In the not-too-distant past, most companies focused solely on customer experiences (CX). While this is understandable, in the modern post-COVID, post-Great Resignation era, it’s no longer sufficient to focus only on customer experiences. It’s equally important to pay more attention to employee experiences (EX).
Employees are the vital cogs that keep the wheels of your business running. When they have a good experience throughout their employment, they will be motivated, engaged, and productive at work. You will have a thriving productive workforce that improves the firm’s profitability and competitiveness. EX also has knock-on positive effects on employee turnover, absenteeism, and even on CX.
But to garner these benefits, you need to make EX a focal point of your organization and make a concerted effort to deliver the EX your employees crave. And this starts by understanding and optimizing the eight vital factors that influence EX. In Part 1 of this article series, we did a deep-dive into four such factors. In this part, we explore four more.
Recognition and Promotions
According to one employee survey, 25% of employees feel that their organization doesn’t celebrate accomplishments. What about your organization? Do you recognize and celebrate high-performing employees? Do managers acknowledge the contributions of their team members? Employees that are acknowledged for their efforts and celebrated for their achievements are more likely to be motivated, feel connected to their work, and go above and beyond their stated role and responsibilities. All in all, recognition improves workplace happiness and performance, which in turn affects employees’ experiences throughout their employment lifetime.
As a specific and tangible workplace recognition strategy, promotions are an especially powerful driver of EX. Who is chosen for advancement at your organization? Are the promotion processes and policies fair, equitable, and transparent? Also, is compensation commensurate with each role? In other words, if an employee is promoted from Role A to Role B, is the salary difference big enough to make a difference to their happiness and motivation levels? Or is it so small that the promotion feels like a simple role change with no tangible financial impact? All these factors can affect employees’ EX, workplace engagement, motivation, and productivity.
Company’s Focus on Employee Health and Well-being
Did you know that 47% of employees regularly feel overwhelmed at work? Or that over a quarter say that there’s little or no balance between their work and personal life? Even more worryingly, 26% feel that their organization doesn’t really care about their mental health. All these factors can affect EX. Whether you focus on employee health and well-being or not can affect EX.
Per one well-known Glassdoor survey, 87% of employees expect employers to help them maintain work-life balance. So naturally, employers that don’t provide this support usually have many unhappy employees. These employees are unlikely to have good workplace experiences and these companies often see high absenteeism and low engagement among their workforce. Their workers are also less likely to be productive or make any real contributions to their team and company.
When you focus on your employees’ work-life balance, health, and overall well-being, you provide them with access to the resources they need to maintain this health. When you invest in their well-being, you show them by words and deeds that they and their EX matter to you. Consequently, they experience significantly less stress and face fewer health problems, which boost their engagement and job satisfaction, and improve their job performance.
A Sense of Belonging
Humans are wired to seek connections with other humans. Belonging to a group or community with common goals and values makes people feel valued. A sense of isolation or exclusion has the exact opposite effect. These facts apply equally to both social and professional situations.
You can create a healthy workplace where all employees feel valued, included, and respected, regardless of their background, where they come from, or how “different” they are. And they feel like they belong, it will directly impact their EX.
Belonging will also benefit the company in many ways. According to a recent BetterUp report, employees who feel a strong sense of belonging perform better at work, take fewer sick days, and stay longer compared to employees who feel like they do not belong. These are the people who rarely experience job satisfaction or have good experiences at work. They are also less willing to work for the team, less committed to the organization, and less productive.
Leadership and Management
The old saying, “employees don’t leave bad companies; they leave bad bosses,” is completely true. Per one HuffPost article, three out of four employees reported that their boss was the “worst and most stressful part of their job”. Bad bosses with poor management skills result in stressed employees with very low workplace motivation and engagement, and very few, if any, positive experiences at work. A lack of motivation and engagement leads to higher employee turnover, as well as higher costs around recruitment, training, and replacements.
We hope you got an insight on the vital factors that affect employee experiences. EX can make or break your company, so if this is an area that you have previously ignored or deprioritized, we highly recommend that you start prioritizing it sooner rather than later.
