In business, there is a lot of emphasis on customer experience and its effects on brand reputation, customer retention, and revenue generation. Creating a positive experience for the customer is a priority for all types of businesses, large and small, and can determine success or failure in any industry. The most efficient and effective means to a positive customer experience are widely debated. They include marketing that’s catered to interest and trust-building, offerings that surpass expectations, above-and-beyond fulfillment practices, etc. More recently, a concept known as employee experience (EX) has been getting a lot of attention in business management, specifically in HR.
Employee experience is all about understanding and focusing on the experience of the employee with the goal of improving engagement and delivering a better experience to the customer, which then generates more revenue. Through employee experience management, companies evaluate and address opportunities for employees to positively engage with their organization and feel empowered to perform as an extension of that company. Employee experience management also addresses obstacles that might cause employees to feel disengaged and disconnected. When deployed with a strategy and the correct resources, employee experience management can have powerful effects, especially in organizations with customer-facing employees. They can include better employee retention, talent attraction, higher rates of customer satisfaction, and increased revenue.
What Is Employee Experience And Why Is It Important?
As a concept, employee experience is all about how an employee is affected by their role and the experience of contributing to their organization. This includes interacting with supervisors, coworkers, customers, equipment, and their environment. Whether that amounts to a positive experience for the employee or a negative one is very likely to impact the company’s ability to create a positive experience for the customer. A recent study from Glassdoor Economic Research has shown a strong relationship between customer satisfaction ratings and company ratings from past and current employees.
Companies that had higher marks on Glassdoor from employees who felt valued, supported, and well-compensated also rated better in customer satisfaction according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index. The link between staff experiences and customer satisfaction has been shown to be especially relevant in retail, food service, healthcare, hospitality, and other industries where direct interaction with customers is a standard. In industries like tech and manufacturing, the link was not as strong, although efforts to improve employee experience regardless of the industry have shown far-reaching effects.
Developing An Employee Experience StrategyÂ
Prioritizing employee experience can be carried out through various methods. There are now many different employee experience management tools as well as specialists in employee experience jobs. By utilizing these resources and working with these professionals, companies can systematically gather data that enables them to productively evaluate worker experiences. Some of these methods include opening avenues for anonymous feedback and creating employee experience survey systems and rating systems that account for specific job parameters. These and other assessment tools can gather a clear and honest picture of employee sentiment and outlook.
Typical areas for evaluating employee experience are a sense of community and collaboration, access to support, communication, trust in leadership, the potential for growth and development, safety, shared goals, stability, work-life balance, and inclusion. Asking the right questions and employing feedback-gathering systems are essential for an accurate evaluation. Once this information is acquired and organized, companies can then target areas that need to be improved and build on areas where they’ve already succeeded. For some companies, gathering employee experience data can be the easy part; making adjustments based on this information is far less standardized. This requires time, investment, and continuous evaluation. There is no one path to follow and the specific adjustments will vary based on the organization itself, the benefits can be substantial.
Article Sources:
