There is a lot of talk in companies about ensuring that the sales of their products keep going up by ensuring the customers are satisfied with their services. They ensure that this is done by enticing & satisfying the needs of their customers.
Nothing new in this.
But hey!!! I’m talking about another kind of customer, the internal one.
The Internal customer needs to also be kept happy if an organization needs to keep itself in the green. By internal customers I’m throwing the spotlight on the “Employees”, An “Employee First” approach has paid huge dividends for companies like “Google”, “Linde”, “Mahindra & Mahindra” etc. There are companies who share with their employees the profit too, take the example of “Facebook” or “Apple” which made their employees rich.
But is this enough to ensure that the employees are happy & content enough to continue working at the organization?
An organization today needs to take care of not only the physical attributes but also the psychological attributes as well. The most important resource of an organization is an employee, the one they invest heavily into while recruiting, training & aligning them with the organizational objectives.
So, how do they do that?
An Employee Insight report found that three-quarters (75%) of employees said they have felt stressed at work over the past 12 months. This has been more acute among females (79%) than males (71%) and younger employees (82% of 16-24-year olds) than their older counterparts (68% of 55-64-year olds).
This basically means that these employees may either underperform or quit their jobs due to the stress. Now it is pertinent for HR departments to keep a tab of these issues because Your organization’s average cost per hire may include advertising expenses, recruiting events, recruitment software fees, relocation expenses, and more. According to a benchmark report from SHRM, the average cost per hire across organizations and industries is $4,125 (Internationally).
This means that it is imperative for an organization to ensure that they inculcate in their DNA the basic need to improve employee experience. So how do they go about it so that it doesn’t look forced or artificial?
Focus on EE via making it part of a routine activity, EE is perception about the journey through all the touchpoints at an organization of an employee, starting with onboarding through to the exit from the organization.
Now imagine if EE is improvised by making it a part of routine policies which also form an employee engagement or rather more mechanical processes like Compensation & Benefits?
Merely by linking it with the physical or psychological health of an employee, EE can be elevated. A fact which many organizations are already doing it, organizations include sports, photography, spot acting etc. as a part of their Employee Engagement activities. Many a times organizations also include Psych evaluation in the Performance Management System, they also add on counselling sessions too in the same.
How does this help?
It makes an employee look forward to the organization as a shoulder which he or she may use to cry or use to climb into success & mental peace. This is in a way a 360-degree methodology to ensure that the organization not only makes EE an imperative in its HR policy but also makes this an inclusive activity which just feels natural to all the employees & nothing which is forced unto them.
The End Result shall be:
· More engaged, productive employees
· Lower absenteeism rates
· Increased quality of work
· Improved customer relations
As Simon Sinek says if you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.
My personal recommendation to all my clients is that Employee Experience elevated with a dash of wellbeing can be used to not only improve the employee engagement but also end up in changing the overall ambience in an organization in turn creating a brand value which acts as a glue holding the entire organization together.
And then no crisis shall be able to break the organization because once embedded in the culture of an organization such measures ensure that whatever the crisis the organization is able to rise from ashes like a Phoenix.
Holds utmost importance in times like these.
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