“The customer experience” is something that most companies think about on a daily basis. We consider the various touchpoints that our brand is likely to engage a member of our target audience, and strategize ways to ensure that it is the best possible interaction as possible. With every engagement, we want to strengthen the relationship and the customer’s perception of the brand, in hopes that we retain them as a customer for as long as possible.
But what about the employee experience? How often do you think about how the series of small, daily engagements affect your employees’ overall opinion of working at your company? Probably not enough.
There are endless reasons why it is important to think about your employee experience. First off, it is intrinsically tied to your employees’ success within your organization. This means that the employee experience also impacts productivity, morale, and turnover rates (just like your customers, you want to keep your employees for as long as possible).
Sounds good enough – but what can you actually do to improve your employee experience? Turns out, the theory and practice are very similar to the customer experience. It is all about meeting their needs. In this article, we will take a look at what that means.
Do not assume that all employees all the same
You segment your customer audience for a reason: people are motivated by different things. Your employees are not the same; some might care more about perks like flexible work hours, whereas recognition is more important to others. If you want to create a good working experience, it is important to understand how to best communicate and reward individuals at different “stages” of the employee experience (e.g., recruiting, onboarding, ongoing advancement, etc.).
It can be difficult to discern the differences between individuals. This is why it is so important to keep open lines of communication and ask people directly what is important to them. By doing so, you will demonstrate that you care about their needs and value them as employees.
But also recognize that there are some universal truths
As much as we are all driven by different things, we all ultimately want to be seen, heard, and appreciated. This is something that you should be considering at every “employee touchpoint.” If you consider your employee experience to be of the same importance as your customer experience, you will have high retention rates and overall better employee performance – which, in turn, benefit your customer experience.
Photo by Husna Miskandar on Unsplash