The Pandemic created a Stress Test for Employee Experience-Here’s what we’ve learned

If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s Employee Experience matters! As the economy showed small signs of reopening, analyst and HR influencers began ringing the bell about the Great Resignation. Firms who chose to focus on their employee experience during the pandemic have experienced lower turnover than their counterparts. Corporate culture is an essential aspect of employee satisfaction, motivation and commitment. Executives who take steps to ensure that employees feel valued will achieve better results in the long run. Employee engagement is what a company does for the workplace and overall productivity. 

With a focus on engagement and culture, many leading organizations strive to improve employee experience as a whole through a variety of user feedback tools, wellness and fitness apps and employee self-service technologies. As companies emerge from the current crisis, policymakers are looking for ways to highlight examples of their support for workers, such as continued pay for ancillary workers or the provision of extended sick leave. It is leaders who encourage employees to think about programs that have improved their working lives, encourage employees to publish their stories on a roadmap that illustrates improvements in employee experiences (such as new phone systems, mental health resources and programs) and share those stories in team meetings, in-house newsletters and in other forums. 

With unprecedented changes in our societies, economies and businesses, the way workers experience work is more important than ever. Employees expect to have a productive, engaging and enjoyable work experience in a digital world of increased transparency and the growing influence of millennials. Organizations recognize that people are their greatest asset and therefore invest in the experience of their employees. 

Looking at the 10 trends discussed this year, it is clear that the experience of employees is a key issue this year. Leadership, organizational structure, teams, career mobility, learning, diversity, employment, brand and human resources affect employees’ experiences. Company’s ability to deal with disruption, transformation and economic uncertainty is critical to how employees experience work. Research by Deloitte shows that only 9% of business leaders believe they are ready to address these issues. 

Corporate culture is an essential aspect of employee satisfaction, motivation and commitment. Executives who take steps to ensure that employees feel valued will achieve better results in the long run. Employee engagement is what a company does for the workplace and overall productivity. 

The first step towards customer satisfaction is employee satisfaction. A third study by IBM’s Smarter Workforce Institute correlated employee experience with higher returns on assets and returns on sales, financial metrics used to measure profitability and margins of profit, as shown below. This shows that when companies enable their employees to do their jobs, they are better able to serve customers. 

The study found that organizations that provide a positive employee experience through human work practices, recognition, feedback and empowerment have a significant impact on return on assets (ROA) and sales (ROS). Organizations in the top 25% for employee experience report a 3x ROA compared to organizations in the lower quartile. They also report a double return on sales (ROS) compared to the organizations in the lower districts. 

This year’s Global Human Capital Trends study highlighted challenges and opportunities for improvement in several dimensions of employee experience (Figure 3). According to research and consulting firm Gartner, when companies meet their employees “expectations, they see a boost in productivity and retention efforts. The study, which surveyed 150 HR managers and 3,000 employees, found that companies need to complement investments in measures that help improve people’s understanding of their experiences.

Over the last three decades we have tried to measure, manage and cultivate employee engagement in the workplace – with overwhelming results. The Gallup organization was the first to conduct a survey to measure employee engagement. For the past 20 years, Gallup has used this tool to publish employee engagement benchmarks in the United States and around the world. 

Your listening program should generate regular feedback in order to gain a deeper understanding of how employees feel. For example, pulse surveys take regular, structured measurements of employee attitudes while ad hoc surveys are continually collected to provide feedback on things like organizational changes, new programs and policies and corporate initiatives. Regular assessments are useful during the employee lifecycle, because they show how committed and committed established employees are to their work.

Although there are many variations in the definition of employee experience and engagement, companies have focused on the idea of employee engagement over the last decade that the term “employee experience” has gained in importance, because many studies show that the majority of companies are not making progress and employees are generally dissatisfied at work. Customers let themselves be influenced by their experiences with companies and employees. 

So instead of trying to force people to fit in with outdated work practices, organizations should reshape their work practices to match their employees. Give everyone the opportunity to make small improvements to improve the employee experience. All these things are great, but they will not achieve the intended results for both the staff and the organization.