The world of work has changed over the past two years and has shown that it has never been more important to focus on the employee experience than now.
Employee experience and the immediate work experience from the work performed influence the future of organizations in the way WHY employees WANT, NOT NEED to work. In order for employees to really want to WORK happily, you need to focus and develop these three areas: (corporate culture and people, physical workspace / e.g. offices, and technology). These three intertwining areas create a functional employee experience equation.
#PEOPLE + #SPACES + #TECHNOLOGY = EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE
Culture
We all strive to fulfil our own corporate culture. Some say culture stems from values, attitudes and mission. Others that culture is developed by the CEO and senior staff. Corporate culture is about the effects of work. Prescription drugs can have side effects such as weight gain, nausea, or skin irritation. Similarly, work has its side effects. Culture is about mutual feelings between employees, about the current mood of an individual or the entire team, about the tone of the speech or personal attitude. Sometimes it is hard to describe, yet it is the most important element of the employee experience. Corporate culture charges us or drains us, motivates us or discourages us, strengthens us or suffocates us. We all experience corporate culture every day, hour and minute, whether positive or negative. Corporate culture constitutes 40% of overall employee experience.
Space
The future of the physical workspace will be extremely different from what we knew a few months ago. Offices will become a space for meeting colleagues, business partners or customers, for ad-hoc conversations, for creative collaboration between teams and cross teams, as well as remote ones, but also for focused individual work, and all this with an absolute FLEXIBILITY of choice or workplace reservation (from a parking space, to a work desk, a rest area, a meeting room or a space for creative group collaboration). The main goal will be to perform work based on specific activities/scenarios in the form of experiences. Physical space constitutes 30% of overall employee experience.
Technology
Technology means the tools employees use to accomplish their tasks and goals. This includes everything from internal social networks, mobile devices, computers to video conferencing or minor communication platforms (all applications, software and learning tools). Technology is the central nervous system of any organization. Most tasks, processes, strategies and visions are related to processes that today cannot be performed without meaningful technologies. It is therefore not difficult to understand why technology is an important part of the employee experience. By using outdated and poorly designed technology, we make it difficult for employees to communicate, collaborate, be creative or focus on individual work, and significantly increase the time needed to implement tasks, processes, strategies and visions... Technology constitutes 30% of overall employee experience.
Employee experience
Employee workplace experience means long-term insight and vision. The main goal is to improve work practices and relationships among people. It involves getting to know the employees and providing background on what people really care about. People need to feel safe, they need to perceive support, development, appreciation and genuine interest. Employees will recognize the difference between a temporary benefit designed to make them work harder and better, and true employee experience that takes into account their intrinsic motivations and desires. Employee experience takes into account all aspects of an employee’s time with the organization. Instead of focusing only on temporary employee engagement, it is time to focus on the employee experience. The organization must realize what it makes sense to invest in, not only from the point of view of finance, but also time and human effort spent. We are entering a world of constant change, experiments and validation. Most organizations today focus on one or two of the areas mentioned, but this is insufficient. A comprehensive employee experience strategy has never been more important than it is today.
What work experience and user experience are you creating for your employees? Come and get INSPIRED to learn how your organization can be set up for success in the future of work. We have proven that we can advise and inspire you in all three areas. We know how to do it!