Creating a Positive Employee Experience

By Larry Reed

Updated Over a Week Ago

Minute Read

Recently, companies have started to realize that good customer experience, as well as the performance of your business as a whole, depends largely on your employees’ level of happiness.

Deloitte’s report on human capital trends has found that as much as 80% of executives have recognized employee experience as an important factor for their organization’s success.

This is partly due to millennials, who will be making up 50 percent of the workforce on a global level in just two years.

This generation expects more from their jobs in terms of the technology used, general working conditions, and their overall day-to-day experience.

It’s simple – better employee experience means better employee engagement, which improves productivity and attentiveness.

What is Employee Experience (EX)?

Broadly speaking, EX is the overall level of satisfaction enjoyed by employees on a daily basis and is influenced by a number of factors.

These include their physical environment, technological tools at their disposal, processes and policies conceived in order to improve their position, and the general attitude of management towards them.

It includes everything you can think of that could affect how your employees feel about their work, from furniture in the office to operating systems used in the company or compensation and benefits programs they enjoy.

It’s quite alarming to know that there’s a quite serious global employee engagement crisis. Only 13 percent of workers worldwide have been found to be fully committed to their jobs and enthusiastic about them.

Dealing with the employee experience in the right manner is a great way to make sure your organization does better than this.

How Can You Improve EX?

Regardless of the fact that most executives appreciate its importance, almost 60 percent of them don’t know how to make true improvements in this respect.

According to Deloitte, the five most important factors that influence EX are meaningful work, supportive management, work environment, growth opportunities, and trust in leadership.

For instance, when it comes to growth prospects, it’s important that your workers feel they can learn new things through training and development programs.

Also, knowing they can earn promotions solely on the basis of their talent and hard work is crucial.

Furthermore, to improve trust in leadership, it’s best to be honest, transparent, and impartial and to make sure the same rules apply to everyone. This way, you can be certain that they’ll feel safe and motivated to give honest feedback to those at the top positions of your organization as well.

Lately, a number of companies have started to look at their employees in a similar way they look at their customers.

Creating employee journey maps is one of the ways to get a deeper insight into how employees feel and think at every stage of their involvement with the company. Another approach is careful segmentation of clusters of your workforce, based not just on their position or experience but also on their personal needs and preferences.

A personalized approach to dealing with your employees, whether in terms of rewarding, instructing, or facing them with new circumstances, can have a very positive effect.

Providing your workers with cutting-edge technology and the newest apps is very important, especially when it comes to communication software.

Just like CX, EX can also be ruined by old, slow, and unresponsive technology. So reaching out to an information technology agency to deal with communication networks and your digital systems, in general, may be a good idea.

The Benefits of Outstanding EX

If you really want to improve the experience of your customers, you have to put your employees first. Employees deeply unsatisfied with their job won’t be able to be productive and handle their job in an appropriate and efficient manner.

You need a happy and engaged workforce. The most committed employees, unsurprisingly, put in 57 percent more work than those that are unmotivated and indifferent.

Companies that invest heavily in EX are much more often included in all sorts of top lists, from Glassdoor’s ‘Best Places to Work’ to Fast Company’s ‘Most Innovative Companies’.

It’s interesting that businesses that deliver first-rate EX are also 4.4 times more often listed in LinkedIn’s list of North America’s most in-demand employers. And chances they’re not having a hard time finding top-quality employees. Companies that actually care about their workers will have a great advantage when recruiting new talents.

Imagine a candidate with exceptional references looking for a job and having several offers on the table. The one from a company where people come to work because they want to and not because they have to is likely to draw attention.

According to research by the Boston Consulting Group, on the list of factors that influence employees’ happiness, an attractive salary comes 8th, with most of the first 7 being heavily EX-related.

When it comes to searching for the right job, people rate relationships with colleagues and superiors and chances for career development very highly.

The Golden Rule

All in all, recognizing the importance of EX for your business is a matter of common sense, as well as hard facts.

Companies that made it to the ‘100 Best Companies to Work for in America’ list generate 2.3 to 3.8 percent higher stock returns than other businesses.

And whenever you’re unsure about how to deal with your employees in certain situations, you might want to use Sir Richard Branson’s version of the golden rule: “the key is to treat your staff how you would like to be treated.”

In other words, the best way to provide a top-notch employee experience is to show genuine and sincere care for your workers every day at all levels of your organization.



How Can You Create a Positive Employee Experience?

If you have ideas you feel like sharing that might be helpful to readers, share them in the comments section below. Thanks!

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Larry Reed
Larry Reed
Larry is a tech writer with DesignRush - a new digital destination to offer inspiration and overview of the current design and technology trends. Larry has several years of experience in creating content for the web, usually on topics centered around web design and development.
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