4 Progressive Techniques for Prioritizing Employee Experience

In past decades, nothing was more important to workers than the numbers and decimal points on their paychecks. But over the past few years, things have changed.

Money is still a motivating factor as it relates to job and employee satisfaction, but it’s no longer the primary factor in whether an employee is happy. Something else has taken center stage; it’s called employee experience.

This refers to the combination of all moments that matter in the employee journey-everything an employee feels, sees, hears, and does during their time as a member of your organization. In fact, the employee experience begins before all that.

You could say it starts from the time an employee is recruited and interviewed by human resources. It continues through hiring and onboarding and then employee support.

After that, it’s reinforced and clarified during an employee’s lifetime with the organization through employee feedback, pulse surveys, employee recognition and performance reviews. The employee experience finally closes when the employee leaves for another job, retires, or is terminated culminating with the exit interview.

Employee experience has always mattered to a degree, but it’s never been prioritized as much as today in the work environment. This is partly thanks to the rise of a millennial workforce that cares just as much about company culture focusing on employees, feelings, and strong employee experiences as it does about paychecks. In the war for top talent, business leaders and organizations are bending their approach to satisfy what has become the meat of the talent pool.

Firms that emphasize employee experience have a competitive advantage and are reaping plenty of positive benefits. Here’s a look at some of the dividends:

• Better performance. Did you know that happy & engaged employees are as much as 20 percent more productive at work? This means an investment in employee experience is also an investment in performance management and productivity.
• Lower costs. Employees who are actively disengaged and/or disenfranchised are expensive to keep. It takes a lot of time and financial resources to get them to perform the jobs they were hired to do. Not only that, but there’s also much higher turnover, which is expensive.
• Healthier culture. When employee experience is a focal point, workers don’t just show up to work, punch a clock, and count down the minutes until they can clock out. They actually enjoy being there. They form healthy friendships with coworkers. They learn to appreciate and embrace the labor, even when it’s a grind.
• Greater loyalty. Happy team members don’t jump ship just to make an extra dollar or two at another company. They’re much more likely to stick with your company for years. This increase in retention means lower turnover costs and greater workforce stability.

According to researcher Jacob Morgan, the organizations that invest the most resources into employee experience are 11.5x as likely to be found in Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work, 4.4x as likely to be featured in LinkedIn’s list of America’s Most In-Demand Employers, 2.1x as likely to be featured on Forbes’ list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies, and 2x as likely to be listed in the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

This isn’t an accident. It’s the result of a conscious emphasis on employee experience and the benefits outlined above.

When you add up all of these rewards, it’s clear why the employee experience matters so much. If nothing else, it should motivate you to invest more time, energy, and creativity into revamping your approach as well as exploring employee experience software.

Every organization has a unique flavor and approach. Likewise, there are certain advantages and limitations your business has to handle that others do not. So you probably can’t adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to improving employee experience, here are some techniques you might consider:

First impressions go a long way. This includes a new hire’s first impression of your organization.

By mastering the onboarding process and making it a pleasurable experience for new hires, you instantly elevate their perception of your company. This also ensures the new member’s tenure at the company begins with a positive employee experience.

A good onboarding process should be smooth and systematized, but not sterile or impersonal. Spread out onboarding over several days (or even weeks) and make it a priority to get the employee engaged and connected to other workers as quickly as possible.

If your company has been around for more than five or 10 years, there’s a good chance you have “just because” rules. These are practices and expectations that don’t really have any justification other than “Just because … that’s how we do it!”

Some examples might be wearing a suit and tie in the office, being forced to punch in and out for your lunch hour, or extensive approval processes for all expenses – even $5 ones. By rethinking these rules and replacing them with more progressive practices, you show employees the company cares about them.