Sponsored by:
Produced by:
Marina Goplacheva
SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER,
HR TRANSFORMATION
HR TECH PROFESSIONAL
Are businesses taking employee experience seriously enough?
A great employee experience is one where employees can complete their daily work without unnecessary complexities, have opportunities to collaborate with their colleagues and feel empowered to deliver consistently strong performance. There is a correlation that companies with great employee experience are more profitable and have higher levels of customer satisfaction when compared to companies with a poor employee experience. But although the importance of employee experience is recognized by many organizations, and often plays a major part of human resource transformation projects, the significant majority of businesses struggle to link improved employee experience with actual business impact. This creates a hesitancy to invest in future employee experience projects.
But even without a direct link to business performance, employee experience still needs to be an area of priority for businesses. More often than not, the technology that employees use in their professional lives is outdated when compared to the technology used in their personal lives. This can create frustration and prevent employees from working to the best of their abilities. At the very minimum, businesses should be aiming for their employee experience to be on a par with their experiences outside of work.
At the very minimum, businesses should be aiming for their employee experience to be on a par with their experiences outside of work.
If an employee joins a new company and the reality of their working life is negatively different to what they’ve been promised, they will become disengaged very quickly.
What can businesses do to improve employee engagement?
To ensure a high level of employee engagement, business leaders need to ensure that what they say implicitly has a direct alignment with what is happening explicitly. Think about when a new employee joins your business. The positive things that you say during the hiring process about your company culture, are they true? Because if an employee joins a new company and the reality of their working life is negatively different to what they’ve been promised, they will become disengaged very quickly.
Employee engagement is also heavily influenced by an employee’s relationship with their manager. If an employee feels like they are supported by their manager and have an open relationship with them, then their work becomes far more meaningful. As a manager, you should care about your direct report’s career progression as much as you care about your own. Great managers also give their employees flexibility to work in a way that suits them best and act as champions for their employee’s wellbeing.
Should businesses focus on ‘moments that matter’ when trying to improve employee experience?
Focusing solely on moments that matter is a very oversimplified way to think about employee experience, as businesses tend to only think about the most obvious moments in an employee journey, such as joining the company. Of course this is a significant moment to get right, but if you think exclusively in ‘big moments’ then you disregard large periods of time where the employee doesn’t have any moments that matter. Instead of focusing on individual moments, businesses should focus on collective, smaller moments of impact. These moments are often harder to measure, but ultimately add up to have a significant impact on employee experience.
A real example of this is mentoring conversations that happen between an employee and their manager. As there’s no technology involved, it doesn’t get attributed to the overall employee experience. But the support and guidance the employee receives during the conversation will make a noticeable difference to their approach and attitude to work. Team experience is undervalued when it comes to the overall employee experience, so this is a great place to start for businesses who want to focus on the collective moments that matter.
Team experience is undervalued when it comes to the overall employee experience.
Marina is a human-resources digital transformation professional with a track record of designing and implementing HR technology solutions that are business-focused, cost effective, agile and in line with stakeholders’ needs. She has strong expertise in applying AI technologies in HR. Her most recent projects include developing and implementing an AI-powered HR solution at one of the world’s largest financial institutions. With a proven track record of delivering transformation projects and strong technical skills, Marina is one of the leading minds within HR technology.