Keeping hold of your best talent and attracting the next iteration of talent into your organisation will always be an ongoing journey. We can influence this behaviour in a variety of ways such as with impactful employer branding and effective leadership. One of the ways we can ensure we have the most influence is by ensuring our employees are engaged and have a positive employee experience.
We recently partnered with Firstup, the world’s first intelligent communication platform, bringing together People leaders to discuss the impact of communications on the employee experience and how to create the most impact through personalisation.
The group was split across 2 roundtables which were hosted by James Ballard (Co-Founder at Annapurna) and Magnus Okuonghae (Manager at Annapurna) with expertise coming from Alex Gorrie (General Manager, International at Firstup), Lilly McEneanery (Enterprise Sales Director at Firstup) and Ariana Von Anrep (RVP, Strategic Accounts at Firstup). The conversations brought about the following takeaways:
Personalisation is Key, But Focus on the Journey, Not One-Offs
The discussion commenced by looking at where the impact of personalisation would likely have the strongest influence across the employee experience lifecycle. The obvious initial view was to personalise the entire employee experience, not just one stage of it. A point was raised around the notion that by pinpointing one element of the employee experience and delivering personalisation great, with the rest being less personalised, it could damage the complete journey. Ensuring the experience aligns throughout the journey can help to avoid a disconnect.
There have been many correlations between the employee experience and that of the customer experience. The role of personalisation in both of these is rapidly evolving and if we are asking our people to deliver something amazing and personalised to our customers, then we must ensure that their own experience is amazing too. Our experience outside of the working life revolves around being return customers for brands that engage with us effectively. For example, when we land on their site, there’s something there for us that piques our interest.
Technology should automate personalisation efforts, not replace human interaction.
The employee experience is a journey, the employee journey is constant, and we have got to get it right.
Empower Employee Voice for Transparency and Advocacy
How much time and investment should you put into giving people a voice within your organisation?
There is no doubt that we are in a world where our employees want to feel empowered to own their careers and with the modern organisation having an array of generations as part of it, the employee voice will be diverse.
The rise of social platforms has been built on 2-way engagement, yet companies are still built on 1-way engagement, except for maybe once or twice a year during survey periods. A survey is only ever a snapshot of a specific time, we should be aspiring for constant real-time feedback that empowers our employees to use their voices.
There was a discussion about how finding a balance with transparent communications was key to success. Opening up a forum for employees to give live feedback could have downsides but we must try to focus on the end goal of fostering psychological safety which creates an environment where voices are heard.
The employee experience can never be fully automated, we still want this to be organic but we must remember, that the human touch is essential, and technology can’t replace genuine interaction.
Retention is About the Right People, Not a Perfect Number
The group discussed the role of retention within their organisations and how to manage the inevitable flow of employees coming in/out of an organisation.
There was an agreement that we must understand why employees stay and what motivates them to leave. We will always want to hold on to the right people and allow certain people to leave but we also must figure out who those people are through effective engagement. There was another agreement that there isn’t necessarily a perfect retention rate, but we should know the answer as an HR leader to what our retention rate is and how to affect it.
An individual company is not right for every person, a company should stand for a set of values and any communication with employees should echo this, why an individual should stay and how they can develop.
HR leaders need to be aware of emerging trends and technologies in employee experience to ensure they can deliver the best experience possible. As an HR community, do we truly know what is out there to take advantage of?
Technology and AI are revolutionising the world of work and people are undoubtedly getting over excited at the potential. However, we must ensure we balance the power of AI with the human touch to create effective solutions. Technology should do the leg work that compliments the vital role that HR plays in leading the change towards a personalised employee journey.
