Companies must invest in staff, listen to feedback and prioritise work-life balance
The success or failure of a business ultimately hinges on the productivity and work quality of its workforce. The workforce is truly the foundation of every corporate and industry, and understanding their experiences within an organization is crucial. This is where employee experience comes into play, as it enables organisations to gain valuable insights into the needs and sentiments of their people.
The unprecedented changes the world of work has gone through have severely impacted and shaped how employees act and what they expect. The workforce is fluid and diverse which makes each of them have a different 'want'. There exists a common underlying tone to their expectations making work-life balance, employee engagement and productivity vital elements for HR to decide what kind of experience they are gaining.
If it becomes complex and opaque, employee experience management (EXM) could become the key to improving the overall situation.
Build better understanding for the employees: The pillar of EXM is based on how much HRs or CXOs understand their people or teams. Build a workspace where your employees feel much appreciated and assured.
Bring dynamic leaders: Dynamic leaders know the way, go the way, and show the way to their people — a famous quote by author John C Maxwell. Without good leaders, it is more challenging to establish a great company culture and a more positive working atmosphere.
Create more learning opportunities: A workplace should be a place for learning and development for the employees. Offer your employees more learning, skilling, and reskilling opportunities. These opportunities give more confidence to your employees to take on new challenges, improve their skill set, and get career maturity within an organisation.
Continuous feedback and evaluation: Employee experience management is an ongoing process. The HR department should continuously identify the issues and improve them regularly to ensure employee satisfaction and a transparent workplace setting.
Offer smooth onboarding: Onboarding is a vital period for both; new employees and HR. Offer an optimised and smooth onboarding to new hires by providing information regarding their job and tasks, the right tools and software, and a lot of training and guidance to avoid frustration.
Accept inclusion and diversity: If an organisation has a diverse workforce, its culture, policies and hiring practices must support diversity and inclusion. Ignoring these critical components could lead to stereotyping, disrespect among employees, and stress.
Priority to work-life balance: Employees have realised the essentiality of work-life balance. An organisation must necessitate changes in their office programs and policy to offer flexible workspace, remote work options, more breaking hours, and prioritise employees’ mental and physical health.
Notice the departing employees: Employees leave organisations regardless of what kind of employee experience they get. It is necessary to know what motivates them to quit.
Recognise and reward performers: Reward and recognition are salient components of employee experience. It is a good way to motivate other employees by gratifying the performers with gifts or rewards. It imbues gratitude and inspiration.
Get rid of micromanagement: The less micromanagement, the more employee experience. Employees don’t feel very comfortable with nagging from seniors or management. Micromanagement spreads a feeling of insecurity among the workforce.
Focus on employee retention: An organisation should keep high-performers and talented workers for success and avoid frequent turnovers. To make employees stay, compensate them fairly, focus on engaging them.
Organisations can start investing in their employees, listening to their feedback, bridging the gap between leaders and team members, and prioritising work-life balance.
(The writer is founder, HROne)
