The Future of the Employee Experience

Employee experience is what people encounter, observe, experience, and feel while they are with an organization. Employee experience is and will always be at the center of the focus for HR and other leaders in an organization, and it will be a driver for both.
Traditionally, HR has principally been tasked with enhancing and maintaining the experience of employees. HR has seen its value increase through its management, enrichment, and ownership of the employee experience throughout the years. The reason for this is because the employee experience directly relates to employee engagement, productivity, the employer brand, retention, and a company's profitability.
But it is time for HR to take it up a notch. When talking about the experience of employees HR falls into the trap of conceptualizing it along the lines of perks, rewards, and/or work/life balance. This, however, simply misses the mark today. Organizations today need HR to help them become aspirational and provide employees with meaning, purpose, and pride.
So, instead of focusing and discussing the employee experience, HR needs to focus on the human experience. The idea of the employee experience must be re-conceptualized and upgraded. HR must broaden its concept of the employee experience and make it more personal. This is why it is better and more accurate to discuss the human experience.
The Human experience has the same foundations of the employee experience, but it is more personal and does not just focus on the work but the person. HR of today has to dig deeper beyond the employee and strive to help employees see and create meaning and purpose in their jobs.
The ability of HR to do this will have the following impacts:
1) Clarity - A clearly articulated purpose and meaning will provide employees with clarity. They will have a north start that will guide them in the face of everlasting organizational change and chaos.
2) Connection - Employees that have a purpose and find meaning in their jobs will provide employees with a deep connection to their organization and to one another.
3) Empowerment - Purpose and meaning instills a strong pride in employees that empowers them. This not only propels them to stay longer and do more, but builds the culture and brand of an organization.
One of the best projects to really tackle this was KPMG's Purpose Campaign. You can find more information about how they went about this here.
While KPMG provides an amazing case study, HR professionals need re-conceptualize the employee experience and think about how to strategically activate and help employees find their purpose.
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