By Katrina Colling Ovenstad
Are you familiar with Employee Experience, also called EX or the employee experience? Dear child has many names. Whatever we call it, these are concepts and focus areas that have come to stay. But what do we really put in employee experience?
A 2017 Gallup survey found that only 15% of employees worldwide are engaged in their jobs. Gallup therefore advises organizations to become more focused on their employees and listen to what they need to increase their potential. In other words, it is about understanding and optimizing the processes that affect the employees and their experience at work, asking for an open and honest feedback, and not least facilitating this.
The value of having the right employees
Employee experience is about recognizing the value of having the right employees in the right roles in your company. This will help you achieve your business goals. To do this, you need to make sure your employees feel seen, valued and understood. You also need to make sure that they feel that working for you is the best thing that can happen to them, career-wise.
More and more companies are recognizing the importance of creating a closer relationship between management and employees. With this in mind, we are seeing more and more EX global manager roles being created.
Many companies, perhaps including yours, are already good at this and have a focus on EX, but is there untapped potential? Employee Experience has a clear focus on increasing employee satisfaction, collaboration and engagement. Do you have the very best processes in these areas?
Recruitment – do you have the optimal process?
Imagine hiring a new key employee in your company. What does it take to get the very best candidate?
A potential employee gets an idea of how you as an employer are already in the recruitment process. That is, focusing on EX is important even before a person is employed with you. By having a carefully thought-out recruitment process, you ensure that the very best potential employees get a good impression of you and a good Employee Experience from the first meeting. We expect you to hire the very best heads in your industry? To achieve this, EX should be a planned and structured part of your recruitment process.
Onboarding – the important start
Now that you have hired the top candidate and she is going to start in your company, it is crucial to focus on EX throughout the onboarding process. In the onboarding process, your new employee's career expectations are determined and confirmed, among other things, and a successful start-up is crucial.
In the onboarding process, it is the manager's task to ensure that the new employee quickly gets into the work tasks and becomes productive. As an important key in this work, managers must show both commitment and interest in the new employee. In this process, the onboarding meeting itself, and developing an individual onboarding plan are important activities. Showing commitment to your new employee's career in the company is all about including and informing. The goal, for both you and your new colleague, is for her to succeed in the job.
Three key factors affecting the employee experience
Talya N. Bauer highlights three important factors in onboarding:
• Onboarding is a process that needs to pass over time. It is usually most prominent in the first year, even though many businesses have longer processes.
• Onboarding also entails an employee responsibility. It is therefore important that the new employee has a proactive behaviour through onboarding.
• New employees like that onboarding offers clarity, structure and clarity. This includes clear goals, timelines, information provided, and expectations.
How long an onboarding process lasts varies from business to business:
Figure: HR Norway, onboarding report 2019.
It is important to understand that the onboarding process requires time and resources, and that this is an investment in your new colleague and in your company.
Three great tips on the road
Do you want to include EX in your onboarding process? Here are three great tips along the way:
– Make sure to make a good first impression – having an onboarding plan for your newly hired star gives just that.
– Plan and carry out an effective and good introduction, it always pays off!
– Uncover your new employee's expectations early on. In this way, you will avoid misunderstandings and achieve satisfaction.
Also, keep in mind that the key to a successful onboarding process is preparation!
Why is the employee experience important to you?
Today, there is great competition for the wisest heads in all industries, which leads to job changes happening more often than before. We are in an era where digitalisation of all processes is happening very quickly and technology is being developed at record speed. In addition, we see that the new generation of employees who today conquer the labour market have completely different expectations of being employed than we are used to from before. If you want to recruit these, and to keep them in the future, focusing on EX is crucial.
Invest in your co-workers, ask them, and listen to them
Thoughtful processes must support both managers and employees in their work tasks. It is important to understand the employee and what it takes to optimize her potential. This is not a job for managers alone. In order to achieve this, close cooperation between the manager and the employee is required, and it is very important to both ask what she wants and to listen to her answers. By taking into account her wishes and needs, you will focus on EX, and the employee will find that she is both seen, heard and appreciated.
When developing a process for employee development, it is important to have EX in mind. You can do this by focusing on personal development for each employee, having a plan for training and for support for growth and development. In this way, you will create value for both you and the employee, while at the same time creating trust and you get employees who want to stay in the organization.
Sariba has 20 years of experience in process work, and we see time and time again how a solid process foundation and investing in employees and their satisfaction create value for businesses.
We help you put your employee experience on the agenda
We know how important EX is and we are passionate about putting it on the agenda. We also know that there is a systems engineering side to this field. Right now, there is a rapid development of digital solutions that enable HR to facilitate a great employee experience. In our next blog post, we will discuss this. We hope you are as excited as we are!
Do you want to hear more about how and why you should have EX as part of your processes? Then you are welcome to contact Bernhard Rikardsen.