6 Relevant Ways To Enhance Your Employees Working Experience

There has been a lot of talk about employee experience in the human resources world recently, but what exactly does that mean?

Well, employee experience, like customer experience, is more than just how it feels to work for a firm. It's about how they think about their work and about working for the organization.

Unfortunately, many businesses are still unaware of what employees want from their work experience.

Companies nowadays claim to provide excellent employee experience just by providing cakes on birthdays or hanging unique banners with amusing words. And that's all!

But that shouldn’t be the case. Organizations must go above and beyond to provide employees with an exceptional workplace experience in order to boost their creativity.

After all, who doesn't know that happy employees are more productive and successful? Of course, we all know that!

There are various methods to improve your organization’s employees’ experience. Here, in this article, we demystify 6 practical ways to enhance your employees' work experience in 2021.

6 strategies to give your employees the work experience they deserve 

Here is a detailed guide to the six concrete steps you can take to increase your company's employment experience. 

1. Provide growth assistance

The best way of showing your employees that you care about them is to be a part of their growth journey.

If you can prioritize investing in the upskilling program, chances are it is going to serve you well in the long term. Although, reducing training costs may appear to be a beneficial method to optimize your costs you would do more harm and less good this way.

By compromising on the quality of your team you would be compromising on the product quality. On the contrary, having a highly skilled team at your disposal not only benefits your process for quality work but ensures confident decision-making on your part.

Now the question is how to achieve this effectively? Here's what you can do.  

Managers should establish an individual development plan for their employees and interact with them to discuss long-term career aspirations at least once a year. Employees can also be paired with a mentor who has mastered the skill and can provide coaching and feedback. As a result, employee engagement will rise, and your internal talent pool will grow.

You'll acquire loyal employees who recognize you're investing in them by putting programs in place to teach them.

Invite guest speakers, host seminars and workshops, provide training classes, or offer one-on-one coaching. Invest in your employees' development, and you'll see the benefits as they flourish professionally and personally. 

2. Improve your communications 

In order to enhance your employee working experience, you have to focus on internal communication. It is the key to a productive workforce and an essential part of establishing an engaging employee experience.

Internal communication is crucial for sustaining relationships with employees and gaining their trust.

We can now communicate with one another at the push of a button, thanks to technological advancements. But this doesn't mean that today's communication methods are the most efficient. A brief meeting or phone contact can resolve an issue that would have taken hours of back-and-forth emails to solve.

Employees are like your customers. Consider providing a platform that isn't limited to email. Make every effort to communicate your purpose and objectives to them. Hold both virtual and live meetings.

According to research, employee productivity increases by 20 to 25% in organizations where employees are connected. Thus, developing an effective internal communications plan is no longer an option. Instead, it's a requirement! 

3. Prioritize feedback 

Modern businesses run on the feedback economy. But this feedback is not limited to inky customers. It extends its reach of efficacy to creating an experience-rich relationship for your employees with your brand.

Feedback helps your employees not only become more productive and performance-driven at work but increases their trust and loyalty towards your brand.

You can start this process by collecting hard facts about their performance on the basis of some set metrics to study. As Peter Drucker said, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

This approach makes your employee assessment process systematic and effective. On the basis of your reports and analytics, you can provide your employees with personalized feedback on how to improve their existing problems.

However, in order to witness real value, your feedback sessions should be conducted regularly. Fail to do so, would only waste a significant amount of valuable time on nothing. Ideally, you should conduct your feedback sessions every month or quarter. But here's another thing.

If you thought that feedback sessions are only about how employees can improve, then think again. There is a lot of work that you would need to do too. It is also about the role play that you have to bring about the desired change.

Asking your employees about what you can do to help them better is often a great option to start with. Perhaps they'd like a bit more direction on specific jobs or need more flex for creative work.

Asking for input not only gives you a concrete and immediate way to help your staff improve, but also encourages a culture of open communication that’ll help in long-term growth.

Remember that listening to feedback is a good start, but acting on it improves the employees' experience much more. It'll foster trust and boost productivity.

Employees are more inclined to express their thoughts and interact if they believe they are being heard, but they may refrain from providing feedback if they think they will not be heard.

Therefore you must have the willingness to act on the employee feedback to implement positive change. 

4. Integrate a corporate volunteer program 

Organizations no longer exist just to run a business. They are uplifting individuals and communities, as well as making the globe a better place. A corporate volunteer program is an essential part of this.

More than a quarter of businesses are currently providing some form of corporate volunteering to their employees.

Corporate volunteering is a means for organizations to encourage their employees to give back to their communities by allowing them to volunteer. It is an essential component of a company's corporate social responsibility (CSR) or employee engagement strategy.

Corporate volunteering improves employee and departmental collaboration while also motivating employees to develop new skills. Employees can participate in meaningful volunteer activities with their coworkers through a corporate volunteer program, which raises morale and leads to more productive and positive work environments.

Various researches have also stated the benefits of this program, which include:

• Employees' professional and leadership abilities are developed and enhanced
• Increases staff morale, teamwork, loyalty, productivity, and motivation while lowering absenteeism
• Attracts new employees, particularly millennials
• Increases sales and hence has a favorable influence on profitability by reaching out to more customers
• Addresses social concerns to strengthen communities 

5. Acknowledge your employee 

It is a basic human urge to be praised for one's efforts. Employees want to be valued more than they desire promotions and raises. They feel good about themselves when appreciated and recognized for their efforts. It gives them the impression that they are contributing to the company's success. 

And when employees receive appreciation, they are likely to contribute more. They become motivated to attain their objectives and stay with the company.

It shouldn't be challenging to show your appreciation for your employees; think of it as an honest gesture of generosity and thoughtfulness.

The entire employee lifecycle becomes more pleasant, productive, memorable, and unique through recognition and gratitude. According to Gallup's research, 67% of employees who receive favorable feedback from their employers are highly engaged at work.

Therefore, show your employees that you value their ideas, work, time, and abilities to improve their experiences at your company. Employees that are happy and have excellent experiences at work are the most valuable allies a company can have.  

6. Design an employee assistance program (EAP)

Workplace stress is nothing new. But what is, is the alarming rise of anxiety. It is not only eating up your employee's creative juice but causing significant loss of productivity and burnout.

An EAP (employee assistance program) counseling might be just the right solution to alleviate this problem. It can not only help employees cope with work pressure but enhance their working experience. Does that sound aligned to the motto, work with play?

An efficient EAP must be able to cater to effective counseling and consultations to improve employee health from every aspect. It not only assists employees in resolving issues that are interfering with their work but also benefits them psychologically. But that is not all. The program goes deeper.

An EAP's primary goal is to assist employees in achieving the desired work-life balance without tampering with the quality of any.

Even the most dedicated employees have difficulty distinguishing between work and personal issues. Thus, it is crucial to provide assistance to employees through difficult times.

However, here is a quick reminder of a hard-core truth. It’s not a one-time task, but an ongoing process. It is critical to keep the program evolving and equip it to your employees' real-time needs and requirements.

Conclusion

Employee experience is much more than just good pay and rewards.

It is about delivering value to the lives of your employees, people who make it possible to turn your vision into reality.

This means if you have to instill the culture of performance and purpose in your team, you would have to dig deeper than just rewards. A good salary is just the surface of employee experience.  You would have to design a work environment that supports free thinking and expression. This will get the best ideas out in your organization and keep you ahead of your competition.

Now, there is just one thing left. Take action.