With professionals being increasingly given to change workplace, one of the biggest challenges companies are facing is talent retention. For this reason, an essential concept that must be managed in the HR field is employee experience.
Jacob Morgan, an expert in the sector, claims in his book The Employee Experience Advantage that it’s all about “creating a company where people really want to go”. In the opinion of Samuel Stern, analyst of this practice, employee experience includes “the rapport employees have with their colleagues, with managers, with the bigger purpose of the company”. It’s important, then, that the person feels valued, has autonomy and sees a prospect of promotion within the company.
With respect to employee experience, one of the most common mistakes is to seek a short-term solution. For this technique to be successful, however, several elements such as corporate culture, physical space and technology must be merged.
A nicely-arranged, spacious and well-lit office, with all required amenities, has an impact on mood and therefore on the degree of satisfaction of an employee within the company overall.
Key factors in employee experience
In order to build a proper corporate culture in this sense, the following principles must be taken into account:
– Implement flexible practices regarding staff management, for which a good knowledge of every member’s skills is essential, transitioning from a model in which planning is favoured into another adaptable to the needs of the company anytime.
– Enhance creativity of employees by making them feel they can take risks. Trust must be conveyed so that they feel accomplished and motivated.
– Make leaders delegate responsibilities. This point is closely related to the previous one since it’s a way to show trust in the team.
– Another key to talent retention is to promote an emotional culture that creates a working environment ruled by kindness instead on being focused on productivity only.
– Have a good internal communication so that employees are listened. Thus, misunderstandings will be avoided and loss of confidence prevented.
– Celebrate employees’ achievements, either for reaching a set goal when finishing a project or for providing an idea that helps solving a problem. This will enhance corporate culture by bonding the team together and make its members feel more fulfilled.
– Promote diversity and inclusion when building work teams by providing equal opportunities to all employees.
– Change the role of the HR manager into something more similar to a mentor who can offer counselling to the employee throughout his career.
– Enhance digitalization among the leaders so that they can benefit from new technologies when taking decisions or listening to their employees, thus responding to their demands in a more agile way.
Creating a satisfactory corporate culture which contributes to talent retention is not an easy task that can be carried out overnight. Quite the contrary, it will require hard work and possibly relevant changes within the company. In essence, always bear in mind what Forrester’s Samuel Stern states: “engaged employees make happy customers”.
Sources: Thefutureorganization.com, Forbes, IESE and SearchData Center.