HR transformation is one of the most popular business trends today. Companies are looking to their HR departments to deliver more value and enable digital transformation. HR transformation drives operational excellence and strategic impact to create greater business value (Gartner). But, for businesses to grow, the employees must thrive!

As workplaces, work models and processes evolve, companies are compelled to think about how they can better care for their employees’ health, safety and well-being. Organisations can create value by focusing their attention on employee experience. To do so, they require robust HR structures that deliver the expanding and increasing service options that business leaders, managers and employees seek.

Let’s discuss employee experience and its vital role in a successful HR transformation!

Employee Experience: The Driver or the Goal?

In simplest terms, employee experience is a worker or employee’s perception of their journey through all organisational touch points– from hiring to onboarding, working, growing and exiting. The organisational policies, culture, technology, physical workspace and workforce are all integral to an employee’s experience.

Though a growing number of organisations realise the importance of employee engagement, very few realise that employee loyalty is often more important than engagement. However, employee experience is most important and encompasses engagement and loyalty. Infact, companies looking to undergo HR transformation must focus on strengthening their employee experience for the following reasons:

• Increased engagement: Disengaged employees can cost organisations billions of dollars yearly due to low productivity and profitability. Engaged employees, on the contrary, are associated with better productivity, retention and workplace safety.

• Lower absenteeism: Unmotivated and unhappy employees are more likely to leave the organisation, which affects their productivity, morale and finances. Companies with happy employees have lower rates of absenteeism.

• Improved customer relations: Contrary to popular belief that customer experience is of utmost importance, employee experience, infact, affects all aspects of a business. Even customer experience! Many organisations today know and understand their customer branding and experience is a direct result of the employee experience, as happy and motivated employees convey better moods and attitudes while interacting with customers.

HR Transformation & Employee Experience: The Link

For a successful HR transformation, employee experience is paramount. To do this, companies must develop strategies around employee experience and have a human-centric design.

Here are a few components of an HR transformation that emphasise and improve employee experience:

• Automation and Artificial Intelligence

“Change is not driven by technology but rather enabled by technology.”

– Soumyasanto Sen (HR Technology adviser)

As businesses strive to improve the customer experience at the ‘few’ touch points, the focus on improving employee experience at the ‘multiple’ touch points should be more vital. Using smart technology and artificial intelligence as a vital part of your HR transformation can help reduce the number of employee touchpoints and make them seamless.

Choosing and implementing the right tools and technology can help improve employee experience and ensure a smooth transformation. Here are some ways you can do it:

• Automation and use of AI to streamline manual processes
• Digital hiring and reduced time to hire to near zero
• Create better candidate and new employee experience using AI
• Use AI and data analytics to hire the right people for the right jobs, strengthening the employer’s brand

• Growth and Wellbeing

There is a positive correlation between employee well-being and productivity. A consulting firm stated that a meaningful increase in well-being could yield around a 10% average increase in productivity.

While you curate your company’s desired employee experience based on the brand you would like to create, here are a few interesting ideas to use:

• Use pulse surveys to obtain quick feedback from your workforce
• Act on employee feedback, ideas and suggestion timely
• Organise well-being seminars tailored to various teams
• Add in mental health wellness to supplement your existing or newly curated employee wellbeing programmes using AR and VR-based apps
• Train your workforce to manage their performance in the hybrid work model
• Enable your workforce to target achieving a harmonious work-life balance through flexible schedules and performance-focussed outcomes
• Prioritise employee recognition to boost engagement and productivity
• Offer easy access to mental health support services through apps and in-person appointments

• Processes and Practices

According to research by a consulting firm, higher levels of employee engagement showed 21% more profitability and 17% more productivity. An important aspect of good employee experience is organisational processes and practices. Creating smoother processes and employee-friendly practices keeps your employees inspired and your business thriving.

Here are a few effective ways to simplify your processes and redesign your organisational practices:

• Listen to your employees– both the good and bad, through focus groups, surveys, and crowdsourcing.
• Encourage open channels for communication within teams and the organisation at large through town halls, social media campaigns and open forums.
• Provide easy access and support to your employees for their development using resources and opportunities through coaching, mentoring, e-learning and MOOCs.
• Encourage employees to take up leadership roles by preparing them for the same using toolkits, conversation guides and training.
• Encourage peer support via cohorts, peer networks and employee resource groups so that teams can work more effectively with each other
• Reduce the number of employee touchpoints and reinforce the desired employee experience at these points

• Behaviour and Culture

Behaviours form the foundation for organisational and team culture. Everything an organisation does and doesn’t help shape its culture. A serious disconnect between an organisation’s mission, vision, values, and what employees and leaders want and do can ruin an employer’s brand and cause employees to lose trust in it.

While everyone from a new hire to the leadership team is responsible for building and contributing to the organisational culture, it is the active role of HR to build the culture positively and align organisational ideals and goals with employee behaviour.

Companies that have a thriving culture also see better employee experience in the form of:

• High productivity
• Improved employee morale
• Greater employee satisfaction
• Reduced attrition and turnover rate (improved employee loyalty)
• Increased employee engagement
• Heightened creativity and innovation

• Platforms

Minimal touch points, easy accessibility of policies and online support form a significant part of the employee experience in an organisation. As part of digital HR transformation, organisations are encouraged to invest in employee experience platforms to ensure employees’ smooth and satisfying journeys.

Having the right employee experience tools can help the company create and sustain a favourable workflow for every employee and empower them to work from home, office or remotely. This flexibility and ease of working ensure employees have an amazing work experience while keeping them connected to their team and managers.

The Bottom Line

Organisations looking for a complete overhaul must ensure people-focused HR transformation that helps unlock employee creativity and ingenuity and creates a digitally-enabled workforce to foster workplace innovation. In the post-pandemic era, employee experience has become one of the most important parameters of business success.

References:

• https://www.accenture.com/ie-en/services/talent-organization/hr-transformation
• https://blogs.oracle.com/oraclehcm/post/what-matters-to-hr-elevating-your-employee-experience
• https://www.gartner.com/en/human-resources/topics/hr-transformation-roadmap
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/09/14/how-to-create-an-employee-experience-focused-on-well-being/?sh=68b2309165bb
• https://www.bluebeyondconsulting.com/thought-leadership/6-best-practices-create-positive-employee-experience/
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/employee-experience-organisational-culture-riya-shah/?trk=public_profile_article_view
• https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/human-capital-trends/2017/improving-the-employee-experience-culture-engagement.html