Increasingly, businesses are realising they can enhance the perception of their company and boost sales and profits from the inside out.
Employee Experience encompasses the entire employee journey and creates a strong and productive workforce through supporting, empowering, and rewarding staff members.
The UK Employee Experience Awards provide positive recognition for those companies who are working hard at being employee-centric. Here, CXM looks at the ways Employee Experience can be enhanced in 2018 to increase revenue and staff retention.
Employee Experience doesn’t need to involve extreme Google-esque measures such as installing a bowling alley in your building; it can be as simple as tweaking the ways in which you support your employees already.
Feedback should be flipped
Regular performance reviews show staff areas for progress and improvement, but what happens if you offer employees the same opportunity to provide feedback?
A move to more frequent feedback at the right time and creating a ‘two-way street’ is a key factor in successful Employee Experience. By encouraging open feedback, employees are given a channel to not only voice their concerns but create a platform where they can offer company improvements, resulting in greater ownership of their role. Employee to employer feedback should be as regular as the other way around, if not more so.
Incentives aren’t individual
Many companies reward the hard work and dedication of their individual staff members through financial incentives. Implementing bonus schemes and commission-based incentives may well drive sales and meet targets, but this does not necessarily equate to a positive Employee Experience.
Could rewarding an entire team be even more effective than rewarding an individual? Team-based incentives encourage collaboration and cooperation to achieve shared goals, which leads to a stronger workforce based on mutual encouragement. Teamwork is necessary for effective companies, so group rewards could improve these collaborations.
Communication is key
Leading on from team collaboration is ensuring that employee groups are not isolated, but are united with the other staff in the business. It’s easy to be insular especially if you are part of a large company and don’t need to connect with other teams, but communicating with other areas of the organisation can lead to a more united workforce.
Many companies are now adopting their own internal newsletters and even social media platforms in a bid to unite their employees together. By increasing communication, the staff can share success stories and feedback to encourage each other as well as feel more connected to the company.
Incorporating inclusion and diversity
There is a vast talent pool out there and by casting the recruitment net even wider organisations can solve their problems more creatively and take advantage of uncommon skill-sets that move the business forward.
The law increasing ensures employees are not discriminated against in the workplace, but that is not to say that we are all enjoying an inclusive profession. Engaged employees work harder and being part of a vibrant and inclusive company creates an ideal working environment.
In 2011, Forbes interviewed 321 executives at large global companies and determined “a diverse and inclusive workforce is necessary to drive innovation, foster creativity, and guide business strategies. Multiple voices lead to new ideas, new services, and new products, and encourage out-of-the-box thinking”.
Training your troops
Empowering staff is an important trend to adopt in 2018 and this can be done by making sure they fulfil their role to maximum effect, not only for themselves but for the business. Staff will most likely be shown the ropes during the onboarding process, but do they have the complete skills to meet their full potential?
Training courses are a great way to ensure staff stay engaged, enlightened and loyal to a company. It is also worth thinking about training-up staff so that they can take the pressure off other members of the business. If you have front-line customer service staff that need to always escalate the work to the next level employee, why not enable them to tackle the problem in the first instance?
Customers are happy, employees are empowered, and the company is working more efficiently.
CX tactics for EX advances
The most significant way to improve Employee Experience easily is to use strategies from other areas of the business. Companies invest time and effort into improving their Customer Experience, so why not use the same tactics for Employee Experience?
If customers are well looked after and feel valued by a company, they will return. The exact same principle should be adopted in Employee Experience. As there is a clear correlation between engaged teams and improved financial performance, it is important for companies to utilise their Customer Experience methods to improve the Employee Experience. In turn, an engaged employee will also drive customer loyalty, profitability and revenue.
Celebrate your success
If your organisation is actively improving its Employee Experience, then entering the UK Employee Experience Awards 2018 is a fantastic way to achieve recognition for your enterprise.
Entering is a valuable opportunity to bring your team together and further engage your staff. If your organisation already invests in its employees and shows an active commitment to their positive experience in the workplace, then you can celebrate your success and enter the awards now.
For more information on how your business can benefit from entering the UK Employee Experience Awards 2018, contact your dedicated Awards Consultant Ana Belic on 020 7193 5549 or ana@awardsinternational.eu. Ana will guide you through the whole process from enrolling right through to winning.