In the modern economy, the value of any organization is determined by the experiences of its customers, employees and other stakeholders. These experiences can be shared and made global instantly through various channels which can lead to a quick shift in the brand perception. Organizations that can measure these experiences can thoughtfully design their interactions and create unique experiences. Designing employee experience can help organizations sustain their competitive advantage by closing experience gaps.
While most organizations strive for the perfect customer experience, there are still many that do not treat employee experience as equally important. Simply gathering data through employee experience survey is not enough anymore. HR needs to take direct ownership of these matters and address it in real-time because when there are experience gaps, disruption happens.
Positive employee experience can be a winning advantage and cannot be undermined. It can work wonders for the employer’s brand and can ensure that even when employees leave, they speak positively about the organization. Negative employee experiences can affect the employer brand and can have an adverse impact on the talent acquisition efforts. It also ensures that they look for growth within and not outside the organization. When the employees are satisfied with their job and the organization, their productivity is a lot higher and they spend less time on negative emotions and complaining.
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While businesses have always depended on quantifiable operational data like costs, turnover rate etc. for making business decisions, it only helps in understanding half the problem. It helps in understanding what has happened but not necessarily the reasons for it. To understand the ‘why’, we need what is known as Experience Data. Designing employee experience helps in combining the operational data as well experience data to help make decisions based on hard numbers and facts as well as the intangibles. Organizations who adopt Experience Management (XM), allow managers and employees to identify experience gaps, gather real time data relating to employee experience and take quick and meaningful actions to address it across the employee experience journey.
Employee experience is the sum of all the interaction an employee has with the employer, from the recruitment process to being an alumnus. According to a model by Jacob Morgan, it usually consists of three main areas of work- physical, cultural and technological workplace environments. Culture of an organization is not written or stated explicitly, but is certainly one of the most important elements in designing employee experience. The technological environment refers to the tools that employees use to get their work done including the internal social network, e- learning tools, CRMs and any other applications or software. For a great employee experience, it is important that good technological tools are used that helps in simplifying the processes and meets the needs of the employees. Physical workspace includes anything that the employees can see, touch, taste or smell like the office floor plan, the demographics of colleagues, any physical perks like catered meals or on-site gym, a lounge area etc. If any of these pillars are weak, it can adversely affect the employee experience journey.
Organizations that do well on experience management by designing culture, technology and physical workplace conducive to employee experience across their journey, can see an increase in average profits and revenues. It can lead to sustained employee engagement which is far more impactful than simply reacting to grievances revealed in employee experience survey. Employee engagement practices are usually reactive, while employee experience management is more proactive.
Framework for Employee Experience Design
Creating good employee experience, requires design thinking which is a mindset that focuses on creating a relevant solution or desired outcome rather than focusing on a perceived problem. Designing employee experience involves the following steps:
- Determine your goals: HR is mostly treated as a cost center and not a profit center. To get executive buy-in for investing in experience management resources, it is important to clearly define the goals and link it to the business objectives of the organization. Build a business case to demonstrate how improved employee experience can improve talent acquisition, help retention, reduce hiring costs and boost employee productivity leading to improved profitability.
- Employee experience journey mapping: Map the entire journey starting from recruitment to off boarding and then evaluate each engagement point. Assess what is the employee experience at each step in the present and what it should be like. This gap analysis helps in identifying what needs to change.
- Plan your approach: Once the gap analysis is done, a strategy needs to be chalked out to fill the employee experience gap and make an action plan. It could start with basics like simplifying lengthy processes or making information more accessible.
- Implement technology: A good employee experience software makes the process simpler and links it to other areas of work. It helps in making lengthy processes simpler and leaves enough time for the HR department and the employees to focus on quality work leading to a seamless experience.
- Measure and evaluate: To measure the success of the experience management efforts, it is important to make sure that every engagement point is tracked by some metric or KPI. This will help analyse whether the processes are really as easy and intuitive as planned.
To make sure that the experience management efforts of the organization is effective, the HR needs to focus on actionable data that can be derived from a good employee experience software. To choose a good experience management (XM) platform, look for these five key characteristics:
- Reliable: Consistent data can only be congregated with honesty. If the employees do not trust the system, the employee experience data gathered from them will not be reliable. A good XM platform must have a good flow and help the employees open up and share genuinely honest feedback.
- Predictive: A good platform must ensure that the data derived is not a product of conjecturing. AI and machine learning must be used to identify trends and bring out hidden insights that will help them make informed decisions.
- Flexible: Each organization is unique and might have their own set of challenges. A good XM platform must be flexible enough to meet these specific challenges.
- Integrated: A good XM platform must be able to integrate the operational data and the experience data into a single location by easily integrating with the existing HRIS. It makes the process less complex and makes the employee experience data more usable.
- Easy to Use: A good XM platform must be easy to use and instinctive enough so that anyone can use it without any specialized training.
It is important for organizations to know that experience is not just an intangible feeling but can be an important data for the growth of the organization. Designing employee experience requires the right employee experience software, that can not only derive statistics but turn it into actionable information to drive business growth and help the organization sustain a competitive advantage.
References:
- Everything HR Needs to Know About Experience Management (XM)- Sharlyn Lauby, 30 April, 2019
- What is Experience Management? – Timo Elliott, 16 January, 2019
- Why Experience Management is the Answer to Business Roundtable’s New- Zig Serafin, 28 August 2019
- Employee Experience- Everything HR needs to know to impact engagement
- through employee experience
- 3 Things to Know About Employee Experience- Jacob Morgan, 08 March, 2017
- Managing the Employee Experience: a New Reality for the HR Department- Editorial HR, 19 April, 2017
