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What is Employee Experience? – A Complete Guide

By Kierra Benson - Published on January 27, 2021
Employee Experience Guide

Dealing with employees is not only about ensuring that they are productive in a way that is beneficial for the company and their customers. More and more organizations, especially in these uncertain times, are realizing that their employees are the backbone of operational capabilities.

At a time when consumers may not be able to purchase products and services due to being in financially hard times, companies are leaning more on their workers to provide stability in the midst of chaos.

According to Culture Amp(1), “ When organizations get employee experience right, they can achieve twice the customer satisfaction and innovation, and generate 25% higher profits(2), than those that do not.” Happier employees means happier consumers and a happier work environment.

What is Employee Experience?

The quality of the interactions that employees deal with in their respective work environment, whether it is from their bosses, the physical (or digital) office setting, the rules and regulations that they have to abide by, and even other employees, are factors of the total employee experience.

Why is Employee Experience Important?

Dissatisfied employees can negatively affect the services, quality of product output, and the overall vibe of an organization’s image. Happy workers can cultivate stability, progress, and make potential job seekers want to work there.

(Areas that are affected by employee experience)

  • Employee/Employer dynamics: The quality of the interactions between employees and employers is essential to the employee experience. Higher production and sales are not the only incentives for companies to prioritize how workers feel. Keeping employees within the organization, especially long-time workers, is important to the reputation of the company.Think about those ZipRecruiter and Glassdoor reviews from current and former employees and how reading those testimonies can affect how an organization is perceived from outsiders.
  • Hiring prospects: As stated above, a company’s reputation is on the line based on the satisfaction of employees. The experiences of current and former employees can determine if job seekers want to work for that particular company…or not. A prestigious company can post an available position with the most lucrative benefits, but if that company is notorious for not treating its employees well there may be reluctance from potential job seekers to even apply.This leaves companies that are offering job positions to offset unhappy employees that are leaving to the possibility of being understaffed.
  • Retaining staff: To keep operations running smoothly and effectively, it is within a company’s best interest to keep as many quality employees on the roster as possible. Trying to attract as many new job seekers as possible is good but having veteran workers on the team is valuable.The longer an organization retains its employees the better the service will be due to familiarity and knowledge into how that particular company operates.
    
    

How to improve the overall employee experience within your organization

  • Utilize digital tools: Take advantage of software programs that specialize in employee experience to streamline the data collected from worker testimonials to understand what is working and what is not.
  • Adjust the work area: Ask whether the office space (whether physical or digital) is up to par for employees to perform their duties. For example if the work calls for it to be completed in teams, is the space big enough for multiple people to collaborate and move around?
  • Positive vibes: Is the vibe that the organization is projecting in alignment with a healthy work environment? If higher ups create a strict and extreme rule-abiding vibe in the office, it might be difficult for employees to delve into their creative side for projects that require some imagination.

Which employee experience matters most?

  • Operational employee experience: Employee interactions with the actual tasks that they have to perform,  how those tasks are implemented to said employees, and structures that the employees must perform within in order to safely and competently complete their duties.
  • Actual employee experience: Employee interactions with the literal work environment based on location, size, how the space is used and how the items within the space are placed, tools available to complete tasks, and the vibe (how things operate) of the total environment.
  • Psychological employee experience: Employee interactions with their feelings about the organization in which they work for, other employees, their bosses or managers, and their familiarity of and habits within the office environment.

Employee Experience Platforms

  • Subcurrent
  • Tiny Pulse
  • Deloitte’s ConnectMe
  • Ultimate Software’s PeopleDoc
  • ServiceNow
  • Willis Towers Watson’s HR Portal Software

How to design a strong Employee Experience / Strategy

  1. Choose the most important element that will greatly benefit the organization: Find any gaps or weaknesses within the company, like understaffing issues or unsatisfactory production levels, that need to be fixed and implement any employee experience solutions mentioned above
  1. Record and analyze employee testimonies: Utilize employee experience software to record and define the spoken testimonies of the workers by asking them about individual factors (dynamics, staffing, work, etc.) of their experience at a time to investigate any specific issues
  1. Create compatible data: The information that is gathered from employees must be able to connect with other aspects of how the company operates and how employees interact with said process. Does the understaffing issue connect with how toxic the work environment is? Does the employee’s relationship with their employer affect their productivity levels?
  1. Encourage implementing solutions: Now that the problems have been discovered, it is time to implement changes to improve employee interactions within the organization. The happier the employees are, the better an organization will benefit.

The Employee Experience Advantages

  • Better interaction between employees and their overall work environment
  • Employees will want to come to work more often
  • Services and products with raise in standard
  • High caliber customer service

Employee Experience Examples

  • The dynamic between a veteran employee and a newly hired manager and how it affects the tone of the office environment
  • How the outdated office space affects how employees effectively complete their tasks
  • How the strict rules and regulations hinder the exchange of ideas between employees and employers

Final Thoughts

A lot of companies subscribe to the idea that “the customer is always right”, but sometimes forget how its employees are the backbone of its operational capabilities. Without employees, there would still be demand but there would be no one to produce the supplies. Happier employees make happier customers, which makes for a happier company.

Kierra Benson | Kierra Benson is an alumnus of the University of North Texas at Dallas with a Bachelor's degree in Communication and Technology. She previously completed an internship at a local newspaper and worked as a content creator for a small online business. Her goal is to work in the media industry in writing/editing and advertising. She has always been fascinated by how messages are marketed in the media to influence the masses and sell products.

Kierra Benson | Kierra Benson is an alumnus of the University of North Texas at Dallas with a Bachelor's degree in Communication and Technology. She previously com...

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