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Anna Cairns
GLOBAL HR DIRECTOR
How would you define employee experience and what can companies do to create a great employee experience?
Often we define employee experience by an employee’s immediate environment such as their relationship with their line manager, pay and benefits, working conditions and the team around them. But in reality employee experience is far broader and many companies are now beginning to dedicate resources to improving the employee experience end-to-end. The whole HR value chain impacts employee experience, from attracting talent all the way through to offboarding interviews. Understanding this broader definition is the first step to creating a great employee experience.
It is always good to keep in mind the end goal - what is the culture you are trying to create? What types of people do you want to make up your teams? Think about the technologies and processes that you could put in place to decrease the time spent on non value add activities and instead increase time spent on more valuable work that gives employees the chance to leverage their experience and skills in a meaningful and strategic way. Consider the physical workspace and ensure it provides a suitable environment for your colleagues to perform their best work. For new hires, consider the energy you want them to bring - is it transformative to move the business forward? Or is a steady pair of hands the answer right now? Then make sure that the appropriate support, tools and learning and development opportunities are available to your employees so that they can perform to their full potential.
The whole HR value chain impacts employee experience, from attracting talent all the way through to offboarding interviews. Understanding this broader definition is the first step to creating a great employee experience.
By creating a shared sense of purpose with your team, and making them confident that their work is supporting the long term strategy of their employer, they are more likely to give you more in return.
Why is it important for businesses to demonstrate their values?
Prospective employees are more considered than ever before, which presents businesses with a unique challenge when it comes to attracting and retaining top staff. Previously, a candidate’s main considerations were likely to be around pay and the fit between the job requirements and their professional skills. But today a candidate’s decision making process is heavily influenced by their values too. If a prospective employer demonstrates values that are not aligned with their own, then a candidate is highly unlikely to join. We as employees are looking for more purpose and meaning in our work and are being more selective about future employers as a result.
The demonstration of values is also important to engaging your existing staff, so that they perform their best work. Does your team stand behind the business vision and how it plans to achieve it? Do they know how they could add value and do they have the right tools and support to do that? Do they feel valued through receiving timely feedback and recognition? By creating a shared sense of purpose with your team, and making them confident that their work is supporting the long term strategy of their employer, they are more likely to give you more in return.
Should businesses embrace AI as part of their digital transformation strategy?
AI has the potential to present many fascinating opportunities for HR leaders. But like any new technology or way of working, it is good to consider the implications of AI from various angles. AI in its current form is a great way to help employees find the information they need in a quick and efficient way, by guiding them through a simple data navigation process that results in the information or support they are looking for. But there are a few things to be cautious of when AI is used in decision making processes. One of these is bias. All AI software is written by human beings, so there is a risk of unconscious bias becoming included in the decision making logic of the AI. If left unchecked, this can create problems further down the line for companies - we’ve already seen multi-million dollar fines issued for this very reason! To overcome this, make sure that you are purposeful in your use of AI and build in checks and balances to continue testing for its effectiveness.
Make sure that you are purposeful in your use of AI and build in checks and balances to continue testing for its effectiveness.
Leadership and employees buying into the change is extremely important and our implementation team involved the end users as early as possible to make sure that during the design stage we had considered their ways of working and requirements.
What can HR leaders do to ensure employee experience transformation programmes are successful when rolling these out and what are the greatest challenges that must be prepared for?
When I was leading some of the technical transformation projects, my biggest focus was the impact it had on people and processes. Leadership and employees buying into the change is extremely important and our implementation team involved the end users as early as possible to make sure that during the design stage we had considered their ways of working and requirements. The design has to make sense to them, so that the new system becomes intuitive in the future. Also, good communications and stakeholder engagement is key if you want these programmes to succeed – explaining the purpose, the “why” behind this change and how it fits into the overall journey for the HR function and the company. Both the leadership and the project team have to speak the same language and be consistent with their messages to all stakeholders. It is important to recognise that once the new systems are live, issues will start to pop up. A very dedicated task force has to be ready to immediately respond and resolve these issues. The first impressions of the end user are important and if you do not capture the buy-in from your customers quickly, the adoption levels will be low and you will have to spend a lot of time on additional change management. This will have an impact on your subsequent projects because the trust from the end user will erode. Always think of the people, processes, the platform and the bigger purpose behind this change.
Anna has worked in a variety of progressive specialist and generalist HR roles for the past twenty years. Most of all she enjoys working closely with the business where the impact of HR can directly impact the bottom line. She strives to create an environment of transparency, openness and support where team members feel energised and empowered to bring their full selves and be at their best.