If you’ve been anywhere near human resource management spaces these past few years, you’ve probably heard of the term “employee experience” (EX)—but what is it, and why should business owners and HR leaders care?
The employment journey starts before someone joins your company and continues throughout their time there. It’s diverse, touching on their tasks, the company vibe, opportunities, and more.
Improving employee experience is multifaceted. It involves making employees feel welcome and prepared to succeed at work, whether through cultivating a positive company culture or effective performance management plans. Ultimately, when you focus on curating a better employment experience you gain a competitive edge. Plus, it makes hiring easier, because your business becomes a more appealing place for potential employees.
Employee experience is the sum of all the interactions and perceptions an employee has with their employer, from the moment they apply for a job until they leave.
There are three main components to consider.
Where employees work influences productivity, morale, engagement, and well-being—both positively and negatively. A well-designed workspace can foster collaboration, innovation, and engagement among employees, while a poor workspace can cause stress, frustration, and dissatisfaction.
This refers is the set of values, beliefs, and behaviours that define how the company operates—it’s the company’s personality, so to speak. Whether your employees get along with this personality will impact their creativity, collaboration, and sense of belonging. Fostering a strong culture is the key to success.
Related Resource: The Growing Importance of Company Culture and How to Cultivate It
This includes the tools and systems employees use to find jobs, do their jobs, communicate with their colleagues, and interact with hiring managers. When digital tools meet expectations, the employment experience improves. As such, it can often suffer when tools are a hassle or do more harm than good.
Many employees and even HR leaders and employers confuse employee engagement with experience. It can be confusing. Engagement refers to how committed, motivated, and satisfied an employee is with their work and employer.
Generally, employee engagement focuses on employees’ emotional connection to their work and organization. Meanwhile, employment experience is a larger concept that encompasses all the interactions an employee has with their employer throughout their entire employee journey.
A positive employee experience can lead to higher employee engagement, which can result in better performance, productivity, retention, and customer/client satisfaction. Therefore, work experience often shapes engagement.
Related Resource: How to Keep Employees Engaged During a Recession
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A strong employee experience strategy makes happy employees and happy employees drive business success—that’s the big and small of it. The data shows that:
A positive employment experience can boost business performance in several meaningful ways:
Enhancing employee experience is important, yet what challenges are likely to arise? Here are several:
Now that you understand the benefits and challenges of improving employee experience, you’re probably wondering what to do next—understand employee journey stages and relevant factors at each level.
Employee experience journey mapping begins before the hiring process. At the attraction stage, potential employees learn about your company and decide whether they want to work for you or not. When you ask candidates “Why do you want to work here?” they should have plenty of reasons to share!
Hiring the best candidates for your company goes beyond posting on a job board like LinkedIn, Indeed, or Monster. You also have to optimize your job application process and how you communicate with your applicants, including interviews and offers.
Pro-tip: Save time, money, and effort in the recruitment process by using a recruitment agency to find the best candidates for your company.
Once you’ve recruited talent, get them acquainted with your systems and culture. This stage is not a one-and-done thing (that’s orientation). Onboarding sets the stage for the employee experience, welcoming them and providing essential knowledge for their roles, laying the foundation for success!
Related Resource: New Employee Onboarding Guide
The employee journey starts by fostering growth, retention, and engagement throughout their career, vital for motivation, performance, and career satisfaction. Your employees can choose to leave, and they might if you don’t nurture them. Provide them with career development opportunities like mentorships, training, or workshops. Expanding skill sets may prompt role changes, promotions, performance reviews, and career discussions.
Employee retention is the stage of the journey where you as the employer need to keep your employees satisfied, loyal, and productive. Retention is influenced by various factors. While some are beyond your control, many relate to employee experience and are within your grasp. Think work environment, work-life balance, flexibility, diversity and inclusion, and employee engagement.
Related Resource: 15 Tips for Retaining Top Talent
Many relationships inevitably end, and the same goes for employee-employer partnerships. Last impressions matter, so make it a good one. Whether they left voluntarily or involuntarily, the exit stage is a critical time to measure and understand employee perceptions. Use this chance to gain valuable employee feedback and insights on how to improve your employee experience.
Not every employee who leaves their job is fired, meaning sometimes those who leave will become advocates for your brand. They can help boost your brand reputation from their word-of-mouth, testimonials, and recommendations. They can also help you attract more talent, customers, and partners by sharing positive experiences and insights on company review sites.
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For business leaders, enhancing work begins with precise measurement. The employment experience also requires data collection and analysis to pinpoint areas for improvement. But how do you measure employee experience? The best way is to break it down into different metrics or KPIs. Here are some metrics to measure employment experience:
Develop employee surveys strategically based on these indicators, or you can use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. A combination of surveys, polls, analytics, interviews, focus group discussions, or feedback sessions is a great way to capture your employees’ thoughts, feelings, and opinions.
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
You’re ready to get strategic once you’ve measured key metrics and identified which aspects need overhauling. Your employee experience strategy largely depends on your goals and data, but we can help you get some ideas! Improving your company’s employment experience is an integral ingredient for business success, so we’re here to help with five tips.
Improving employee experience starts with improving employee perceptions by:
If you want you want higher productivity and better wellness levels for employees, create a positive environment for them at work by:
Creating a workplace where everyone feels valued and respected enhances overall employee satisfaction. Make a deliberate effort to:
Related Resource: Diversity and Inclusion: 5 Best Practices for the Workplace
A positive environment is just the beginning. Improving employee experience should also prioritize employee well-being, which you can do by:
Corporate leadership shapes the employee experience, as your leaders are the role models who set the tone and embody your values. We recommend:
Improve the employee experience with Ad Culture
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Improving employee experience (and reaping the rewards of the associated business outcomes) starts with attracting and hiring the right people. You can start by optimizing your recruitment process or you could leave it up to AdCulture. Not only will we help you hire top talent, but we help you take steps to ensure you’re retaining those new hires, too.
Contact AdCulture today to get started and take the first step toward improving your employment experience. Finding unicorns is what we do best!