If HR Owns Employee Experience, You’re Doing It Wrong

Employee experience deserves the same obsessive focus we give to customer experience

The centrality of the customer experience is a given in business, and there’s no shortage of companies claiming to be “obsessed” with that experience.

Consider for a moment, though, what it would be like if we devoted that same intense focus to the experience of employees.
 

We’d listen intently to employee opinions all the time rather than just during annual survey seasons. When that feedback surfaces problems, we’d co-create solutions with employees. We’d hardwire processes to fine-tune our efforts and report on their success.

We’d set KPIs (key performance indicators) for employee engagement, work to meet them, and regularly review them. And we’d do it at every level of the organization–from the C-suite to the front line. We’d treat talent like what is: the biggest expense and biggest opportunity in the organization.

In short, we’d make the employee experience everyone’s responsibility.

I’d argue that in the working world we all inhabit now, obsessive focus on employee experience is imperative. Of all the things transformed by the Covid-19 pandemic, nothing shifted as much as the experience of work. For millions of people, remote work and schedule flexibility have become the norm.

As work has moved from the office to the home, companies may feel they have less control than ever on the employee experience. But the in-office experience isn’t as decisive in shaping the overall employee experience as we may have thought–only 28% of workers experience company culture most strongly through the physical workplace.

Even in a remote work world, there is a tremendous opportunity to create a more engaging employee experience. But the key to seizing it is making a company-wide commitment.

So, what does that look like?

Empowered HR

Human resources (HR) may not have the role you expect in many organizations - HR is the nominal owner of employee experience. But in a culture that obsesses over that experience, HR becomes the essential enabler, driving alignment across the organization, coaching leaders and teams, and equipping everyone with the tools and processes.

By choosing processes and tools that help you measure and drive engagement, HR equips and aligns leaders, managers, and employees to build an experience-first culture. Tool choices are particularly important. With homegrown or bare-minimum solutions, you're likely to hit obstacles with adoption and usage. Ideally, you want to invest in technology that your leaders, managers, and employees actually enjoy using—and that integrates with the tools they're already using to get their work done day to day.

Empathic Leadership

Leaders are the most influential people in your organization. An extraordinary employee experience is impossible without leaders who prioritize engagement, clearly communicate their engagement strategy, and listen intently to employees.

That last point is an important one. In a 2021 study by the global nonprofit Catalyst, 76% of people said working for empathetic senior leaders made them more engaged with their work. Sixty-one percent said they work more creatively because they believe their senior leaders show empathy. The connection between empathetic leadership and improved results is real, and it’s clear.

Enabled Management

Managers are essential. As the people closest to the actual employee experience, they’re uniquely positioned to see and address problems with it. Experience-first organizations give managers the clarity to champion and track team progress on organizational priorities. They also equip managers to create safe spaces where workers can get and give meaningful feedback. Employees who get feedback at least monthly are 1.4 times more likely to stay with an organization.

Technology plays a significant role in enabling managers. Easy-to-use engagement tools facilitate ongoing conversations, and good performance tools can focus on those exchanges. The right solutions help create an environment where managers can act on employee feedback quickly and simplify their listening processes.  

Engaged Employees

That leaves the employees themselves, and their role is to be heard and help develop solutions to make work better. In an experience-focused culture, soliciting and acting on employee opinion is a continuous priority. It can’t only happen through annual employee engagement surveys that may or may not shape company priorities and initiatives.

An extraordinary employee experience demands a holistic approach to employee listening. It has to happen at several levels: individually, through 1:1 meetings, team huddles, and lifecycle interviews; communally, via town halls and focus groups; and across the organization, through regular pulse surveys and yearly satisfaction surveys.

The feedback collected across those layers of listening is valuable data, and it needs to be treated as such. Capture it, track it, act on it, and report on progress, just as you would data on core products or customer perceptions. And make sure employees are part of every step in that process – you’ll get better solutions if employees help you develop and execute them.

The employee experience can be a competitive advantage, but only if the entire organization commits to it. Put your employee experience on par with your customer experience, and you empower leaders, HR professionals, managers, and workers to transform the workplace in ways that engage and benefit everyone.

Author Bio

Cyndi Wenninghoff is the Director of Employee Success at Quantum Workplace. She is also a People Leader with over 10 years of people operations and human resources experience, with a focus on talent acquisition and employee engagement.