HR’s Biggest Challenge: Creating a Quality Employee Experience

Creating a quality employee experience is a dream for every HR management. The employee experience basically defines what the HR of an organization is really about.

●    Employee Experience: Meaning

There are three major things that make up employee experience at every company around the world.

1.    Technological Environment: these are the actual tools that employees use to get their jobs done. This includes the user experience, user interface, mobile devices, desktop computers, the apps that the employees are using, anything related to technology that falls into the technological environment.
Is your organization providing the tools that are beautiful, modern, relevant, and that allows the employees to get their jobs done in a way that they feel convenient to do? If the answer is yes, then the organization is providing a quality employee environment in regard to technology.

2.    Physical Environment: the physical environment is everything that you see around you, whatever that you can touch, taste, smell, and breathe in and out. For instance, the open cubicle, the art that’s hanging on the wall or the stairs to your office, it can be anything. The physical space is quite literally just what happens when you walk into the front door of your organization.
This is quite crucial because employees spend most of their time inside the organizations and the physical environment makes a big difference. How the employees communicate, how they collaborate, how they feel if they want to be engaged, inspired.
The physical space makes a big difference, that’s what organizations oftentimes neglect and forget about.

3.    Cultural Environment: the third and last environment is the most famous and known. This environment determines how the employees actually feel inside the organization. The vibes that they get, the cultural environment includes everything from organizational structure to leadership style to compensation and benefits. Anything that creates the kind of vibe within the organization.

All three factors- technological, physical, and cultural environment together make one complete employee experience.

Organizations have historically focused on one, or maybe two at a maximum of those three environments. Although, the future that we are evolving into is focusing on all three environments. The organizations that are applying all these three environments within their companies can be called Experiential organizations.

Employee experience is the environment where the employees really want to show up and that’s how an environment should be created in organizations where the employees would love to be a part of. This is what employee experience comes down to.

The one big assumption that organization owners always had around work is that people need to work there, so when they assume people need to work there, they just give them the bare minimum from the utility, the things that they need to get their jobs done. A phone, a desk, a computer, that’s it. There is no focus on engagement, innovation, and inspiration. None of that stuff matters in organizations with the poor employee experience.

Now that we live in a world where the war for talent has never become fiercer, organizations have to shift their mentality from creating a place where they assume people need to be there to creating a place where people naturally want to be there.

This shift from utility to experience, from the need to want. That is what employee experience is all about. The three ways to create that is as explained, focus on technology, focus on the physical space, and most importantly, focus on the culture. Not one, not two, but all three of those environments need to be focused on.

●    How to Create a Better Employee Experience?

The key to employee engagement is not found in once per year surveys. Free lunches or flexible schedules don’t help, although the employees do like them.

Several studies have pointed to one formula. A well-crafted employee experience leads to better employee engagement. It’s really just that simple. Obviously, improving employee engagement is not truly easy. Many organizations have tried the perks’ path, offering free lunches, work from home days, bring your own device programs and other goodies. But these perks don’t replace what employees crave. An authentic experience rich with fulfilment and belonging is what the employees crave.

Employee engagement represents a real connection between the employee and the organization. It increases productivity, higher devotion to work, less employee turnover, and higher profitability are all the tangible results of a truly engaged workforce or good employee engagement.

Employee engagement doesn’t spontaneously bloom like in each organization. Organizations need to nurture it with support, planning, and all the tools necessary to make the initiative, a success.

Often there’s a disconnect between how employees view work, and how employers see work. While employees look at work and see community. Employers frequently see the employee-employer relationship as a contract.

➢  Here’s what employees want at work along several dimensions-

1.    They want their organization to value their contributions.

2.    They want their organization to appreciate their presence, their very being.

3.    They want to experience the connection that comes from doing good work with good people.

4.    They want their organization to value their ideas and experience.

5.    Employees want to experience a sense that their work matters.

●    Crafting a Great Employee Experience

1.    Research: find out what your employees need and want. Use focus groups, surveys, and manage input to gather information. Taking the time to discover and gather insights into how employees perceive their work is vital.

2.    Define the Employee Experience you Wish to Create: once you have completed your research, it’s time to put some definitions on paper. What kind of employee experience do you want or intend to create? It’s hard work to shape these ideas into concrete definitions. So consider these two questions as a guide. Firstly, how do you want employees to feel about their experience at work? Secondly, what kind of experience and culture do you need?
At this point, it’s important to get the leaders involved. First of all, they will have ownership if they participate in the definition stage. Secondly, as they wait into defining the employee experience, they will get to understand their teams better. This should enhance their leadership.

3.    Feedback: feedback is the next necessary step. Once you have defined the employee experience, put the definition up for honest feedback. Your employee experience definition might get a few bruises, and things will definitely be tweaked.
But the beauty of good feedback is that, after the dust has settled, a motivating and foundational employee experience definition will be born.

4.    Look for gaps that need to be addressed: it’s truth time. With your fresh definition in the head, it’s time to assess and measure against it, to create a line and address gaps. Consider policies and practices, create cultural reviews, and examine systems.
You want to find out how the actual experience aligns with the desired experience and if it doesn’t work, leadership and HR can address what needs to be adjusted. Use HR technology tools to measure the pulse of your organization all year long, so you can learn about the needs and expectations of employees. Use these data to adapt to the changing needs of your colleagues. Over time, this regular feedback will clarify the employee engagement picture. It will allow you to easily craft action plans to address the areas of need, whether it’s learning and development, compensation or recognition.

Conclusion

Employee experience as you have read throughout this article is the essence of any organization. It requires proper time, care, study, and resources. Management’s most crucial job, especially HR management is to create a good employee experience while keeping in mind all the environments- technological, physical, and cultural. Having a good employer experience not only helps in reducing the employee turnover in a year but also helps in creating a good reputation of the organization in the talent market, thus, allowing the company to get the best talents in the market available.