5 Actions Employers Can Take to Strengthen the Employee Experience Right Now

Great employee experience should be a top priority for brands in 2022, and that’s because employees are the face of your organization.

Your employees interact most with customers—directly or indirectly—and their performance shapes customer experience and perception. It’s no wonder 77% of companies are actively investing in boosting employee experience, according to a LinkedIn Report. 

Despite the investment, many HR & IC Directors still struggle to keep employees happy, engaged, and fulfilled while trying to meet business goals.

The war for talent isn’t making things easier. Korn Ferry found that 31% of employees surveyed considered quitting their job despite not having another lined up. Such turnover costs up to one-third of the employee's annual salary. This means employee experience is critical if you want to retain employees and reduce turnover costs.

This article outlines practical employee experience strategies that strengthen collaboration, increase engagement, and improve retention. Before diving in, let’s see why leaders should care about improving employee experience.

 

Employee Experience: What It Is and Why It’s Essential For Your Business

Gartner defines employee experience as how employees internalize and interpret interactions with their organization and the context underlying those interactions.

Simply put, employee experience is the total of all a team member's interactions with your organization, from recruitment and onboarding to exit. These interactions include:

• Work culture
• Working conditions
• Professional development
• Relationships with teammates, managers, and leaders
• Everything in between recruitment, onboarding, and exit

Each interaction makes up an employee’s perception of your company and determines their attitude towards work, colleagues, leadership, and customers. 

Employee experience drives your culture. Jacob Morgan, a 4-time bestselling author, says, “Culture is 40% of the overall employee experience. It is about the feeling employees get as they work for you as a leader and for your organization.”  That is to say; a positive experience is crucial to retaining employees and empowering them to perform at their highest level. 

There are several benefits of creating a positive employee experience. Here are four of these proven benefits:

 

Negative employee experience results from putting revenue, profits, and other business goals ahead of employee needs. HR and IC Directors often struggle to boost employee engagement and experience due to:

• Lack of internal training and development opportunities
• Unclear career trajectory
• Poor company culture
• Negligence of employees’ well-being 

These factors create disengaged and burned-out employees. That’s why investing in creating a positive employee experience is critical. Below are some practical ways to invest in great employee experiences.

 

Improve your employee’s experience through personalized, smart, and integrated journeys, powered by actionable insights.

 

5 Key Actions to Boost Experiences for Employees

This 5-step framework will guide your efforts and strengthen employee experience in the workplace. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, but you can use this foundation to craft your unique strategy. 

Here’s a quick sweep of the framework:

• Build Trust Through Consistency
• Ensure Employees Proactively Execute Company Values 
• Ensure Folks Feel A Sense of Belonging
• Check in to Keep Momentum High
• Invest in Employee Journeys

1. Build Trust Through Consistency

According to a Workforce Institute report, 68% of employees who don’t feel trusted are less productive at work. Another 24% have left a company because of a lack of trust. 

These stats show the value of trust in an organization, which is a major driver of employee engagement and productivity in the workplace. In a Harvard Business Review article, Stephen Covey wrote, “Cultivating a high-trust culture is not a “soft” skill — it’s a hard necessity.” So how can leaders cultivate a high-trust culture? By embracing consistency.

Consistency is one of the biggest drivers of trust in the workplace. When employees see the alignment between your words and actions, it inspires them to trust your decisions and get their best work done. 

To build trust through consistency, ensure employees have clearly defined goals, flexible but predictable responsibilities, and reliable working conditions. That means giving employees access to the information they need to do their jobs. 

Here are two ways to make this happen:

1. Allow managers to identify priorities on community dashboards
2. Enable comment sections, shareable links, and other forms of communication to enhance internal communication and networking

Detailed, proactive, and consistent communication also boosts employee experience. Ensure you are regularly sharing and promoting information in the right context.

2. Ensure Employees Proactively Execute Company Values 

Core values guide employees’ actions, ensuring they make good decisions that align with your organization’s mission and vision. However, while leaders often have full context about each core value’s connection to the bottom line, many employees may still be groping in the dark.

Some have a vague idea about these values, and it can affect their ability to make good decisions. Keep these core values at the top of employees’ minds by repeating them often and encouraging employees to do the same. The more you do so; the more familiar employees become with your values.

Another way to ensure core values are ingrained in employees’ brains is to make those values visual. At LumApps, we make our core values visible at every chance to ensure they’re the driving force behind our employees’ efforts.

Our about page is just one of the many places we display these values:

We also make them visible on our internal portal, office walls, and sales deals announcements. 

Leaders can also engage employees by challenging them to share their favorite core values and how they exemplify them.  Doing this allows employees to reflect on their performance and how it aligns with business goals.

Also, recognizing and celebrating employees who exemplify company values is another way to reinforce core values. Doing this makes employees feel valued, appreciated, and seen. It also boosts healthy competition, encouraging other employees to follow in their footsteps. 

3. Ensure Folks Feel A Sense of Belonging

Harvard Business Review found that people who don’t feel included at work are less committed and engaged than those who do. Employees struggle when they are judged or mistreated for being their true selves. 

A diverse and inclusive culture treats everyone fairly and equally. Here, diversity becomes the team’s biggest strength, and everyone collaborates to fulfill the company’s mission and hit goals. 

A sense of belonging also retains employees. BetterUp found that employees who feel a sense of belonging at work are 50% less likely to quit. When these employees stay longer, they are better equipped to advance their careers and grow the business. 

So how can you ensure folks in your company feel a sense of belonging in a remote or hybrid workplace? Encourage cross-functional collaboration and interaction. That means creating opportunities for members of different teams to interact with each other.

You can:

• Encourage weekly coffee chats between two unfamiliar team members 
• Schedule a regular team social where everyone catches up on non-work-related topics or plays virtual icebreaker games 
• Encourage team members to get to know each other

Recognizing employees for their efforts also creates a positive experience. If you haven’t already, create a dedicated channel on Slack where everyone is encouraged to share little wins and celebrate each other.

Accommodating time zone differences is important if you lead a globally distributed team. For example, scheduling an email or slack message to come in during a teammate’s working hours instead of sending it outside work hours shows your team that you respect work-life balance. 

4. Check In to Keep Momentum High

Keeping morale high is another way to strengthen employee experience. You can do this by creating a consistent schedule to check in with employees. 

When employees see how much you care about their experience, they can tell you care about them beyond responsibilities and assignments. 
Regular check ins also allow employees to reflect and provide constructive feedback, especially if you have a reputation for acting on feedback. Here are some questions you can ask when checking in with employees: 

• Would you recommend this company (role, etc.) to a friend? 
• Do you have the tools you need to get your job done? Do you feel supported in your role?
• How are you doing outside work? Do you struggle with separating professional and personal time?
• How can we help you foster a work-life balance?
• What is your relationship with your manager and team? Do they make themselves available when you need them?
• What's missing in your employee experience that would make your time here even better?

Once employees answer these questions, you should review and take the required actions. That’s how you keep employees motivated. 

5. Incorporate Employee Journeys 

The employee journey is at the heart of the employee experience. 

Your direct reports and other team members want to know you have a plan for their career development. That’s why 94% of employees will stay longer at a company that invests in their professional development. When you prioritize development, employees are motivated to grow and pursue ambitious goals. 

Employee journey is the growth path company staff follow once they join your company. It looks like this:

 

When determining the right journey for an employee at your company, it’s important to remember the journey isn’t always linear. This data from LumApps Journeys shows that employee journeys are usually a rollercoaster that highlights key moments throughout the employee lifecycle. 

You can leverage LumApps to curate personalized employee journeys for each team member, gather insights about their high and low points, and use these insights to create a development plan that helps your team grow. You want to be sure you’re offering employees a great experience. That’s how you alleviate any potential thoughts they might have of moving to another company.

Invest in an Employee Experience Platform

Leaders can strengthen employee experience by leveraging the five-step framework. Here’s a recap:

• Build trust through consistency
• Ensure employees proactively execute company values 
• Ensure folks feel a sense of belonging
• Check in to keep the momentum high
• Invest in employee journeys

Alternatively, you can leverage LumApps to personalize employee experiences, empower them to do their best work, and build a more engaged workforce. You can also use the tool on the go via mobile to ensure employees in your organization are happy, more engaged, and satisfied enough to hit company goals without burnout.

 

See how LumApps can help you improve your team's day-to-day experience, ensuring a solid trust system, a sense of belonging, and high momentum for all.
 

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