Today’s workforce is highly dynamic, demanding, and connected. Employees are no longer confined within office walls or assigned desk spaces. In fact, the millennial generation has been dubbed the “workplace nomads” for preferring to work remotely, on-demand schedules, and experiences over catered benefits.
As companies strive to enhance employee experience and overall efficiency, integrating the right tools is essential. A specialized construction CRM like the one offered by BuildOps can significantly improve project active business management and streamline operations, ultimately contributing to a more productive and satisfied workforce.
This shift in dynamic has upended the traditional employee experience (eExperience) paradigm by radically reshaping employee behavior at work. To continue thriving in today’s hyper-connected world, companies must meet this new demand for connectivity with an improved eExperience to attract and retain top talent.
This post outlines 9 easy ways to improve employee experience and your company.
Provide remote working options
The ability to work from anywhere is a top employee expectation. In fact, providing remote access to your workforce can increase productivity by 37% and employee satisfaction by 10%. Yet, only 25% of companies offer remote work options.
Start by evaluating your current office setup and determining if it is conducive to an employee’s ability to work remotely.
If not, consider implementing virtual meeting rooms equipped with cutting-edge audiovisual systems and collaboration tools.
To encourage employees to work remotely, implement reliable and robust communication and collaboration solutions like a virtual private network (VPN) and voice over IP (VOIP) systems to support mobile devices and provide secure, high-quality connections.
Additionally, make sure your IT infrastructure is designed for remote employees by providing secure remote access to company files and systems. Finally, create a remote working policy with guidelines on how and when employees can work remotely.
Offer flexible scheduling
As Millennials become the dominant force in the workforce, they are increasingly opting for schedules that fit their lifestyles rather than ones that fit the company’s needs. To attract and retain top talent, offer employee scheduling software that allows employees to work when and where they want. While this may seem daunting, there are many ways to implement a flexible work schedule:
- Create a company culture that welcomes work-life balance by empowering employees to pursue their passions outside the office.
- Try to use software that provides a centralized scheduling platform. This will help managers and employees see who is working where, when, and how long they are there for, which will lead to more accountability and transparency.
- Communication is key when implementing a flexible work schedule.
Communicate with transparency
In today’s hyper-connected world, transparency is a must — especially when communicating company goals and values. But, only 21% of companies currently do so. Start by creating a company manifesto that communicates core values, goals, and expectations.
Then, make it readily available to employees and encourage them to write their own personal mission statements. This will help employees feel connected to the company and its roles. Another way to increase transparency is by communicating the status of projects, roadblocks, and challenges.
Doing so will give employees a sense of ownership and help them feel connected to their work. This can be done through company-wide town hall meetings, digital experience solutions forums, and weekly or bi-weekly team meetings.
Build a strong company culture
Today’s hyper-connected employees are looking for more than just a paycheck. They want to work for a company with a strong culture and values. To attract top talent, establish and maintain a strong company culture.
Begin by asking employees what they want in company culture. Then, leverage their feedback to inform decisions on hiring and company initiatives. Another way to build a strong company culture is by forming a “chief culture officer” (CCO).
Essentially, the CCO would be responsible for cultivating and maintaining the company culture. This person could be the CEO, a senior executive, or someone who reports directly to the board.
Start by creating a culture committee comprised of employees from different departments across the company.
Offer cloud-based productivity tools.
Employees are increasingly relying on cloud-based productivity tools for work and collaboration. As a result, 75% of companies are investing in cloud-based solutions. Start by integrating a cloud-based solution that combines CRM, collaboration, and communication tools.
This will help employees stay connected and save time by eliminating the need to toggle between apps. Integrating a CRM (customer relationship management) tool into core systems can make planning and decision-making much more straightforward.
Include a collaboration tool to encourage employees to share ideas and information in real-time. Further, include a communication tool that allows employees to send messages to one another and customer service representatives.
Improve your payroll systems
Another workplace feature that has not kept up with technology is payroll. With advancements in communications and collaboration, payroll systems are still largely paper-based.
But with companies going digital, this is creating a massive gap in the employee experience.
Companies should ensure that their payroll system offers a seamless experience for employees – whether full-time employees or remote workers. This means that payroll needs to be accessible online and easy to navigate and that it needs to integrate with other systems to collect the necessary employee data.
Using scheduling tools to calculate work hours benefits employers and employees as everyone is aware of exactly how many hours they have worked and is confident their wages are calculated correctly.
Promote diversity and inclusion
Engaging in practices that promote diversity and inclusion will help bridge the gap between generations and make your company a more attractive place to work. Start by creating an inclusive hiring process that focuses on skills and abilities rather than personal characteristics.
Then, make your company an engaging workplace by providing benefits and opportunities for advancement based on talent and contribution, not tenure.
Finally, create a company-wide culture that welcomes diversity and inclusiveness by hosting fun, social activities that bring employees together.
Offer opportunities for growth
Employees want to know their work matters and that they have an opportunity to learn and grow with the company. Start by creating a career development plan and proactively reaching out to employees to find out what they want to do next.
Then, offer opportunities that allow employees to learn and grow. You can do this by creating a mentorship program where senior employees can teach their skills and knowledge to junior employees or offering education and certification programs.
Another way to provide growth opportunities is by creating internal career websites that allow employees to share their interests and goals. This will help employees and managers identify growth areas and provide the tools and resources employees need to achieve their goals.
Ensure all employees are working to their strengths and talents
Finally, remember that the most critical part of employee engagement is that employees feel like their strengths and talents are being used. Start by ensuring your hiring process focuses on strengths-based hiring instead of skills-based hiring.
Then, provide coaching and mentorship programs that allow employees to use and build their strengths. Another way to ensure all employees work to their strengths and talents is by implementing hiring and onboarding assessments.
These assessments allow managers to see how each employee’s strengths are compared to the role they are hiring for and how they can best be utilized.
Conclusion
When improving employee experience, most companies start with solutions like new office designs, more modern furniture, and catered lunches.
However, these do not alter the experience employees have on a day-to-day basis. The best way to improve employee experience is to start with something more fundamental: the experience of hiring and onboarding new employees.
Only once these experiences are streamlined, efficient, and enjoyable will companies can genuinely focus on improving employee experience.
