Great entrepreneurs have the ability to take full advantage of a variety of business tactics. What empowers him is his extraordinary vision for innovation and achieving extraordinary results from ordinary scenarios. It is very commendable and inspiring how you always look at things on the bright side and balance it with your business success. But have you ever thought about putting a high value on the experience you offer your employees? Is fostering a positive employee experience part of your core business strategy?
People’s experiences have a lasting effect on their perspectives and actions. It makes perfect sense that as a business owner you expect the most productive actions from your employees. But what about the experience they gain from your organization’s work environment? Howard Schultz rightly said, “You can’t expect your employees to exceed customer expectations if you don’t exceed your employees’ expectations of management.”
The quote from the former Starbucks CEO above contains a golden rule for business success. The key to taking your business to the next level is meeting employee expectations and providing them with an enjoyable experience. For further clarification, in this blog we look at the many benefits experienced by employee support. So, without further ado, let’s dive into this post to break down how great employee experiences make organizations more empowered and successful.
Extreme benefits by creating a positive employee experience
Increases employee engagement
In today’s business world, leaders value the involvement of their employees. In fact, employee engagement is directly related to the level of profitability your business can generate. As an illustration, according to Gallup, companies with high levels of employee engagement have a 22 percent higher profitability than others. However, it is important for companies to prioritize measurable goals for employee engagement.
Before doing so, it is very important to understand the determinants that ensure high employee engagement. Employee engagement is a measure of the motivation, comfort, satisfaction, and sense of belonging employees feel in the workplace. That’s why active employee engagement and a positive employee experience complement each other. Your employees will appreciate the highest levels of engagement when their work experience generates greater motivation and loyalty within them.
What we also have to consider here are the high withdrawal fees. Additionally, Gallup reveals that disengaged employees can cost the company around $2,200 per year. You don’t want to suffer unnecessary losses like that! Instead, you want to enjoy increased profitability through exemplary employee engagement. To do that, you need to make sure you’re investing in employee experience in a profitable way. After all, it is an indirect investment with high returns! So when do you start changing your employee experience for the better?
Increase retention rates
Besides engagement, another important concern for companies is to enable high levels of customer loyalty. No company likes to lose its best talent because it has a direct impact on company performance. In addition, there are excessive costs associated with high employee turnover, which can result in huge compensation for the company. However, you must have a solid strategy in place to retain your employees. After all, your employees are your real capital!
As quoted by Forbes, the cost of hiring again can reach 33 percent of the annual salary of employees who quit. This is indeed a serious disadvantage and every business wants to avoid these costs. In other words, you need to develop effective productive strategies to drive employee retention. One of the most compelling of these strategies is investing in employee experience.
When employees have great experiences at work, their loyalty to the company increases. These pleasurable experiences can be related to them in dimensions of workplace empathy, respect, inclusion, acceptance of diversity, appreciation, learning, etc.
When companies meet these simple employee expectations, they can drive high employee retention rates. After all, who wants to leave a workplace where employees have warm and wonderful experiences? On the other hand, if they don’t feel comfortable at work, they are more likely to leave. Hence, it is fair to say that an engaging employee experience is the foundation for high employee retention goals.
Makes company culture more productive
Workplace culture is an important factor in employee morale, alignment, and success. Have you seen your company culture as a competitive advantage that can set you apart? Well, according to Deloitte, 82 percent of company employees believe culture equals competitive advantage. Additionally, companies with strong cultural values and virtues have experienced a fourfold increase in sales, according to Forbes. Now that’s very interesting, isn’t it?
Employee experience and company culture naturally go hand in hand. When positive employee experiences develop in the workplace, organizational culture changes for the better and vice versa. Companies whose employees are satisfied, inspired, and happy at work will automatically have a living culture that makes them more productive. In addition, the innovation and creativity that emerge from the workplace culture will add value to the success of the organization.
Therefore, employee experience is a pillar of the corporate culture. To get the most out of your organization’s work environment, you need to continuously strengthen these pillars!
Attract new talent
How likely do you think it is that an organization’s employees will recommend your company if their own experience is poor? In fact, it is useless to think about the answer to the question. Investing in the experience of your current workforce is critical if you want to attract new talent who can add tremendous value to your business.
If your current employees have had a good work experience, they will be more than happy to recommend the company. That way, you have a better chance of hiring the best talent and minds among millennials. The same goes for hiring extraordinary and innovative Gen Z employees. The future, of course, belongs to the companies that will have the brightest Millennials and Gen Z talent at the helm.
In addition, it is also important for you to know that Millennials and Gen Y are very concerned about the type of employee experience that companies provide. In fact, it is one of the most important factors for them based on their decision to apply to an organization. To confirm this, according to TeamStage, 86 percent of job seekers ignore companies that are known for having poor employee experiences and negative work cultures. This sums up why investing in employee experience is a necessity and a brilliant idea for attracting great talent.
Helpful customer service
“What employees experience, customers experience. The best marketing is happy and engaged employees” – Tom Peters
Today’s customers place customer service above all else. For them, the type of experience they get from the business is far more important than price and product. This has changed the dynamics of customer loyalty. In confirmation, according to Annex Cloud, 34 percent of customers said they would not buy from a company that had a bad experience in the past.
As a business owner, you already know how important customer retention is to your business. In fact, according to Semrush, your existing customers have a 70 percent chance of making a new purchase. However, the probability that a new customer will buy from you is only 20 percent. This explains why the company values customer loyalty so highly.
However, your business cannot afford a negative user experience. In order to retain your valuable customers, you must constantly think of unconventional ideas to maintain high customer retention. But what do you think are the most basic requirements for a satisfactory user experience?
The answer lies in the experience of your employees! If your employees experience positive qualities at work, they will transfer them to your customers as well. In contrast, when employees are frustrated, pessimistic, or disinterested, they have nothing to add to the customer experience. In addition, negative employee experiences can also offset customer experiences.
To provide an experience that keeps your customers coming back, you need employees who are passionate, enthusiastic, dynamic, charismatic and caring. This attitude of your employees depends to a large extent on their own experiences in the organization.
Therefore, it would not be wrong to say that a pleasant employee experience provides the perfect basis for striving for a pleasant customer experience. In other words, one of the most compelling benefits of investing in employee experience is that it can increase customer retention.
Determines trust in the workplace
Is trust an overactive phenomenon in the workplace? Well, certainly not considering the tremendous value it adds to an organization! According to the Harvard Business Review, a high level of trust in the workplace increases employee productivity by up to 50 percent. In addition, when employees have high levels of trust in the workplace, they show 106 percent more energy and enthusiasm in their jobs. Do you still want to believe that trust in the workplace is an over-the-top idea?
This begs the question, can trust be promoted without a positive employee experience? Beliefs are a direct result of the experiences that people have. When their experiences are positive, they begin to place more trust in the people around them. It works the same way at work. In order for employees to trust their colleagues and superiors more, the employee experience is sacred.
For example, employees will have little trust in managers leading to favoritism and involvement in office politics. On the other hand, employees will have great trust in the supervisor who facilitates their training and is always ready to support them. These relevant examples explain how it all boils down to past experience in its truest sense.
Nonetheless, we generally recognize that a pleasant employee experience results in better relationships and trust in the workplace. This is another competitive advantage that employee experience offers companies.
Reduce healthcare costs
Unprecedented stress, high susceptibility to burnout and lack of support are certainly not positive experiences at work. They prefer to just increase the health care costs that companies have to bear. In addition, such events also contribute to absenteeism and associated costs.
However, by creating positive employee experiences and helping employees manage stress and emotions, companies can save significant healthcare costs. The logic here is very simple. If employees have positive experiences, they are less prone to burnout and high stress levels. As a result, companies have to incur less costs for remote healthcare and medication.
Preventing employee burnout through a pleasant employee experience also ensures that they are doing their best for the organization at all times. This is not to be expected from tired and often exhausted employees, as their health condition interferes with their ability to work. So, along with reduced healthcare costs, there are some hidden benefits to investing in the employee experience.
Sum-up
In short, investing in employee experience is tantamount to investing in your organization’s success in a multidimensional way. From profitability benefits to cost reduction benefits, the return on investment in employee experience is high. In fact, by ignoring the need for a great employee experience, you are missing out on some of the vertical’s competitive advantages. Remember, whether it’s high employee engagement, workplace relationships, or reduced employee turnover, all answers pertain to the employee experience.
