Employee Experience: How (and Why) To Put Yourself in Their Shoes
You hear a lot about user experience, but what exactly is employee experience and why does it matter?
Employee experience, or EX, is equally - if not more - important than customer experience.
Imagine your employees aren’t having a positive experience working for you - they’re unlikely to project a good impression of your organisation to colleagues, customers and the wider industry, impacting your productivity, customer service, morale and reputation.
Our latest blog examines how (and why) to put yourself in your employees’ shoes to improve their experience of working for your organisation.
What is employee experience?
Employee experience refers to the entire process of working for you.
From accepting a role to handing in their notice - and every other interaction in between - your employees experience numerous touchpoints over the time they work with you and every single one counts.
Successful businesses have a clear-cut employee experience strategy to give – and get – the most from their teams.
What would this look like for your organisation?
What creates an employee experience?
Many factors make up the complete employee experience of your organisation. These include, but aren’t limited to, things like:
Working environment
Company culture
Leadership styles
Wellbeing policies
Working hours/shift patterns
The tools to do the job
Reward and recognition
Why does employee experience matter?
Recently, we delivered a large-scale transformation programme for much-loved British retailer, wilko.
As part of the programme, switching to using new manual handling equipment posed a challenge for employees. Change is scary (even if you can logically see the benefits) and warehouse teams naturally felt nervous about driving the new low level order pickers (LLOPs).
Having eased and supported employees into embracing the new LLOPs, wilko team members noticed significant improvements in their working lives, but the transformation went further.
Because their experience of work had changed for the better, this change impacted their personal lives too. Now, they arrive home feeling much less tired, which has a positive effect on their family lives, relationships and work-life balance.
How your employees experience their working life matters because it has far-reaching impacts on morale, productivity and wellbeing.
Happier, healthier employees want to be at work and bring their best to the job. And this example is backed up by research and evidence.
What are the benefits of a good employee experience?
The key to a positive employee experience is engagement.
If you’ve read our blogs on employee engagement, you’ll know engaged employees have the power to increase profitability by 21%, reduce absenteeism by 41%, and lower employee churn by 59%.
Satisfied employees stay with their employer seven times longer than dissatisfied workers, while only 17% of British employees say they love their job.
The UK ranked only 12th in a 2020 survey of the world’s happiest employees, with India boasting the highest percentage of satisfied workers.
Therefore, feeling engaged and motivated to work dramatically increases the chances of your team showing up, staying loyal and boosting your bottom line.
So, how do you put yourself in your employees’ shoes to improve their working experience?
Tips for improving employee experience
With so many factors influencing employee experience, how do you start improving it in your organisation?
Creating an environment where everyone enjoys being at work starts with employee engagement, which is all about communication.
Businesses evolve all the time and keeping your employees engaged through better communication is key to nurturing and enhancing their experience of your organisation.
Here are three critical ways to improve employee experience:
Take time to understand your employees
Putting yourself in your employees’ shoes sounds obvious but is often overlooked. We can all be guilty of making assumptions without really knowing what’s happening on the ground, so ditch the guesswork and find out.
Take the time to meet employees where they’re at – literally.
Rather than summoning teams to a meeting room, visit their workstations, sit beside them and delve into what’s working well – and not so well – in their typical working day. This is powerful information to decide how you approach the next phase of your business growth and gives you the insight to empathise, connect and engage.
Focus also on feelings
During your research, don’t simply focus on factual information. Emotions drive us, so ask employees how they feel right now and about their job overall, then think about how you’d like them to feel.
How different are those two things, and what’s needed to bridge the gap?
Getting all this information down on paper allows you to set clear goals for your project, which can later be measured on completion to determine its success.
Communicate consistently and clearly
Engaged employees expect clear and consistent communication to know where they stand, to help them feel involved and valued, as well as to understand what they’re working towards.
When it comes to internal communication, it’s vital to have a planned approach with a clear idea of rationale, language and tone, audience and message, channels and platforms, as well as the frequency, or drumbeat, of communication. This will ensure your message reaches the right people, in the right way, at the right times.
Clear and consistent communication sets expectations, invites employees to share and support your vision and strengthens the employee experience on all levels.
Get support improving employee experience in your business
How would your employees rate their experience of working within your organisation? If you suspect – or know – there’s room for improvement, there’ is no need to feel overwhelmed or stressed at the prospect of making a change.
We create a Desired Colleague Experience Roadmap as part of our support services to businesses to amplify employee experience and tap into all its benefits. Our clients love it and we know you will too.
If employee experience is holding you back from the next level of growth or development, give us a call and let’s work together to create a workplace where people enjoy coming to work. Contact Enthuse on 07812 343310 or email hello@enthuse-comms.co.uk for an informal chat, and we’ll take it from there.