What is Employee Experience and Why Does it Matter?
Employee experience is a term used to describe an employee’s experience within your organization : from the moment they review an open position until their final exit interview, it is the sum total of their time with your company; and how they feel about it. The positive and negative experiences are of equal importance when building an employee experience management plan; they impact everything from work ethic to collaboration and productivity to job satisfaction and retention.
As we’ve previously shared, building a purpose-driven workplace and preventing burnout are integral to employee, and organizational, success. While these play a direct role in employee experience, they do not cover every aspect. Your company will need to look at the entire employee lifecycle, and identify the true lived experiences of your employees at each stage, to build a solid employee experience foundation.
According to recent studies, Gen Z and millennials currently make up approximately 38% of the global workforce and this percentage will rise to 58% by 2030. This shift in demographics also requires a shift from simply engaging employees in basic professional development, to constructing a holistic approach to experiences within all facets of your organization. Businesses have experienced massive shifts in how they operate over the past few years; impacted by social media, the pandemic, and a heightened instability of economic and political conditions. With these shifts come changes in perspectives among rising demographics; money is no longer a primary motivation. Organizations must gain a thorough understanding of their younger employees who think, feel and behave differently to previous generations in order to learn how to best shape an employee experience approach.
Creating a personalized employee experience plan for each individual employee is most likely unattainable, but you will ideally want to be as personalized as possible. Interviewing employees will allow you to determine weaker experience areas within your organization which you can work to improve, in addition to the stronger areas you can possibly enhance even further. An upskilling plan for employees as a result of these interviews will also play a significant role in a solid employee experience management plan.
Listening to your employees, and balancing their personal aspirations within the organization, with their strengths and your blueprint for the future of your business, will be how you heighten employee experience; when you show you care and truly listen, then implement and align with company values, your employees not only feel valued, but see how they fit into the larger picture of the organization. These feelings of value turn into employee retention, higher rates of engagement and productivity, and, ultimately, an increase in profit.
If employees are the consumers of the workplace, it is our responsibility to ensure they have a high quality experience. And when only 2 in 10 employees strongly agree their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work (Gallup), organizations must shift focus towards employee satisfaction through their interactions and experiences. Your processes must be streamlined and technology up to date (smart investments include giving employees the tools they need to maximize efficiency and confidence), but the human element is where your employees' experience will begin to flourish. Of those who feel they have a good work-life balance, almost two-thirds (63%) are willing to go above and beyond for their organization, and would choose said balance over an increase in pay.
At the end of the day, you might be wondering, “but how does employee experience impact my business, my bottom line?” And the answer is: massively. Studies have shown how companies that invest in employee experience are 4x more profitable than those that do not, and grow at a1.5x faster rate. The goal is to find the sweet spot where employee needs and organizational strategy meet, so both individual employees, and the entirety of the company, can prosper.
