To set the table for this discussion, I'd like to share some data. The following statistics compare companies that invest in employee experience with companies that do not. Those that make the investment enjoy the following benefits over their non-investing counterparts:
Those are pretty compelling facts, and I could probably stop there, but I won’t.
As significant as those figures are, they don't tell the whole story about employee experience.
Statistics like the ones above don't happen because a company spends a lot of money on employee perks and parties. A critical part of the employee experience is deliberately nurturing and reinforcing certain cultural standards.
For example, businesses foster the right workplace culture when they treat engagement as something organic. Engagement is not an outcome they are strategizing or manipulating into existence. Instead, it reflects the natural response employees have when they work in an environment where their unique abilities can flourish and are treated as growth partners.
Employees also have a positive experience when they observe authenticity in company leadership and operational integrity in all aspects of the business. That experience creates a high-trust, high-confidence culture, leaving employees free from concerns about their place in the organization. Over time, a culture of trust creates its own momentum because employees—not just the company leaders—begin to enforce the organization's performance standards.
All of which leads to the main theme of this article: There are at least three reasons why all this data should matter to you and why now it’s more critical than ever that you figure out how to achieve greater employee engagement.
Paying attention to employee engagement does not guarantee you will get the same results referenced above. However, it is safe to say that ignoring the experience your employees are having will guarantee you won’t achieve them.
Beyond that, the issue is not simply about making the progress you want. The issue is that if you don’t pay attention to employee engagement, you will see your company regress. It will decline. There are three reasons why this is true.
I assume you realize there are a number of recruiters reaching out right now to your top employees, trying to get them to switch loyalty to their companies. Why can you assume that? Because there are more key positions available in the talent market currently than there are skilled and educated people to fill them. That’s just a statistical reality.
As a result, the businesses represented in the statistics quoted earlier are not sitting idly by, waiting and hoping the people they’re looking for will just showing up on their doorstep. They are proactively seeking them out.
What are your chances of holding onto the people you have, no less attracting the ones you have yet to recruit, if your competitors have been honing their employee experience and you have not? Their leverage is in the employer brand they have created. Without that kind of attraction power, your company will lose the talent competition.
I am always confused when I hear chief executives talk about their aggressive growth plans and, in the same breath, express frustration at the lack of commitment their people have to the company vision. It’s as though they think their employees will, of their own accord, figure out what an awesome thing it would be for the business to succeed. These business leaders need to realize that their growth expectations are a pipeline dream unless their employees
Sooner or later, your people will decide either to become your allies or your adversaries. They can help you achieve your goals or they can sabotage them. If they choose to do the latter, they will probably leave, but not before doing significant damage. And once they go, they will share the negative experience they had with your company with anyone who will listen; some of whom may be the very people you want to recruit.
Certainly, there was a time when employers could get away with treating their people like they were lucky to have a job. Those days are long gone and we all know it. But even if employers could get away with that approach before, it was certainly the wrong philosophy to adopt.
Sooner or later, things turn around and people begin having options. If their experience with your company up to that point is negative, they will bail on you the first chance they get—and your overtures to keep them will fall on deaf ears.
In today’s environment, skilled employees are the ones with the leverage. As a result, they evaluate the investment of joining your organization as much or more than you evaluate your investment in them. There is an opportunity cost to key people if they join an organization that does not live up to what it purports to be, especially if promises about the work experience are unfulfilled. Recruits pick your company instead of another because of the value proposition you make. If the value offer turns out to be hollow, the employee views it as a moral betrayal, and you never recover. Therefore, you must be clear in what you communicate about the experience someone will have in your organization, and then deliver on it.
Let’s face it. We live in a unique business age. The world has never seen anything like it before. The nature of the employer-employee relationship has changed. The employee experience must be among the company’s highest priorities and given attention by the most senior people in the organization. Companies that do this end up with an unbeatable culture that drives sustained success.
To learn how to accelerate the development of a positive employee experience in your business, download: How Employee Engagement Happens.