Employee experience is more important than ever in today’s world. The newer generation of employees—just like customers—are focused far more on value experiences rather than materialistic things. Nowadays, employee experience is as important as competitive salary. That is why top companies like Facebook, Google or Amazon have invested in providing the best experience to attract new talents, and to motivate and engage their current employees.
It is important to note that employee experience is different from employee engagement. Building your employee experience involves more long-term redesign plan of your entire organisation rather than applying short-term initiatives. Usually when companies look at engaging employees, they tend to focus on initiatives such as free snacks, annual outing trip or occasional team-building dinner. While can make employees feel better for a short while, the effects are short-lived. Alternatively, if we start to look at employee experience, we can build deeper engagement with staff that will lead to stronger performance in our organisations.
So let’s explore the three factors that can contribute to the best employee experience that you, as an organisation leader, could create:
First, it is undeniable that the most important factor in creating a great experience is “Culture”. Great culture is intangible and yet effective on an emotional level as it has a huge impact on how your employees feel about their jobs. A 2018 survey by Linkedin revealed that 70% of talents today would not work at leading organisations if they had to tolerate a poor company culture. Bad culture can also contribute to to 48.4% high turnover as stated in Columbia University study.
To start, great cultures encourage “teamwork” and “employee contributions to the organisation”. The most foundational thing is to make employees feel like they belong to a valuable team that if when there is a success, the company enjoys it together, and when there is a failure, they thrive and learn together from their mistakes. Gallup has found that some of the most successful organisations have the culture of high development experiences, which in turn leads to high performance. The key is to make sure that the effort is organisation-wide, in which everyone including the CEO engages in a continuous company-wide communication.
Another way to boost your employees’ motivation is to help them feel a strong “sense of purpose”. To do this, try to actively show them the direct impact of all the hard work they do, and how much it means to the company. If you align this with your organisation’s core values or even business performance priorities, the results can be astounding.
Second, physical workplace environment is crucial as it is where employees actually work and spend most of their workday. This includes everything from the poster on the wall to catered meals to floor plan, or even temporary activities that would later bring memories to the space. We all want to work in an environment with “positive vibes” that boost productivity and inspire creativity. Still, many organisations often forget that their workplace has to reflect the organisation’s core values too. Imagine working for a company where the principles do not align with the social values it claims to care about; for example, having less than enough recycling bins despite supporting an eco-friendly initiative. Would you feel betrayed, as though you’re being deceived by the company? Needless to say, the physical workspace can help create a connection between the organisation and the employees which can create sustainable values, thus ultimately helping to ingrain the company culture in each employee.
Third, with more advanced technologies these days, cultivating a technology that makes employees’ lives easier is key. By providing consumer-grade technology that is well designed and user-friendly, employees are more likely to feel that their experience is valued. One recent survey of millennial employees found that over half of the candidates have stated that they would not bother applying to companies with outdated recruiting methods. Moreover, 26% of the candidates thought that they wouldn’t want to accept a job from companies with a lack of technology in their hiring process. This goes to show that people these days care more about having a cutting-edge, modern technology that can help make the processes in their work easier. That is why it is imperative that your organisation provides technologies that can streamline all processes in the company, making your employees feel inspired and motivated to work in a productive manner.
OmniGive as a Workplace Giving program considers all of these factors, acting as an innovative booster to authenticate and boost the new standard of your organisation’s employee experience.
However, despite the 3 factors outlined above, organisations can’t simply become “experiential” if they could not go beyond the mission statement and find their “reason for being” that is collectively perceived by your employees or even consumers. A reason for being is something that shouldn’t just revolve around financial gains, but rather, the impact that your organisation has on its community and the world at large. With OmniGive, your employees will know what your organisation stands for, and they will come to understand how it can make a difference in the world.
In today’s business world, “experiential organisations” are found to be extremely successful when measured by almost every metric. Remember that your potential talents all have access to information, which is available at their fingertips through online platforms such as Glassdoor or LinkedIn, regarding your company’s reputation, specifically when it comes to employee experience. You should always provide your employees with the best physical, technological and cultural workplace factors. You want your office fuelled by teamwork and open communications, and your people to be driven by a strong sense of purpose. When all of these factors are successfully align, you can identify your company as an experiential organisation who has found its “reason for being”.
Bring the best employee experience to your organisation & find your reason for being with OmniGive – Join us now or call +66 2012 5198 (OmniGive Thailand) or +60 3 2859 2061 (OmniGive Malaysia).
