Employee experience... why does it matter?

‘Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.’

We’ve all heard the saying, but in today’s working world there are all manner of factors that will impact upon an individual’s ‘love’ for their job. These could be remuneration, the clients you work with or it could be employee experience.

We hear people, companies and recruiters on LinkedIn talk about it, but why should it matter to you and your business? And how can your business use positive employee experiences to drive engagement and growth?

 

As a business, why should you invest in providing a great employee experience? Transforming the employee experience means taking the same approach you do for your customers and focusing that attention on the people working inside the business. Putting your employees at the heart of your business and everything you do will affect their loyalty, engagement and productivity.

Understanding what your staff want and need from their jobs is the key to creating an effective and meaningful experience. Knowing what’s important to them, from the everyday experiences around the office through to how you respond to your employees’ most meaningful life events will have a significant impact on their satisfaction with their work environment.

In our latest Salary & Benefits Survey we wanted to know the reasons why people chose to leave their last role so we can help our customers identify where they could potentially be losing staff. 28% of respondents cited the working environment and culture as a driving factor to leave whilst a lack of progression opportunities was the reason for leaving for 38% of people.

 

But how do you know what they want?

The likes of Glassdoor means employees, current and potential, can air their views and gain a real insight into the perceptions your business – the good, the bad and the ugly. Sometimes negative comments need to be taken with a pinch of salt, however if a consistent issue crops up multiple times this should be something to address going forward.

Speak with and survey (anonymously if needs be) your staff and try to foster an environment of open communication and honesty. Transparency the key and unless your employees feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and feel they are contributing to the business many issues will remain bottled up.

You don’t have to rush out to hire a ‘Head of People’, ‘Director of Employee Experience’ or similar. By simply creating an open environment, giving your staff a voice (no matter their seniority level) and developing the management team’s abilities to hear these voices can make a huge impact on your business. It could be that one of your junior members of staff has a simple idea that can make a huge difference to the day-to-day atmosphere around the office. You’ll never know unless you’re willing to listen.

 

Why does this matter?

If you can provide your staff with a meaningful work experience that’s purposeful, rewarding and in an environment that promotes, communication, progression and development you’ll go a long way towards offering an incredible employee experience.

By getting these key elements of employee experience right, attracting and retaining talent becomes easier, time to hire and the costs involved are reduced and your talent pool widens to include the best in the market.

As well as helping companies add talent to their teams, Sphere are also experts at helping them retain and engage staff and provide insight into trends why people choose to move role. If you’d like to hear more then get in touch.