Perché le organizzazioni hanno bisogno di un programma di esperienza dei dipendenti

Solving problems for customers, unlocking opportunities for innovation, bridging communication gaps — here are the compelling reasons to launch an employee experience program.

Employee experience is a hot topic right now. Finally, right? The Great Resignation really turned the focus onto employees and understanding what’s driving them to switch jobs, move to other industries, or leave the workforce altogether. Many studies have been conducted to better understand how employees feel about their jobs and the workplace. Sadly, it’s too late for some, but the learnings are important as we consider the future employee experience.

Medallia conducted research among 1,471 workers in the United States who either recently left their jobs or were thinking about quitting. The findings are highlighted in the report, Insights Into the Great Resignation: Understanding Why Employees Leave Their Jobs, and the top five reasons employees left at the height of this trend included:

• La natura del loro lavoro in generale
• I loro carichi di lavoro
• Preoccupazioni per l'equità retributiva
• Non sentirsi apprezzati
• Opportunità di avanzamento di carriera limitate

Questi risultati sono paragonabili a quanto ho visto anche in altre ricerche.

Anche la MIT Sloan School of Management ha esaminato una tonnellata di dati provenienti da un paio di fonti diverse per trovare i maggiori predittori del turnover durante la Grande Dimissione. La maggior parte delle conversazioni ruotava intorno ai salari e all'insoddisfazione dei dipendenti, con i salari alla base. Invece, la retribuzione è risultata al 16° posto nell'elenco dei predittori del turnover.

La cultura aziendale è stata il principale fattore di previsione, in particolare una cultura aziendale tossica, ed è stata 10 volte più importante della retribuzione nel prevedere il turnover.

Consider Employee Experience to Improve Company Culture

So, you’ve got a lot of data points and a lot of details to consider as you think about employee retention and employee experience. But what exactly is employee experience?

Ecco come lo definisco:

È la somma di tutte le interazioni che un dipendente ha con il suo datore di lavoro durante la durata del suo rapporto di lavoro. Include qualsiasi modo in cui il dipendente "tocca" o interagisce con l'azienda e viceversa nel corso dello svolgimento del suo lavoro. Include anche le azioni e le capacità che le consentono di svolgere il suo lavoro. E, cosa importante, comprende i sentimenti, le emozioni e le percezioni che la dipendente ha di tali interazioni e capacità.

Le azioni e le capacità citate nella definizione sono alcune delle cose che sia Medallia che il MIT hanno evidenziato nella loro ricerca: lo sviluppo della carriera, il lavoro significativo, la conoscenza dell'impatto del lavoro sull'azienda, il benessere, i leader che si preoccupano, la comunicazione aperta e onesta, il cameratismo e la collaborazione e altro ancora - per non parlare della disponibilità di strumenti, formazione e risorse per svolgere il lavoro e farlo bene.

One thing that you must know about employee experience is that it doesn’t just happen by accident. Well, it does, but it likely isn’t the experience employees want or expect. The experience that employees deserve is one that is designed to be that way – based on their needs and desired experience. That means you’ve got to have an employee experience program in place that ensures that you do all the work needed to design and deliver that experience.

Launch a Robust Employee Experience Program

The first thing you’ll need to ensure your employee experience program is successful is both executive commitment and alignment.

Leaders must commit to putting employees and employee experience at the top of the priority list. People first. That commitment comes not only in a verbal form but also in the form of resources — human, time, capital, financial, and beyond — to show employees that ‘we put our money where our mouths are.’ And they must all be aligned; if only some executives across the organization are on board, then employee experience will be siloed and disjointed.

To help you get that executive commitment and alignment, you’re going to need to answer the ‘why’ behind it. Why do we need an employee experience program? In Medallia’s latest guide about how to build an employee experience program, experts list some of the benefits of designing and delivering a great employee experience.

• Gaining insight into employee experience. Take the time and do the work to understand your employees, the current experience, and their ideal future experience. Then work together to design and deliver that ideal experience. “You’ll understand what’s happening to employees, uncover obstacles, and discover efficiencies and challenges. You’ll also find ways to problem solve together as a team to make things more effective and let your people have the impact they want to have.” – Melissa Arronte, PhD, Medallia Global Employee Experience Practice Lead.
• Creating an organization of folks who are committed to the success of your business. Employee engagement is an outcome of designing and delivering a great employee experience. Engaged employees are productive, passionate, and proud of their work and of the business. “The more engaged your employees are, the more they’re going to go the extra mile for your customers, whether internal or external.” – Grace Black, Group Director, Employee Experience Advisory.
• Driving employee retention, talent recruitment, and customer outcomes. Want to become an employer of choice? Take care of your employees, and they’ll repay you in spades. They’ll stay. They’ll speak kindly of your employer brand. And they’ll take care of customers. “Employees want to work in great organizations where they feel valued and are having quality experiences. Talent attraction and retention are extremely challenging, so if employee experience is not a priority for an organization, they risk losing great talent and not serving their customers well.” – Nina Bianchi, former Chief of People and Culture at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
• Sbloccare nuove opportunità di innovazione. L'innovazione può essere scoperta sia nel modo in cui viene svolto il lavoro sia nei prodotti che vengono creati. "I dipendenti che svolgono il lavoro ogni giorno hanno grandi idee su come migliorarlo, renderlo più intelligente e più efficiente". - Grace Black
• Being able to more effectively deliver your organization’s mission. Without employees, you have no one to design, build, sell, install, or service your products. Treat employees well, and they will treat customers well; in turn, the business benefits. “Whether it be meeting patient needs, meeting customer needs, or building a product, you can’t do that without your employees. If you’re not meeting their needs, they’re going to either not do a very good job or they’re going to leave the organization.” – Sarah Mocker, Senior EX Advisor.
• Risolvere i problemi dei clienti. Prendetevi cura dei vostri dipendenti e loro si prenderanno cura dei vostri clienti. Quando parlo con i dipendenti dei miei clienti, mi dicono che hanno bisogno di strumenti e risorse per fare bene il loro lavoro e per servire i clienti nel modo in cui meritano di essere serviti. I dipendenti lo sanno. Prendetevi cura di loro! "Se idipendenti non hanno le risorse o l'autorizzazione da parte della direzione per risolvere i problemi dei clienti, alla fine il risultato si traduce in una scarsa soddisfazione dei clienti". - Diane Daum, consulente senior EX.
• Bridging the communication gap for remote teams. Beyond employee listening initiatives, leaders should be having regular conversations with their employees. Don’t wait for that annual survey — set regular one-on-ones with your employees and conduct interviews to stay connected and be in the know before it’s too late. “Now is the time for organizations to reinvigorate their employee experience programs and do things differently than they did before the pandemic. Employee listening initiatives may be one of the few opportunities that remote employees may have to speak about their experiences because they don’t come into the office very often, or they don’t have a direct line to their manager’s manager or have the face time to communicate with leaders.” – Scott Spayd, EX Senior Technical Manager.

Clearly, it’s important to design and deliver a great employee experience. You can start by talking to your employees. Get to know them. Understand them on a human level, a personal level. There’s no better way to ensure they have a great experience and can do the work and deliver the customer experience you expect than by talking to them and involving them in the whole process.

Tasked with introducing an employee experience program within your organization? Check out the guide Expert Insights: How to Build an Employee Experience Program, which offers step-by-step instructions from leaders who have firsthand experience. You’ll find out what it takes to become an employee experience leader, transforming your workplace along the way with higher employee engagement and retention.