Written By: Nick Brazier | Last Updated: June 2023
Nick has over 25 years’ experience within the Financial Services industry – mostly with pensions and employee benefits. He is regulated adviser and regularly consults with a wide range of clients from various industries and of different sizes. Nick’s approach is to become a part of the team, really getting to understand the culture of the business and communicate in the most effective way.
Translating complex topics to clients to help them engage with their employee benefits is where his passion and skills really stand out. Nick manages a team of consultants and reports into the Senior Management Team on strategy within the employee benefits team.
The better an employee experience is, the more likely staff are to be engaged day-to-day. Business leaders at all levels have a responsibility to contribute towards this and play their part in fostering a positive work environment. Not only will it benefit staff – but there are many advantages that can be had by the employer, too.
What is Employee Experience (EX)?
Employee experience is a term that, put in a nutshell, is what people encounter when they work for an organisation, how they are made to feel, and the different things that they observe from their own personal perspective as an employee.
It can cover a range of different topics – from their interactions with the leadership team and their direct colleagues – to how their workspace works for them and the efficiency of the technology and systems they use.
What are the benefits of a positive Employee Experience (EX)?
Companies that put time and money into improving their employees’ user experience (UX) are, on average, four times more profitable than the ones who don’t! [1]
Profit is only one of the benefits of promoting a positive experience for employees, though. A positive EX can lead to a sense of belonging for an employee and feeling like a valued part of a team. Having a sense of purpose as to why their job role matters, meaning they can bring energy and enthusiasm to a job, is equally as important, too.
A positive Employee Experience can help you in attracting new talent, retaining existing staff, and helping to improve overall performance and achievements within your business.
Ideas to Improve Employee Experience
1 – Create Online Social Spaces
In a technologically advanced era where social media platforms and other social tools are used in everyday life, it makes sense that this would directly translate to the workplace. Allowing helpful content to be searchable, shareable and ultimately more accessible to employees goes a long way to improving the overall EX.
Social technologies in the workplace can raise productivity by 20-25% [1]
It could be time to consider whether online social spaces for employees are a logical next step for your business.
2 – Establish a Diversity and Inclusion Strategy
A good diversity and inclusion (D&I) strategy should be engaging to all staff, represent your core values, and have a direct impact on the overall Employee Experience. All people want to be treated with respect in every aspect of our daily lives – so why should anything different apply within a working environment?
Diversity goes far beyond race and gender, and it is so important that your leadership team, together with your bottom line, fully understand the true meaning of inclusion. From neurodiversity to religion and beliefs, building a solid D&I strategy is so valuable to give you the competitive edge and make every single person within your organisation feel supported to be and do their best at work.
3 – Keep Tabs on Staff Workloads
The average employee spends about 39% of their work time doing job-specific tasks [1]
The volume of work passing through each employee’s hands will naturally vary depending on their level of responsibility and the timeline of any projects that they have on, among other things. This doesn’t mean that work should be allowed to fall as it will, though, as overburdening any one employee could have a huge impact on their output as well as their mental state and how they feel about working for you. Knowing how someone is feeling about their workload is a step employers can take in supporting their overall emotional wellbeing.
Managing staff workloads can ensure that nothing bottlenecks, deadlines are less likely to be missed, or quality impacted because of individuals having to take on more than they should. It can also help to monitor anyone who isn’t necessarily pulling their weight or even may need more support from you to help them thrive as your employee.
4 – Provide Teams With the Tools They Need
Mapping out everyone’s key skills, building teams that each have their own strengths, and then providing your talented employees with functional tools to do their jobs are all key factors in promoting a positive employee experience. Nurturing employees and encouraging people to be honest about what they need can help improve team dynamics and foster the right working environment.
5 – Improve Internal Communication
85% of Employees Are Most Motivated When Internal Communications Are Effective! [2]
Whether it be company news, important announcements, or objectives – regularly sharing information with your employees can help them to feel more valued and motivated in achieving goals, as well as engaging with your customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.
Making the most of all forms of employee communications, including the intranet, newsletters, and press releases, increases knowledge of the day to day running of things and how each person has a part to play, empowering your teams to work collaboratively towards a central goal.
How to Implement An Employee Experience Strategy
A good start is always to ask your employees for feedback – this will give you a foundation and solid starting point when considering each step of your EX strategy. Get a feel for how your staff are feeling, from your management structure down to your bottom line.
It would then make sense to evaluate the feedback and understand where your problem areas are. What should be your highest priority? Which areas of your employees’ experience in working for you can you improve to have the greatest impact? Focussing on outlining your strategy will inevitably help you to embed employee experience into your company culture and begin to implement an employee experience strategy that will work.
Broadstone has been helping businesses to look after their employees, identify pain points and work towards a more positive working environment for all. Contact us today if you would like to discuss your strategy for improving your employee experience.
Key Takeaways to Improve Employee Experience
- Listen to your employees – constructive feedback can be just as valuable as positive feedback, and sometimes even more so when it comes to understanding how your people feel as your employee.
- Understand what is being said and take time to pick it apart so that you can get to the bottom of how you can best plan to move forward towards the end goal of an improved employee experience.
- Transform the way you do things and realise your strategy – do not just put a plan together that is not achievable.
- If you need help – ask for it. Quite often, independent employee benefits consultancies and intermediaries are a great place to start when you are looking at how you can move towards a stronger Employee Value Proposition (EVP).
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-stats-highlight-importance-employee-experience-jeff-smith/
[2] https://www.hrcloud.com/blog/8-employee-engagement-statistics-you-need-to-know-in-2021
