The business impact of employee experience

Employees are your greatest investment. When you’ve invested in attracting and hiring great employees, the investment certainly shouldn’t stop there. Cultivating a positive EX is key for retention, innovation, and engagement. Organizations that invest most heavily in EX are found:

• 11.5x as often in Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work
• 4.4x as often in LinkedIn’s list of North America’s Most In-Demand Employers
• 2.1x as often on the Forbes list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies
• 2x as often in the American Customer Satisfaction Index

Even customer satisfaction is at stake. If your employees aren’t having a good experience at your company, it will likely rub off on your customers. So the list of reasons you should care about EX is long. To create a holistic employee experience, make sure you hit four main areas of focus.

4 Areas of Employee Experience

1. INDIVIDUAL

The individual experience is any experience at work that is deeply personal to the employee. It could be something that affects them outside of work such as parental leave. Day to day, it commonly has to do with an employee’s psychological safety. They should be able to come to work without any fear of being put down. Rather, they need to be lifted up and cared for.

Make sure policies reflect that your people have lives outside of work. That might mean revisiting your parental leave policy or ensuring flexibility is available for employees to care for elderly parents. As a leader, get to know your employees on a personal level. It’s key to understand their needs, appreciation language, and other preferences.

2. WORKPLACE

Instead of being an internal experience, workplace experiences refer more externally to the workplace or aspects of it. This includes any resources, technology, office space, home office, etc. The space in which your employees work matters. Whether they’re at an in-person office or working remotely, they should be in space that encourages productivity and connection at the same time.

One of the best resources we have is technology, and most of today’s jobs require some form of tech. Set your employees up with the tech they need for success. Take it even further and empower your employees to recognize one another peer-to-peer with a technology platform. It makes is easy to spread appreciation and inspire employees all in one main feed.

3. ORGANIZATIONAL

Organizational experience is all about an employee’s relationship with a company. It’s how they see their specific role contributing to the organization’s overall success. Employees feel a heightened sense of purpose when these connections are drawn. Even when the tasks themselves don’t seem significant, they can almost always be linked back to the overall goal.

Frequently tell your employees the unique value they bring to the table. Utilize one-on-one meetings to keep them on track. If they feel on track, they’ll be able to see the value they contribute more clearly. Remind them how each little step forward (and even backward) plays a part in achieving the mission of your organization.

4. TRANSITIONAL

Think about moments that universally matter. Many of these are transitional experiences including the hiring process, onboarding, training, internal role changes, and offboarding. As humans, we’re more likely to remember the big moments in our lives like transitions. And change can be frightening, so try to help your employees feel at ease during these times.

Start before employees have even signed the offer letter. The interview and hiring process are their first impression so make it a good one. Be efficient, transparent, and kind. Once you have a signed offer letter, send a preboarding or onboarding kit to keep them excited.

Don’t let the in between moments go without acknowledgement. Completed training or a lateral role change are also worth celebrating. Then when employees leave, help them smoothly offboard. Employees that have had great all-around experiences will be your biggest advocates.

Curating a positive employee experience is not all about what you gain as an employer. It’s also just the right thing to do. And if you really care about your people, you want to watch them thrive – in and out of your organization!