In the last years, employee experience and wellbeing have increased their importance for the HR leaders if they don’t want to lose their talent. Employee experience can’t be considered without looking at the work that a person does, the tools they are provided with, and the environment they are surrounded by.
According to LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends 2020 report, one in three companies does not act regularly on employee comments. The report reflects that 94% of talent professionals believe that employee experience will be very important for the future of recruitment and HR and 77% say they are increasingly focused on it as a means to increase retention.
While 68% of respondents report that experience for employees has improved in their company in the past five years, only 52% say their company currently provides a positive employee experience, which means that almost half do not.
In a competitive talent market where the employee is in control, providing a positive experience for the employee is not optional: it is an essential strategy to retain their best people and help them do their best work. This means that HR teams will go all-in on employee experience to attract and retain talent, mapping and making manageable an employee’s whole journey, regularly collecting feedback, and actively collaborating with employees to create an experience that works for all.
The HR teams will be able to show employees that they are working to the improvement and generate momentum for future change If they focus on some problem areas and taking steps to solve them.
Here are 4 ways HR leaders can use tech to create a better employee experience at work:
1.- Increase the quality of the Onboarding Process
If we have a look at the HR tech tools there are numerous that can help organizations to create a better onboarding experience. These tools can support the transformation of the candidate experience during the interview process or can provide valuable information about a potential hire’s strengths and weaknesses.
2.- Make work more productive and easier
Advances in Artificial Intelligent and other technologies make work easier by eliminating tedious tasks. Automation supports the employees by focusing on other tasks that require creativity and innovation, allowing them to be more productive in the workplace.
3.- Promote Work-Life Balance
Technology created a whole new employee experience: remote work. Research indicates that 70% of the global workforce works remotely at least once a week.
Working remotely helps employees better maintain work-life balance, and it also shows trust by giving employees a measure of flexibility in completing their tasks. This option has become so important that if your organization’s remote-work tools aren’t up to par then employees may look elsewhere for an employer that can offer a smoother experience.
‘‘Our people-first approach, which has guided our company since it was founded, means when our company does well, our people do really, really well. Our people work incredibly hard and deserve to share in Southwest’s success.’’
Gary Kelly, CEO, Southwest Airlines
4.- Weak points identification of our proposal
Finally, as a leader, it can be difficult to put your finger on the pain points in your employee experience, but you can find many HR technologies that offer anonymized survey tools that better allow you to get the pulse of the organization. If you don’t have enough budget for HR tech tools, don’t be afraid. You can have tools like SurveyMonkey and Google Forms have an entry-level cost of zero, and the insights they gather are worth quite a good.
Create a good employee experience will improve retention and benefit your company in many other ways. Starbucks is a great example of a brand that understands the extra value their employees bring to the business, sometimes by putting a smile on someone’s face, or building long-term customer loyalty. Starbucks has measured this impact and 87% of its customers’ affinity towards is driven by how the company treats its employees.
For example, all Starbucks staff can earn company shares through their “Bean Stock” program.
Conclusions
Most of the professionals agree that employee experience is becoming more important, but many struggle to find enough time and resources to make significant improvements. I understand that nobody expects you to transform your business overnight but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything.
If you focus on making minor improvements that you know that will have a significant impact and collect continuous employee feedback to discover the next improvement opportunity. Over time, this will add to big changes. As a consequence of employees will feel the difference and the leaders see it reflected in their retention rates.
Change management will be possible with the implementation and strengthening of an engagement culture. For this reason, it is necessary to build upon a solid base: a clear strategy, based on honest communication and effectiveness when addressing conflicts and resilience to obtain the necessary internal support that will generate the expected changes in attitude and behavior. Ultimately, engagement has more to do with people and how they feel than anything else.
Although such transformation processes are usually rather complex and have an impact in the medium term, it is well worth committing to them. A focus on improving employee engagement is an excellent opportunity to ensure happy and satisfied employees, customers and shareholders and will, in turn, improve the company’s reputation and turnover.
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