What Is Employee Experience and How Can You Improve It?

What Is The Employee Experience?

There are many different definitions of the employee experience, but initially it refers to everything an employee encounters, observes, or feels throughout their journey at an organization. It is an experience that starts with the application process and lasts all the way through the employee becoming an alumnus or alumna. According to SHRM, the employee experience is shaped by three main things:

1. Culture: Leadership style as well as the values, attitudes, practices, and overall mission of the organization all play a role in shaping the employee experience.
2. Technology: As stated by SHRM, technology is the central nervous system of an organization. Providing your employees with the right technological tools they need to do their job greatly impacts their everyday experience at the workplace.
3. Physical Workspace: We’ve written an article on this before. The design and layout of office space plays a large role in not only the employee experience, but also in employee health. Natural light, plants or nature views, and colorful decor all help to improve employees’ creativity, mood, and experience. Workplace flexibility, autonomy, and access to multiple workspaces are also elements that can improve work environments.

Why Invest In the Employee Experience?

Jacob Morgan, best-selling author, keynote speaker and futurist, analyzed the business performances of organizations who had invested in employee experience. The results show that experiential organizations have four times higher average profits, two times higher average revenues, and 40% lower turnover rates! In addition, improved employee experience leads to improved employee engagement. Gallup research shows that engaged workforces are 21% more productive and outperform their peers by 147% in earnings per share.

Four Steps to Improve Employee Experience

According to this recent Willis Towers Watson article, here are four ways to improve employee experience:

1. Communicate With Employees. Before you can improve their experience, you first want to truly understand your employees; What motivates them? How do they like to consume information? What are their future plans and goals? When you know the answers to these questions, you’ll have a better idea on what kind of experience appeals most to your employees.
2. Personalize Communication: The second step is to create and communicate relevant plan and program information. By personalizing this communication and including a timely call to action, employees will be more interested, more engaged, more aware, and be more encouraged to take action.
3. Integrate Partner Systems: Integrating your partner systems allows employees to seamlessly have access to all their information without having to sign in to multiple accounts, which will improve their overall experience with the systems. For example, with integrated systems employee can view real-time account balances alongside last month’s pay, or up to the minute health elections next to their well-being score. 
4. Use Artificial Intelligence Appropriately: Artificial Intelligence in Human Resources can comprise of several different tools and approaches. However, it is important to not over-use AI and only use it in ways that make sense for your organization and your employees. For example, using chat bot that has personalized responses plus coaching content is both an efficient and productive use of AI.

For more information on the employee experience, click here!