Meet the customers that businesses ignore.
Routinely taken for granted, they are the most important, yet the most overlooked set of customers.
For decades, businesses have poured research, resources and time into developing customer experience. ‘Customer is king’, bellow the corporate overlords constantly,
for the benefit of anyone who needs to be reminded of it.
While businesses regularly encourage and celebrate one section of their customer base who buy their products and services in the market, they forget to celebrate the other section of customers who play the most important part in their corporate journey. People who buy into their vision and work alongside them, day and night, to make it a reality.
They ignore their employees. THE CUSTOMERS OF THE WORKPLACE.
Many businesses have gotten away with it too, by putting into place transactional care façades devoid of any practical or long-lasting benefits on their employees or the organisational culture.
In fact, until the COVID-19 crisis upended this equation, most of them never even questioned the approach. But now, having to make sweeping changes to the way they work, the challenge has become apparent and rather difficult to ignore.
While the initial seismic shift to working from home has occurred – surprisingly smooth by all accounts – businesses are now coming face-to-face with a new working reality and the newer challenges that accompany it.
Without a physical presence, can teams remain just as cohesive as before? Is it possible for staff to maintain strong working relationships with each other? Can new hires who’ve never set foot in the office ever get fully acquainted to their organisation’s culture and ethos?
These challenges can’t be solved by technology alone. Strategies need to be put in place to recreate the same amity that used to arise from hallway conversations, team meetings and travel opportunities across office locations.
The solution is to look at your employees the way you look at your customers. It’s time you invested in Employee Experience.
What is Employee Experience?
Employee Experience is the journey an employee takes with your organisation. A journey that encompasses every action, every interaction and every single experience that comes with their role; right from applying for the job to the exit interview.
However, in most companies today, employee experience is probably where customer experience was, 10 years ago. A generalised practice that only provides transactional care; with no in-depth strategy or metrics in place, and no clear integration of technology platforms to support it.
An effective employee experience practice is a hyper-personalised map, tailored to each employee’s needs. In short, it all boils down to how well you know your employee. Only then can a suite of services be created to complement their personas and maximise their performance potential.
How to build an Employee Experience strategy that works!
Thankfully, most of you are already equipped with the tools and techniques needed for this. Yes. I am talking about the ones you regularly use to develop cutting-edge Customer Experience. Customer journey maps are excellent tools for identifying all the touchpoints, gaps, and pain areas in the employee journey as well.
Here are some key stops on the journey.
1. Onboarding
When it comes to forging strong relationships, first impressions go a long way. In the company-employee equation, onboarding is just that. In order to get new hires settled in smoothly, it is important to make the system, uncertainty-proof; right from systematised automation of the onboarding process and electronic processing of official documents to remotely facilitating office equipment and organising digital welcome sessions.
2. Training and assessment
Traditional training modules used to be a great way to impart advanced skills and build team bonding. But, with changing times, there is a growing need to evolve with the changing dynamics of the digital-first generation of young workforce. Interactive learning systems that helps employees pick up what they need on the job, without having to sit through long, boring presentations, are met with a lot of enthusiasm. Such systems also come with inbuilt progress trackers, which make performance assessment a whole lot simpler.
3. Employee analytics
When you need to study consumer behaviour, you employ technologies that facilitate consumer analysis. The same can be employed to understand employee behaviour as well. Every one of them is generating volumes of information from their digital interaction every day. With the right tools, you can tap into this data and excavate crucial insights into their behaviour and personality. This information can then be used to segment employee groups and design tailormade strategies that can help each of them improve their all-round performance.
All this sounds good. But, when resources are tight, and there are only so many battles that can be won, why should C-level executives care about or invest in employee experience? Put simply, because companies that do, experience much greater profitability. 25% greater, according to an MIT study.
The bottom line is, the customers of your workplace who are your employees, are your greatest assets. And if you can’t keep the customer happy, you don’t deserve to be running a business in the first place.
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