What I Did This Summer… (HR - Employee Experience)

robdaniels · ‎09-16-2016

It's that time of year again! It's a joyful time for parents who see their children off to school for another year of learning. For children; perhaps not so joyful. To start the school year many children are given a writing assignment where the children describe their experiences over the past summer break. The goal of this is to help children cultivate the ability to describe, reflect on, and share their life experiences. This got me to thinking…what if each employer gave their employees a similar exercise to describe their experience working for that organization? What would be the result, what might they learn?

The importance of understanding the "Employee Experience" has proven to be a major concern for the largest and most successful companies in the world. This is because the "Employee Experience" has a direct connection on increasing or decreasing Employee Engagement. Employee Engagement is a measure of an employee's commitment to their employer and their job. Employers report higher productivity, creativity and tenure with more highly engaged employees. So engagement has become a measure of a company's health and an indicator of future performance.

According to a Deloitte University Press Article titled Engagement…Always On: "Nearly nine in ten executives (85 percent) in this year's survey rated engagement as an important…" This was spread over two categories of importance (Important ~38 percent - or Very Important ~48 percent). There is widespread focus on this KPI (Key Performance Indicator) within the largest and most successful organizations. Aside from the productivity impact; another reason for this focus is that the balance of power has shifted in the War for Talent. In the past, organizations have approached the employment relationship with the view they can create a place where people needed to work. With the tight market for talent, companies now realize that they must create a place where people want to work.

Forbes.com posted a couple of great articles written by Jacob Morgan that describes what goes into the Employee Experience. In one article Morgan states that "Employee experience is the combination of three distinct things that exist within any organization regardless of industry, size, and location." These elements were identified as company Culture, technological environment and the physical environment. So the "Employee Experience" is affected by the company's leadership style, compensation and benefits. But that experience is also shaped by the tools and technology that an employee uses to get tasks done or even request support from HR or their management. Of course the physical environment(ergonomics) including desks, chairs office or cube locations also need to have a positive affect on the employees as they work.

Employers do well to give special attention to their employee's experience with routine business processes. What should be simple HR requests often become full-time jobs or projects that can distract an employee from giving their full attention to their real jobs, thus reducing productivity. How many emails does it take to add a dependent to a Benefit plan? How does an employee request Tuition Reimbursement? Can an employee determine what Benefits programs are available to them? What if they wanted information on a particular company policy? Does your technology offer an easy-to-access and use employee portal? Can an an employee look up knowledge articles, ask questions, submit a request to the HR team as easily as ordering an item from Amazon or similar retail vendors? Employers who focus on these areas to improve the "Employee Experience" can see great benefits in increased engagement, productivity and employee retention.

Articles

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2015/05/27/why-the-future-of-work-is-all-about-the-employee-...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2016/04/22/what-is-employee-experience/#1faf2dd7522c

Rob,

Robert Daniels SHRM-SCP, ARPC

HR Advisory Solution Consultant

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