How to effectively establish and maintain an employee experience strategy

Establishing a successful employee experience strategy is challenging for any organization and obliges a significant shift in perspective. Organizations must rethink how they recruit, develop, engage, and keep their people.

Every encounter and observation of the firm becomes part of an individual’s employee experience, forming a picture of your organization that they not only experience personally but can share with many people over time. Creating a good experience was once goal-directed, primarily at the consumer or end-user. Recently, organizations have begun to recognize the importance of providing employees with a great employee experience culture.

What is an employee experience strategy?

Employee experience is the sum of every event and stage of an employee’s journey within a firm. It begins when employees apply in your organization and continues till the day they leave your organization. 

Employee experience strategy entails assessing each step of an employee’s journey and identifying key moments, events, and interactions during their employment. These moments must be tailored to employees’ views, interests, needs, and incentives which can be measured with the help of employee experience softwares that makes the process much easier and less time-consuming. Employee experience softwares are now one of the organizations’ top priorities.

Steps to successfully implement and manage an employee experience strategy

When establishing an employee experience strategy, every firm should take specific measures.

1.) Incorporate employee experience into your organizational culture.

Creating an employee experience plan is all about having the right mindset. A human-centric strategy must be ingrained in the organization’s culture and fundamental principles. Making people a priority and viewing them as the most valuable assets a company may have is a must for developing a successful employee experience plan.

2.) Evaluate your present people management approach

The second stage is to assess your current people management approach. It is critical to examine the three most essential employee experience categories throughout this process.

The social: What an employee feels inside a business is influenced by organizational culture, leadership style, remuneration and perks, etc.

The physical: Desks, seats, small office equipment, art, and meals are physical items that can be seen, heard, felt, and tasted.

The technological: The total experience of the instruments required for an employee’s profession, such as the user interface, mobile devices, and desktop computers.

Listening to and encouraging two-way conversation is an excellent way to assess your employees’ everyday experiences. Create focus groups or employee surveys and ask them questions like:

a.) Do you believe our business culture corresponds with your values and beliefs?

b.) Do you think your manager gives you clear instructions?

c.) How would you rank your relationship with your boss?

d.) Are you pleased with our current career development initiatives?

e.) Do you believe you have all you need to work from home and succeed?

f.) Do you think our organization’s technology is intuitive and straightforward?

g.) Is there any other technology that might improve your working environment?

To gather the input from employees, particularly those who are difficult to reach, may be difficult for employers. Using the appropriate technology is critical here. Modern employee communications systems with built-in, mobile-friendly survey features enable considerably faster and more effective for gathering feedback.

3.) Identify bottlenecks and define objectives

After gathering input from your employees, you may go on to identify the existing sources of bad employee experience in your organization. Based on the data, you may set goals that directly influence your workers’ entire working experience, engagement, and retention.

Here are a few examples of objectives you might define for your wmployee experience strategy:

a.) Clearly express the company’s goal, vision, and values.

b.) Eliminate cross-departmental silos.

c.) Managers should be educated on the significance of employee feedback and recognition.

d.) Allow employees to provide and receive on-the-spot feedback. 

e.) Create and implement innovative leadership and career development programs.

f.) Implement new wellness initiatives to help employees with their physical, emotional, and financial health.

g.) Implement programs for individualized learning and growth.

4.) Define and understand employee personas.

Employers must establish and better understand their staff personas in the same way marketers define their buyer personas. Reason being, today’s workforce is primarily intergenerational, understanding their peculiarities is critical to creating more tailored working experiences.

Employee experience strategies are designed to involve employees from various departments with varying ages, cultures, and degrees of seniority to define the employee’s personalities. You might, for example, ask these different employee groups what inspires them at work and what pushes them to accomplish their best. While younger generations may be more motivated by prospects for job advancement, older generations may be motivated by financial security and work-life balance.

You may construct employee personas based on this information to give a more tailored employee experience and perks.

5.) Create employee road maps

You might strive to grasp your people’s experiences through their eyes and adapt accordingly. Many businesses employ the design thinking process for this. “Study, listen to, and understand what people do daily and identify new methods to streamline work and boost productivity, performance, and engagement,” says Deloitte Human Capital Consulting. It may be accomplished through the use of journey mapping or empathy mapping.

6.) Identify crucial moments (by actively listening to your employees)

Throughout workers’ journeys, it is also critical to identify the moments that mean the most to the previously developed personas. While some people are motivated primarily by monetary remuneration, others may be motivated mainly by professional advancement.

Innovative businesses look to their employees for inspiration and value their opinions. Organizations can utilize hackathons to collect employee ideas and devise novel methods for performance management, workplace design, perks, learning and development, and awards. This co-creation strategy involves employees directly in building an “ideal” employment experience.

7.) Emphasize personalization

Implementing an employee experience strategy is ultimately about generating individualized experiences in the workplace. Aside from developing employee identities and moments that matter, the role of technology in delivering tailored experiences is critical.

Conclusion

The above described points will help extensively in establishing and maintaining an effective employee experience strategy. For further assistance, reach out to us today!