Improving employee experience in your organization should be close to the top of your to-do list.

Why? Because people are leaving in droves. Since April 2021, a record-breaking 19 million workers have quit their jobs.

That’s an alarming figure, and it reflects the modern truth that dangling the old carrot of financial incentives no longer cuts it.

People want more.

They want their work to have meaning and purpose. They want to be valued and recognized. And they want to work as part of a cohesive, kick-ass team.

92% of organizations made rolling out an employee experience (EX) strategy a top priority after the pandemic began.

But the desire for a workplace supercharged with energy, passion, and productivity isn’t going away!

Keep reading for insights and practical tips to radically boost your company’s EX.

What Is Employee Experience?

Job satisfaction comes when people are paid what they’re worth and generally enjoy their work.

But, as a leader, 

Have you ever asked yourself:

• How do my team members experience their workplace? 
• How do they feel about it, and can I make this better?
• Do they trust each other enough to truly collaborate? 
• Do they know what their individual contribution means to the success of the company? 
• Do they feel safe and welcome? 
• Have they had opportunities to shine? 
• Do the company’s values and ethos align with their own personal brand?

These interactions, emotions, and milestones comprise the overall employee experience and encompass every aspect of their relationship with the organization. 

Answering these questions is the first step towards creating a productive, inclusive, and enjoyable employee experience.

The Powerful Benefits of a Great Employee Experience

A great employee experience goes way beyond job satisfaction. It has a tangible ROI.

When people feel happy, confident, and secure at work, it shapes their attitude, commitment, and productivity for the better.

Get your EX strategy right and you skyrocket the individual success of your people, achieve better performance outcomes, and dramatically reduce attrition.

Above all, implementing an EX strategy presents an incredible opportunity to uncover strengths – the hidden superpowers your team members possess. It’s a path to supercharge leadership capacity from within and attract and retain high-potential employees.

How to Improve Employee Experience

A productive, engaged workforce is no longer forged from transactional relationships where the organization agrees to pay X amount of money in return for Y performance.

The most important relationships at work today are the personal ones.

Personal connections can make a massive difference to a people’s sense of purpose, energy, and performance.

Here are 10 practical strategies to create an exceptional EX by amping up connection, satisfaction, and fulfillment at work.

1. Build Trust With Open, Honest Communication

Honest communication is the backbone of any relationship – workplace relationships included!

Vague messaging leads to uncertainty and distrust. People become disengaged and tasks go off the rails.

Authentic leaders win by communicating honestly, and building trust, confidence, and a strong sense of community. They ask for opinions, enquire about well-being, and share the organization’s vision.

This creates an environment in which people feel appreciated, supported, and motivated. It unifies the team under a common cause and sense of accountability, galvanizing each other to stay the course.

2. Encourage Feedback and Respond to It

Encouraging an open feedback culture is an excellent way to pump up engagement – especially as 75% of employees believe that feedback is valuable. Frequent, productive feedback sessions make everyone feel involved in the success of the organization. 

Great leaders gather information to fuel powerful feedback – identifying issues to address and strengths to enhance.

But here’s the catch: asking for feedback shows you care about making things better – only if you respond accordingly.

If there are issues with a team’s work environment or the company culture – bring in solutions.

If there are opportunities to help individuals shine – connect them with resources to blast forward in their careers.

Tools such as 360 Reach Personal Brand Survey are an excellent way to get the ball rolling. They gather data and perceptions from the people who count, revealing individual superpowers and potential derailers to be avoided.

3. Connect Tasks to the Company’s Mission

People crave purpose in their work lives. They need to know their work matters and that their contribution is valued. 

When daily tasks and projects fuel a larger mission, people pull together with their co-workers to make the magic happen.

This translates into tangible benefits for your organization, as people who find their work highly meaningful are 69% less likely to quit their jobs.

Great leaders are like the coxswain of a rowing team. They keep everything moving in the right direction – coordinating the power and rhythm of each individual. 

They’ll call out and celebrate each milestone, spurring the team on to their ultimate goal.

One of the most inclusive and meaningful experiences a manager can create is this shared sense of purpose. To build it, communicate how each small step supports a giant leap towards fulfilling the company’s mission.

It gives the team a cohesive direction, making them feel part of something bigger and motivating them to dig a little deeper – just like a rowing team. 

4. Provide Growth Opportunities

We all want to grow and thrive in our careers, but sometimes the only thing that keeps us planted firmly in one place is the lack of opportunity.

That’s when we start looking for other jobs.

Happy, motivated workers thrive on challenges and are always willing to take on more responsibility or learn new skills.

Formal training is one option, but a new and stimulating project can infuse a team member’s career with fresh energy. It gently pushes them out of their comfort zone, where they will gain technical prowess – and confidence in their future growth. 

By constantly raising the bar and providing the right opportunities, leaders know their people will never lose hope, commitment, or ambition for growth.

5. Improve Internal Communication

Sharing the news, good and bad, celebrating the wins, and acknowledging the milestones all add to the employee experience.

Great communication can happen at monthly team meetings reviewing progress in line with the organization’s goals. It can be enhanced during one-on-one meetings discussing someone’s work-life balance and how they’re coping with challenges at home.

Internal communication is about listening and sharing to make sure you stay ahead of possible derailers, and your people feel heard and supported. 

It’s also particularly important in our new world of work where teams operate under more hybrid conditions, often working apart for days at a time.

Frequent check-ins with tools such as Slack and Zoom can help remote co-workers build stronger bonds.

6. Create a Great Onboarding Experience

According to Harvard Business Review, nearly a third of new hires look for another job within their first six months. Among Millennials, that percentage is even higher and happens earlier.

These disturbing – and costly – figures can largely be attributed to a poor onboarding experience (or worse still, no onboarding activity at all!).

A great onboarding experience can significantly fast-track engagement and productivity. 

The elements that make up a great onboarding experience include:

• A plan that’s tailored to the individual. In fact, a program that is focused more on the personal brand of your new hire than on the brand of your company will lead to higher engagement according to a study by Francesca Gino of Harvard.
• Meetings to kickstart relationships with key stakeholders from day one.
• Diving into the organization’s culture and values as early as possible.
• A ‘buddy’ to informally guide and support new team members through the first few days or weeks.
• Expectations and milestones that emphasize the individual’s contribution to the larger mission of the organization.

7. Invest in Employee Wellness

When your team is happy, they show up for work in a positive frame of mind, take fewer sick days, and are less likely to suffer from burnout.

A survey by UnitedHealthcare found that 62% of participants in wellness programs had improved productivity and 56% were sick less often.

Today’s leading organizations place a high priority on self-care programs, workload scheduling, and work-life balance.

These wellness investments result in a more engaged and productive workforce and better long-term outcomes for the company.

8. Promote Flexible Working Arrangements, Diversity, and Inclusion

Flexible working arrangements have become the norm in our post-COVID world. 

While working alone from home may not be everyone’s idea of a great employee experience, having the choice to do it is empowering.

The flexibility to condense a work week into four days or organize work around school pick-up times can be invaluable.

Flexible working arrangements are a gesture of trust, giving professionals control over their own lives while empowering their best work.

It’s also fantastic for improving productivity. The Harvard Business Review found that workers were more productive working from home, spending 12% less time in meetings and 9% more time interacting with customers and external partners.

Similarly, promoting diversity and inclusion has become ingrained in most corporate cultures and values in recent years. According to Glassdoor, 67% of job seekers view workplace diversity as an important factor when looking for jobs, and more than 50% of current employees want increased diversity in their workplaces.

Creating safe and welcoming environments that allow team members to turn up authentically doesn’t just create a great employee experience – it makes the world a better place.

9. Encourage Personal Brand Development

Team members need the freedom to bring their whole selves to work – including all their quirks! Encourage them to develop a profound sense of self-awareness through their personal brand. 

Self-awareness, the first step in the personal branding process, is critically important to leadership success, as this Fast Company article shows.

People are at their most confident and productive when they have a crystal-clear understanding of their superpowers – and plenty of opportunities to demonstrate them.

The key to unlocking these superpowers is to encourage every employee to discover and power up what makes them unique. You can offer this through tools like BrandBoost – an AI-enhanced digital coach that guides your talent through their own personal brand discovery.

It is one of the greatest employee experiences you can offer.

10. Create a Safety Net to Support Risks

The best employee experiences happen in a positive environment full of creativity and passion. Amazing things happen and anything’s possible – including the odd failure.

People need to have the confidence to take risks because making mistakes is crucial for personal growth.

Mistakes help develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills and they set people on the right track for future success.

But to take risks you need to know you have the safety net of a supportive and positive work environment.

What Experiences Are You Providing at Work?

If there’s one thing that COVID has taught us, it’s that a great employee experience matters more than ever. It reduces turnover, improves employee engagement, and boosts performance.

And the most critical factor in an effective EX strategy is you.

Managers and corporate leaders set the tone for employee experiences. They hand out a warm welcome on day one, provide praise and encouragement through tough times, and pave the way for their people to excel and grow.

With tools like 360Reach Personal Brand Survey you can get a realistic and honest sense of how you are perceived as a leader – so you can leverage this invaluable feedback to improve the employee experience.