Employee experience encompasses an employee’s emotional and physical relationship with their workplace, colleagues and employer. When employees feel that their employee experience is positive, they’re typically more productive and motivated within the workplace and less likely to leave.
Find out why employee experience is so crucial to get right and learn how to ensure your employee experience strategy is beneficial and future proof.
Employee experience refers to the cultural, physical and emotional interactions that employees have within the workplace—with their colleagues and their employer, as well as with the overall structure of the organisation, its technology, the physical workspace and the company culture. It includes every single interaction throughout the entire employee lifecycle, from recruitment to exit.
Employees’ expectations about their employee experience are evolving, particularly over the last few years. Now more than ever before, employees are demanding more flexible working arrangements, inclusivity initiatives and wellbeing programmes. Whether these demands are met or ignored is a major contributor to the overall employee experience.
The employee lifecycle consists of several key phases, each of which plays a role in the relationship between employee and employer and has a significant impact on staff satisfaction.
This is an employee’s first impression of the organisation. It begins well before the very first interview: in fact, it starts with a person becoming aware of the company, researching it and then subsequently applying for a role. Communicating your company’s core values and culture is essential at this stage.
Bringing employees on board is a critical touchpoint for the employee experience, and when not done properly can negatively impact retention rates. New hires have the opportunity to assess whether their expectations and preconceptions of the company align with their reality throughout their first few weeks at the business. It’s important to help new employees feel welcomed and ensure their onboarding experience is consistent with the company’s values and mission. It’s also important to ensure that there is a proper onboarding plan and training in place so that employees feel supported and equipped to do their job.
After initial talent attraction, many leaders fall into the pitfall of thinking that, once employees are on board, they won't go anywhere. In reality, employees who don’t feel valued or feel misaligned with the company culture are likely to leave the organisation. To improve the employee experience, employers should invest in employee retention strategies such as recognition and reward offerings and generous employee benefits.
Moving onto a new role at a new organisation is a natural phase of the employee lifecycle. It is also a key opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the employee experience and employee engagement. Exit interviews and employee experience surveys are great ways to assess the current employee experience and learn how to improve it. It’s also worth noting that ensuring employees are supported while leaving an organisation is important for a business’s reputation and ensures that the employee may consider employment there again in the future. Someone leaving can also affect their team—check in with your people and make sure that remaining employees feel supported through their peer’s transition.
Workplace culture is a major influencing factor in employee experience. Workplace culture encompasses a company’s policies, values, goals, attitudes and mission. Feeling disconnected from the culture of a company can create cognitive dissonance and high levels of dissatisfaction for an employee, and it can even jeopardise company retention, with 32% of new hires reporting they would leave a role in their first 90 days if they didn’t align with their company’s culture.
Employers can foster a positive workplace culture by communicating their values and goals, making space for open communication and feedback, prioritising inclusivity and diversity and rewarding and recognising positive behaviour and hard work.
The physical and virtual environment in which an employee works shapes their employee experience. Particularly in the age of increased remote working, it’s essential for employees to have access to technology that enhances their experience, including collaborative tools and advanced software that can help them succeed in their role. Their physical workspace should help facilitate engagement and wellbeing, from ergonomic furniture to plants in the office.
Employees should also feel like they can switch off at the end of the day and achieve a healthy work-life balance; they should have the ability to pause messaging notifications, power down their computer and physically separate themselves from their workspace.
A Forbes survey of over 1,000 HR and business professionals revealed that “organisations that are focused on designing a positive employee experience are much more likely to report that they are high performing in workplace productivity, the ability to quickly adapt, innovation, and diversity, equity and inclusion performance”. Employees who feel satisfied, valued and fulfilled in their workplace are more likely to work hard and deliver better results for their organisation.
Prioritising the things that employees value and creating a positive employee experience can enhance retention. A McKinsey analysis revealed that employees value the following factors as being critical to their employee experience:
By prioritising these factors and ensuring open communication between employees and leadership, organisations create better employee experience and improve retention rates.
Implementing engagement and wellbeing initiatives is vital, but unless there is open communication between leadership and employees, you may not know whether these strategies are actually resonating with your people. Giving employees the chance to give feedback on company culture and employee experience through employee experience surveys can provide incredibly beneficial insights into what matters most to your staff.
Positive workplace culture can improve interpersonal relationships between employees and help make your people feel more valued and welcomed. Give employees time to recharge outside of work, help them improve their work-life balance and promote mental health resources to enhance their wellbeing. Offering a variety of employee benefits and implementing a well-defined rewards or recognition system can also contribute to a better employee experience.
Perkbox can help improve employee experience with our leading employee benefits and rewards platform. We house tailored benefits packages that support employee engagement, wellbeing and retention.
Our employee wellbeing programme is one of the best in the business, offering employees vital mental health resources, and our platform supports financial wellbeing and physical health through initiatives such as employee discounts and curated wellbeing content.
Employee experience encompasses every interaction between an employee and their peers, employers and workspace throughout their entire employee lifecycle. It is vital to prioritise a positive, constructive employee experience in order to retain talent and enhance productivity.
To learn more about how Perkbox can help your organisation build a better employee experience, request a demo today.
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