Companies that don’t think about employee experience are bound to offer their employees a rather poor employee experience. Let’s look at why this happens and why it is important to avoid it.
Usually, when we think of the business world, we imagine companies as stores or factories that, from the inside, have workers who manufacture and sell the product and, from the outside, have customers: people outside the company whose mission is to buy the product or use the service that the company makes available to them. And that’s the end of the story.
However, the story has other chapters. Think about it for a moment. If the only good thing about the company is the product it makes or the service it offers, then the customer is likely to return, but if the good thing about the company is how enjoyable it is for the customer to buy through that particular company, then the likelihood of people returning will go through the roof. Doesn’t the story read differently now?
Therefore, if a company doesn’t want to act like a vending machine, it can’t be limited to simply “selling” with a cold and simplistic exchange. On the contrary, it must be able to provide its customers with an experience that makes the company stand out from the rest. This is what we mean when we think about what employee experience is.
From this point of view, what happens between a company and its customer is not simply an exchange of goods for money, but it becomes a relationship, an experience the person must want to repeat.
On the other hand, we must ask ourselves, are those people outside the company, who pass by a shop and decide to buy a product, the only customers? Certainly not. Every company has other types of customers, as or more important than the external ones. These are the ones we find behind closed doors: the employees.
As internal customers, the company must take care of them. They too have a relationship with the company that goes beyond a basic exchange. In short: their work within the company is also reflected in an experience that the company must provide for them, just as it does for external customers. This is what we call employee experience.
This way, employees will positively value working in that company rather than in the company next door. They will also appreciate that their job is not just the product of a somewhat fair contract, but that it provides them with a satisfying professional and personal experience that goes beyond their strict contractual terms and conditions.
Advantages of providing a positive employee experience
1. Attracts talent
The employee’s experience is the continuation of the candidate’s experience during the selection process. If this is positive, the candidate is more likely to join the company.
2. Encourages talent retention
All employees of a company eventually leave to go to another company. However, the better the employee’s experience in their current company, the longer it takes them to leave and, when it does happen, it happens under better terms.
3. Improves the company’s internal reputation
This is directly related to a favorable work environment. It should not be taken for granted that just because employees do not openly say it, they are satisfied with their experience. That is why it is necessary to encourage it so that, each one individually and by influencing each other, build a positive perception of the company from the
inside.
4. Improves the company’s external reputation
It does so through the positive message that workers spontaneously convey, acting as brand ambassadors. Employees are people with families, friends, and social networks. If they are happy with their experience as employees, they will automatically say so when they talk about their work, contributing organically to building an attractive brand for future external and internal customers.
How can we improve employee experience?
Every company has to find its way to improve its employee experience. However, at a very general level, these are the 5 things that all companies, that strive to provide their workers with a good employee experience, do:
1. They have a strategy for emotional salary and social benefits that is powerful but, above all, in line with the employee’s needs, including those related to their psychological well-being.
2. They provide learning opportunities and professional growth instead of unilaterally benefiting from the talent that the employee already has.
3. They take care of the work environment: from the conditions of the physical office to the organization of the team, including hierarchical and coworker relationships.
4. Involve employees from their first day to their last day, making them feel part of the company and honestly showing their interest in keeping them as part of the team.
5. In short, they carry out a series of actions strategically and flexibly to ensure that their employees have a satisfactory experience that has an impact on their emotional well-being and the company’s productivity.
Tailored emotional support for your employees
Ifeel has an emotional wellbeing program for companies, designed by its team of expert psychologists to help companies improve employee experience by taking care of their psychological well-being.
Thanks to this partnership, HR managers are provided with personalized, data-driven advice on key risk factors for a positive employee experience. In this way, employee mental health is fostered while preserving good conditions for maximum productivity.
In addition, ifeel‘s workplace well-being platform for companies provides employees with a mental health care service structured at different levels according to their needs at any given time through ifeel‘s app. They can also receive emotional support through a chat with one of our platform’s licensed psychologists. If additional help is required, they can access the third level of the program: online psychological therapy with a psychologist specializing in the issue the employee is going through.
Contact us today and get more information about ifeel‘s emotional well-being program for companies. We will help you and your team to strengthen your experience as employees.
