How to elevate the employee experience in 8 easy steps

Improve morale, retain more workers and most importantly, make more money by discovering how to elevate the employee experience

Your company spends plenty of time and resources boosting its customer satisfaction rate. What if you put the same amount of time and resources into elevating the employee experience?

Eighty-nine percent of employers think employees leave a company for money, but just 12 percent of employees leave because of compensation issues. Highly engaged employees are 87 percent less likely to leave their companies than their less engaged professional peers.

The next time your company brainstorms ideas to improve its retention rate, spend less time on compensation issues and more time on elevating the employee experience as a whole. This is especially true in the case of millennial employees.

Employers need to adapt to the changing employee satisfaction paradigm. It is no longer mostly about money. Instead, it is getting to be more about employees wanting to work for a company because of their experiences.

Why Employee Experience Management Matters

We know why a customer’s impression of your company matters. If a customer is dissatisfied with a product or service, they probably will not turn into a repeat customer. However, when it involves the employee experience, the relationship between the company and the employee is less apparent.

Why should you invest time and money into enhancing the employee experience? Let us count the ways.

  • Reduce turnover
  • Improve productivity
  • Prevent burnout
  • Attract more talented professionals
  • Develop better relationships with customers

The last benefit deserves a little more attention. Your employees act as the conduit between your company and its loyal base of customers. Employees that are highly engaged because of an enhanced employee experience deliver more personable and knowledgeable customer service.

Let’s see how your company can enhance the employee experience.

Tip #1: Organize and Encourage Team Building Activities

Getting to know your employees goes a long way toward elevating the employee experience. Each employee brings a unique set of professional skills and personality traits to the table. What is the most effective way to getting to know your team?

The answer is organizing and encouraging team-building activities.

Team building is all about developing the skills your employees need to work as a cohesive unit. This is not a one-and-done activity. Schedule a team-building activity at least once a month to enhance the employee experience.

Tip #2: All for One and One for All

Defining a clear objective prevents employees from pulling apart in different directions. The shared vision engages employees to work toward a common goal. When a professional sports manager devises a game plan, the manager expects each player to pull in the same direction. By creating a team charter, you provide each member of your team with a clearly defined game plan to achieve success.

Tip #3: Responsive Communication to Fuel Flexibility

Implementing a flexible work policy is the new normal in our post-COVID world. Achieving maximum flexibility involves improving your company’s internal communications. Internal communication is more than a channel to share company information. It is the ideal way to foster a sense of community, as well as encourage your team to work toward a common goal.

With communication tools such as Zoom and Slack, you can communicate with your employees every day in real-time.

Tip #4: Create an Interactive Onboarding Experience

According to the Harvard Business Review, 33 percent of new hires start looking for a new job within the first six months of employment. The reason for the high turnover rate is a poor onboarding experience. Technology has changed the onboarding game by allowing new hires to complete paperwork online at home.

When you get everyone together for orientation, you have plenty of time for interaction with your new team. You no longer have to spend an hour or more on completing paperwork.

Tip #5: Conduct Stay Interviews

Exit interviews tell you why an employee has decided to leave. Stay interviews help you understand why employees have decided to make a long-term commitment to your company. You get insight into what is working and what needs to be revamped.

Conducting a stay interview should include open dialogue that allows you to understand the motivation your employees have for staying with your company. Employees get to feel a part of the team by contributing ideas on how to enhance the employee experience.

Tip #6: Invest Resources in Employee Wellness

Providing health insurance is one way to retain employees. However, encouraging your team to be physically active can make a huge difference in elevating the employee experience. Programs that motivate employees to improve their mental, physical and emotional wellness should lead to lower healthcare costs as well.

Tip #7: Respond to Employee Feedback

Many companies conduct employee feedback surveys. The question is how many of the same companies respond to the feedback provided by their team members? Employees are much more likely to share what is on their minds if they know their input matters to management. After receiving feedback, communicate how the company plans to act on the feedback.

Your team places more emphasis on how you adapt to feedback than the emphasis they place on fitting in culturally with your organization.

Tip #8: Implement a Career Development Program

One of the most important components of employee experience management is to offer a career development program. Employees are more likely to stay for the long haul if they have the opportunity for career advancement. Managers should customize a career development plan for each team member.

Elevating the Employee Experience Leads to Higher Profits

Elevating the experience of your employees leads down the road to higher profits. Lower turnover saves the company money and an increase in productivity lowers labor costs. You attract better talent that provides superior customer service, which in turn generates more repeat business.

The bottom line is the more effort you put into elevating the employee experience, the more value you get in return from the members of your team.