Has Employee Experience (EX) Replaced Employee Engagement?

By Natanya Rutstein

If you’re under the impression that EX is much the same as employee engagement and perhaps just new jargon being used in the human capital industry, think again! 

EX is a much broader concept and spans the entire employee experience at each stage of the employee lifecycle, encompassing both engagement and culture. EX looks at the full spectrum of workplace, HR, and management practices that may impact employees throughout their journey with an organisation.

According to the 2017 Deloitte’s Report on Global Human Capital Trends, “A productive, positive employee experience has emerged as the new contract between employer and employee. Just as marketing and product teams have moved beyond customer satisfaction to look at total customer experience, so is HR refocusing its efforts on building programs, strategies, and teams that understand

and continuously improve the entire employee experience.”

(https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/focus/human-capital-trends/2017/improving-the-employee-experience-culture-engagement.html)

Measuring EX

One of the most successful tools used to unveil the secrets of EX and reveal the true experiences of your employees through their own eyes is Employee Journey Mapping (EJM). An Employee Journey Map plots the journey employees take from the time of their first interaction with your organisation and then breaks it down into all of the relevant stages. This process enables the organisation to form a complete picture of the employees’ experiences at each stage of their journey.

Once you have a clear picture of the map you need to follow in order to make the journey as pleasant and enticing as possible, you can then begin to think about implementing Voice of Employee initiatives to gather real time feedback at each stage of the journey. Careful analysis of the data received will then arm you with the knowledge and insights essential to identifying current and potential roadblocks in the journey and to facilitate the changes your employees require, showing them that you are listening to what they are saying.

The Journey

An employee’s experiences with your organisation may begin long before their first day of work and their journey can in fact start with their exposure to your employer branding, a job ad, the application process, the interview and subsequent acceptance/rejection. Some other touchpoints to consider when mapping the employee journey are:

• First day of work
• Onboarding
• Learning and development
• Career planning
• Team management
• Promotions
• Succession management
• Job termination or retirement

By consciously tailoring and customising positive employee experiences throughout the employee journey, you will no doubt increase your chances of engaging and satisfying your workforce. This in turn will assist your organisation to attract, retain and develop the skilled workforce you require. A positive employee experience will also drive a successful and positive customer experience (CX). After all, a happy employee is a motivated employee willing to go the extra mile to delight your customers.

So, don’t delay! Start to map the journey and proactively design a positive experience for your employees.

References

• https://hrtrendinstitute.com/2017/03/21/focus-on-the-employee-experience/?subscribe=already#522
• http://touchpointdashboard.com/2012/11/employee-journey-mapping/
• http://experiencematters.blog/category/4-cx-core-competencies/employee-engagement/
• https://www.tlnt.com/the-new-business-driven-approach-to-employee-experience/
• https://www.tlnt.com/forget-customer-experience-its-all-about-the-employee-experience/
• https://www.tlnt.com/good-customer-experience-it-depends-on-a-good-employee-experience/
• https://www.decision-wise.com/which-employee-engagement-survey-method-is-best/
• https://www.tlnt.com/employee-engagement-and-the-new-employee-experience/
• https://hrtrendinstitute.com/2017/01/09/consumerisation-hr/

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