There was a time when the employee experience was 'turn up, do your job, get paid'. This idea of the working person feels rather outdated now. We have greater aspirations as employees than the wage packet. The experience of our journey through the working day is actually rather important to us. Just how important is it for the business, though, and is it actually worth propagating an environment in the workplace that supports a strong employee experience? To borrow from the song, if a team has the working 'working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living' attitude, then does it really matter as long as the work gets done?
In short, yes, it really does. At Lavandi Talent, we believe from start to finish, the employee experience has a dramatic influence on the workplace.
Pre-Employment
Starting the 'community' feeling at this stage means that the employee will arrive ready to go and feeling positive on their first day. Simple things like keep warm letters after the offer, online/face to face meet and greets with their new colleagues and being sent all the paperwork promptly engenders a feeling of commitment and anticipation to the new role. Without this, new team members could suffer with an exaggerated amount of the "second guessing and fear of the unknown" that are a perfectly natural response to a change. Make sure you re-state your company ethos and reinforce your employer brand. This is a great time to lay the groundwork of ensuring that the job role and the expectations are clear for the new employee. See the first 90 days below for more on the importance of managing expectations.
Satisfied and happy employees are more efficient and creative
Onboarding
Whether the new team member is remote or on-site, the onboarding process forms a lasting impression with the new employee. Introductions should cover all the paperwork and process aspects, preferably to a clear schedule.
It is really important to pay very close attention to the 'micro moments' that smooth a transition to a new workplace as well. Be on the employee side and try to consider their perspective. Remember being a pupil at a new school and worrying more about not knowing where the toilet was than you did about doing the lessons? A new job can involve the adult version of those feelings. If you can onboard to dismiss the small worries, you are going right to the emotional core of the person and reducing those concerns.
90 days is a sometimes a lifetime
There is an article in Psychology Today, which is well worth a read. In the USA, 33% of employees leave their job in the first 90 days, and this figure seems roughly the same in the UK. That is a huge amount of people reversing a life-changing decision they only recently made. One of the main reasons for this is that the job does not meet the expectations of the employee. Those first 90 days should be partly about building the employees familiarity with the people and the processes around them. If the job isn't what the new team member wanted, then you need to identify that early. If an employee settles well in this period, then they are likely to stay.
Saying goodbye and good luck
Sometimes, employees leave, and that is just a fact of life. No matter how hard you try, and despite all your efforts, people move on. Clearly, you need to deal quickly and efficiently with the process of them leaving. How that process is handled is a factor in your company brand. If an employee leaves having been supported in their decision and knowing that the employer made efforts to help them transition, they will take a positive brand message with them. It is also very important that employers understand what motivated the move. If there is room for improvement in the employee experience, then this is a great opportunity to gain some insight into what that could be.
All the research tells us that the journey an employee experiences from pre-employment to leaving employment leads to job satisfaction. Satisfied and happy employees are more efficient and creative. So, is it worth taking the time to work on employee experience? Yes, it has a direct impact on the success of your business.
So, hopefully, your employees won't need to pour themselves a cup of ambition just to get into the traffic with the other workers (as Dolly Parton told us); they will be engaged and loyal because they are part of a great employee experience.
If we can help you with your employee experience – get in touch.
