view and choose from different employee benefits. In turn, your workers will decide how they can leverage your firm’s benefits with just a few clicks.
As a result, you will be able to shift employee experience from the periphery to being a crucial part of your core business operations.
2. Redefine Your Onboarding Tactics
Improving the employee experience starts right from the decisive phase of hiring and integrating new workers into your team and workflow, popularly known as the onboarding stage. Improving corporate engagement is possible if you pay special attention to your onboarding procedure since the most advanced strategies can be time-consuming.
For example, in the first month, you can introduce a new employee to your team. After that, you can allow them to learn the basic operations of your enterprise. In the second month, you should not assume that your new hire is fully independent, but you should encourage them to initiate more dialogue with colleagues and senior-level management.
In the third month, new employees should strive towards achieving independence. An employer’s responsibility, in this case, is stimulating such individuals to become more proactive, handle greater tasks, contribute to the company’s objectives, and add value to their roles going forward.
3. Create Spare Time for Employee Engagement
The involvement of the employees within your establishment is critical since it directly impacts their productivity and motivation towards realizing the goals of your organization. It is possible to reduce high turnover rates when you engage your employees from time to time, which, in turn, promotes business growth.
If you want to increase employee engagement, you need to start by redefining your onboarding procedure according to the details above and strike a work-life balance, as well. That can become a possibility when you adopt flexible working hours and introduce new technologies. Also, creating the right team spirit using effective team-building strategies is a wise idea.
Involving your employees in your company’s strategies, mission, and vision of your brand is also paramount. That is only possible when they become the center of your operations. By doing so, you will improve the overall employee experience.
4. Move From Engagement to Advocacy
When it comes to employee experience, the term advocacy relates to the idea of promoting your company through your workers and associates. As a result, your employees create testimonials and become brand ambassadors that portray a positive image of your organization. That, in part, explains why people may tend to consider your employees a credible source of knowledge and information during interactions.
Advocacy aims to treat employees as individuals with unique characteristics and ultimately make them responsible for your firm’s mission and vision. Advocacy takes root naturally within your organization when you embrace personalization.
5. Equip Leaders and Managers
Your company executives and leaders of various teams are decision-makers within your organization. If you want such individuals to guide your employees accordingly and step in only when necessary, you need to offer the support they need to perform better.
In that case, you need to ensure your office managers and team leaders have conversation guides, toolkits, and necessary training to help them engage all your workers closely and in an effective way. A centralized knowledge base is very helpful and important to empower your employees and set them up for success.
6. Maintain Open Channels of Communication
Transparent communication and storytelling are some of the approaches that can help you connect with your employees. So, you need to give your team feedback and encourage them to do the same. Additionally, town hall meetings, all-hands meetings, two-way communication forums, and social media campaigns can help your employees gain a sense of connection. Your team should also know that their opinion is encouraged and welcome if you want to improve their experience.
The Value of Excellent Employee Experience
A positive employee experience will not only increase engagement, but it will also promote the success of your organization as a whole. That is why you should ensure your team members are happy and have the support they need at all times.
It is also worth mentioning that the successful transformation of employee experience depends on strong business values and an inspiring motivational message to gain company-wide support. So, ensure that the value of exceptional employee experience is evident by quantifying it.