Definition of employee experience

The employee experience is the perception an employee has about everything that happens from the time they decide to apply to an opening until they leave. It includes all their interactions and observations with the company as a whole, their colleagues and the physical workspace. Your company culture, facilities, technology and management team all shape the employee experience.

Importance of employee experience

The employee experience can range from horrible to extremely positive — how employees perceive the experience affects how they feel about your company. When you make efforts to create a positive experience for your employees, your organization gains many benefits, including:

• Employee satisfaction: Your employees have a higher job satisfaction when their experiences are positive.
• Higher productivity: Positive experiences typically motivate employees to be more productive. They feel valued and have a positive attitude about the work, which helps them get more done.
• Greater employee retention: Employees are likely to stick around at a company that gives them positive experiences. Higher retention rates minimize disruption in productivity and save you money on recruitment and hiring costs.
• Easier recruitment: When your current employees have a quality experience, it can help you attract new talent . Employee referrals will likely increase, and word might get out about how great your company is. Since the employee experience starts in the recruitment phase, it can help get applicants excited and make them want to work for your company even more.
• Better customer experience: Happy employees are more likely to create a positive experience for your customers or clients. You can tell when an employee likes their job and is a fan of their company. Customers pick up on that.
• Decreased absenteeism : When work is a positive experience, employees are more likely to show up regularly. Lower absenteeism rates help you stay productive and profitable.

The employee journey

When looking at the employee experience, it can help to break down the employee journey into major milestones or stages. How you approach the employee experience can vary at different stages. Knowing these stages can also help you improve how you connect with and treat employees at each stage. The key stages in the employee journey include:

• Attracting and recruiting applicants
• Hiring
• Onboarding
• Development
• Retention
• Leaving

When you’re working on your employee experience, you can look at the needs at each stage. For example, you might completely restructure your onboarding process to make it more comprehensive to help new employees have a positive experience. For the development phase, you might incorporate new training opportunities, assign mentors or work with employees on career planning.

How to measure employee experience

Getting feedback directly from your employees can help you understand how they feel about the experience with your organization. Formal data gathering through pulse surveys and similar evaluation tools give you a starting point. Tailor questions on surveys toward the employee experience.

Having open conversations with your employees can also reveal useful information. Create an environment that values employees’ opinions, so they feel like they can be honest with you. Listen when employees bring up suggestions or concerns about the workplace. Initiate conversations with employees, directing the questions toward their experiences working for your company.

You can also look at your company’s general statistics. Attendance, productivity and turnover rates can help reveal clues about how employees feel. High absenteeism, low productivity and high turnover rates can all indicate that your employee experience isn’t great. Tracking this data as you work on improving the experience can help you determine if your efforts are working.

Improving employee experience

Once you know how well you’re doing on employee experience, you can start improving it. Even if your employees are generally happy with their experience, you can always work to make it a little bit better. Here are some ways to improve the employee experience.

1. Listen to employees

Your employee surveys and conversations can be essential tools in planning your employee experience action plan. Look for repeated issues or areas of improvement that come up in those interactions. Use those concerns as a guide for making changes that can improve the experience.

2. Prioritize improvement areas

Once you identify what your employees need to have a better experience, prioritize the issues. Look for a specific problem that interferes with a positive experience or seems to have the biggest impact on your employees. You might also look at how difficult and costly things are to change. Starting with quick, inexpensive items that can offer a more positive experience in the employee journey can make a big impact.

You can also look at the needs of your company. For instance, if you’re experiencing high employee turnover, you’ll want to focus on understanding why employees frequently leave so you can fix those issues.

3. Examine your culture

You have a company culture, whether or not you work on it. Culture refers to all of the values, attitudes, behaviors, conduct and processes that happen within your organization. Feedback from your employees helps you figure out what type of culture you have. For instance, if employees feel your organization has a competitive, cut-throat environment, you could focus on moving toward a more collaborative culture that values teamwork.

Creating a positive, employee-first culture can make the employee journey a positive one. Look for cultural issues that can be improved, such as increasing the diversity or inclusive feeling within your company. Reviewing your company values and making sure the environment supports them can also help. Develop concrete steps and initiatives that can improve those areas.

4. Change the physical environment

Your team spends a large portion of their waking hours in your offices. Creating a bright, comfortable physical environment can make showing up to work more pleasant. This can also mean offering additional work areas with different types of seating, tables and desks. Multiple options allow employees to be more productive by finding a space compatible with their preferences.

5. Get management on board

Your management team has a large impact on the employee experience. Helping them understand their role in how employees feel about the company can make the process better for everyone. Giving your leadership team ownership over various parts of your employee experience improvement plan can help get them on board. Training your leadership team on the elements of the employee experience can also help.

6. Work on trust and autonomy

Employees generally feel more positive about their employers when they feel like they’re trusted. By avoiding micromanagement, you show your employees that you trust their talent and decision-making. You give them autonomy, which allows them to take risks, be innovative and help the company grow.

Offering more flexibility can also make your workplace more positive for employees. You might let employees work remotely at least a few days per week, for example. Flexibility in the hours employees work — within reason — can also help retain employees and develop a positive opinion about working for you.

7. Put employees first

You need to be profitable and have high customer satisfaction, but putting employees first often helps get those results. When making decisions, think about how they’ll impact your employees. Encourage employees to take PTO and work on their mental health so they can be more productive when they’re at work. Improve your diversity and inclusion to make all employees feel valued.

8. Improve the tools you offer

Technology and resources that employees have can improve the overall experience. Outdated technology and a lack of necessary tools can make the job more difficult and time-consuming. Keeping your company’s technology up to date is especially important when you have remote employees who need to stay connected. Upgrade computers and other devices regularly. Consider software programs that make work easier, such as programs that automate repetitive tasks and communication or collaboration software to keep the team connected.

9. Show appreciation

Employees who feel appreciated typically have a better experience than those who feel overlooked. Work on formal and informal employee appreciation efforts. Speaking up when you notice an employee doing a good job is a simple and free way to show recognition. An organized employee recognition program often incorporates company-wide praise and rewards for a job well done.

10. Improve benefits

No matter how rewarding the work is, employees also want and need fair compensation. Keeping up with industry standards when it comes to pay, bonuses, benefits and perks can improve the HR employee experience. Your workers can better meet their personal needs, such as paying their bills and getting proper healthcare, when you offer a robust benefits package. This lowers their stress, which makes them more effective at work.