The Rise of The Employee Experience

Office Team Celebrating

The rise of the employee experience is the next topic human resources professionals should pay attention to and here’s why. Try this experiment. Go to LinkedIn and type in “Employee Experience” with the quotes in the search bar. As of November 29, 2016, I found:

  • 1,911 people with “Employee Experience” in their profile
  • 1,850 people with “Employee Experience” in their title
  • 2,222 jobs are available with the term “Employee Experience” in the title
  • 3,890 results appear for LinkedIn posts with the term “Employee Experience”
  • 6 groups with “Employee Experience” in the name- the most popular one has 879 members

When I did this same search about a month before, I found less than 1,700 people with “Employee Experience” in their title. More and more HR professionals are changing their titles to include this new term, and it seems to be senior HR leaders in reputable companies who are leading the way. Here are several examples:

  • Donna Morris, EVP Customer and Employee Experience at Adobe
  • Malcolm Berkley, Vice President, Global Employee Experience at UPS
  • Angela Heyroth, Managing Director, Employee Experience at Charles Schwab
  • Paul Davies, Employee Experience Leader at GE
  • Ryan Miller, Senior Manager, HR Knowledge Management and Employee Experience at The Walt Disney Company
  • Monika Fahlbusch, Chief Employee Experience Officer at BMC Software
  • Shauna Cort, Employee Experience Program Manager at Tesla

When you think about it, “human resources” does sound like an antiquated and non-politically-correct term. Are employees really the company’s resources? “Human resources” is a corporate term to specify the different inputs needed for a company to produce a product or service. When viewed as a cog in the machine of corporate gains, “human resources” really doesn’t do an adequate job of describing employees. After all, companies are really made up of a group of people that produce value for customers. It’s your people that ultimately drive the company’s success.

“Employee Experience” Shows a 140% Increase in Popularity

Google has a nifty tool to show how popular a term is on the search engine. Google Trends allows you to see the relative interest in a term over the past five years. If you do a search on Google Trends for the term “Employee Experience,” you will see a 140 percent increase in interest by comparing the average popularity value of 35 in 2011 to 85 towards the end of 2016.

Google’s description of “interest over time” is a little tricky. Google explains: “Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. Likewise, a score of 0 means the term was less than 1% as popular as the peak.”
If you compare interest in “Employee Engagement” you will see that “Employee Experience” has a ways to go to catch up. Nevertheless, the trend in interest for “Employee Experience” is still climbing.

What is the Employee Experience?

Simply put, the employee experience is the sum of the various perceptions employees have about their interactions with the organization in which they work. These perceptions drive how employees feel about their work and how much effort they put into their job. The employee experience determines how effective your company is at attracting, retaining, and engaging your workforce.

The Employee Experience Revolution

Are we in the middle of a major shift in mindset when it comes to employees? I hope so. As the global economy grows and competition becomes more intense, the war for talent will only become harder. Attracting, retaining, and engaging top talent will be the key advantage successful companies use to win in this era, and it all starts with creating an amazing employee experience.

P.S. While posting this article, I did another search on LinkedIn and found 5,303 people with “Employee Experience” in their title.

Question: If you are in HR, will you be replacing “human resources” with “employee experience” in your title? Did you do so already? Why?

cta-employee-experience-book

VIDEO: 6 Best Practices in Creating Employee Engagement Surveys

 

6 Best Practices in Creating Employee Engagement Surveys

 
In the VIDEO: 6 Best Practices in Creating Employee Engagement Surveys I cover six ways to form questions in order to create a survey that will obtain the best and most accurate responses possible. By creating a powerful employee engagement survey you will accurately measure your organizations levels of engagement like never before. 
 

Join the WEBINAR: “Employee Engagement Survey Best Practices” and get HRCI or SHRM credit

 

  1. Use a subset of anchor questions to measure overall engagement.

    The most accurate way to measure employee engagement is to use the average score from a subset of validated anchor questions. We then use the score from the anchor questions to place employees in one of four different groups from Fully Engaged to Fully Disengaged.

 

  1. Use a variety of questions to measure employee perceptions regarding their work, their team, their boss, and the organization overall.

    These items will be used to determine unique perceptions among the different engagement groups of employees. Also include items to measure the five major drivers of employee engagement, which are: Meaning, Autonomy, Growth, Impact, and Connection.

 

  1. Use proper question structure and formatting:

    Good questions are actionable, meaning that it is obvious what actions to take based on the item. So avoid vague or general statements that can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Also, don’t use double-barreled questions which are items that contain two ideas in one question. Finally, use questions that are positively worded with a consistent rating scale.

 

  1. Customize the survey so that it is relevant to your organization.

    Every organization is unique, so make sure to include items that evaluate recent changes, alignment with company values, or other pertinent issues. But don’t go too far. If you customize too much, you won’t be able to utilize industry benchmarks on similar questions.

 

  1. Use two or maybe three open-ended questions.

    We recommend asking: “What are the areas that need the most improvement in our organization?” and “What are the greatest strengths of our organization?” These two items will generate good qualitative feedback that provides context to the scores on the other survey questions. Don’t use too many open-ended questions because it makes the survey run long and it doesn’t provide any additional feedback.

 

  1. Use between 40-60 questions total.

    A survey with 50 questions takes about 8 minutes to complete. If your survey is too short, then it doesn’t provide enough information to make specific conclusions and it becomes in actionable. If it is too long, employees will not finish it and you could also end up with too much information with leads to data paralysis.

 

Want to learn more? Download our whitepaper, “10 Questions to Consider Before Your Next Employee Engagement Survey” to learn more about building the most effective survey possible. 

Take a look at more videos to assist in building a better organization:

VIDEO: 5 Employee Engagement Best Practices

VIDEO: Employee Satisfaction and Engagement. What’s the Difference?

VIDEO: The Influence of Managers on Employee Engagement

VIDEO: The Impact of 360-Degree Feedback Coaching

 

Thanks for reading or watching and best of luck in your efforts to create an engaged workplace.

 

Employee Engagement Survey

VIDEO: 5 Employee Engagement Best Practices

State-of-Employee-Engagement-Report

5 Employee Engagement Best Practices

In the VIDEO: 5 Employee Engagement Best Practices I share 5 employee engagement best practices from our 2016 State of Employee Engagement Report.

To compile this report, we surveyed HR professionals from over 200 organizations around the world on what they were doing to address employee engagement.

Join the WEBINAR: “Employee Engagement Survey Best Practices” and get HRCI or SHRM credit

For one of the questions, we asked, “Based on any employee survey results over the past 3 years, has the overall level of employee engagement in your organization trended upward, stayed the same, or gone down.” 32% of organizations reported engagement trending upward, 28% stayed the same, and 17% reported engagement had actually decreased. 

Companies with Employee Engagement Trending Upward

 

When we looked at the 32% who reported engagement trended upward over the past 3 years, here is what we found:

 

1.         Successful companies consistently measure employee engagement.

Most companies with rising levels of employee engagement have measured it at least every year for the past three years or more.

 

2.         Successful companies do better at involving managers in the action planning process.

Companies with upward trending levels of employee engagement also reported that more managers are involved in action planning.
Involve Managers in Action Planning

Involve Managers in Action Planning

3.         Successful companies train managers on employee engagement.

Training managers on employee engagement, and training in general, were two similarities among companies with rising levels of engagement. So investing in the development of your managers pays off in increased engagement.

Train Managers on Employee Engagement

4.        Successful companies measure the ROI of employee engagement.

Specifically, companies that compare their engagement efforts to retention and other performance metrics do better at increasing engagement overall.

Measure the ROI of Employee Engagement

5.         Successful companies work with an outside provider.

Almost 60% of companies with rising levels of engagement report that they partner with service providers to enhance employee engagement. So if your employee engagement program has stalled, you may benefit from the expertise of outside engagement professionals.

Companies tend to work with Employee Engagement outside partners

Want to learn more? Download our 2016 State of Employee Engagement Report to learn about other best practices and to see how your organization compares. This 58-page report shows specifically what organizations are doing to measure and increase employee engagement. 

Take a look at more videos to assist in building a better organization:

VIDEO: 5 Employee Engagement Best Practices

VIDEO: Employee Satisfaction and Engagement. What’s the Difference?

VIDEO: The Influence of Managers on Employee Engagement

VIDEO: The Impact of 360-Degree Feedback Coaching

 

Thanks for reading or watching and best of luck in your efforts to create an engaging workplace.

Employee Engagement Survey

VIDEO: Employee Satisfaction and Engagement. What's the Difference?

Employee Satisfaction vs. Employee Engagement

What are the differences between employee satisfaction and employee engagement?

Employee satisfaction is the extent to which the employment contract is fulfilled. Employees feel satisfied when basic hygiene factors are met. These factors include pay, benefits, job training, safety, and the tools and resources to do the job. Other things that drive satisfaction are perks such as free lunch, day care, or working from home.

Download: Employee Engagement Survey

Satisfaction elements help to attract new employees and retain existing employees. For example, if your company offers the best healthcare benefits in the area, you will probably receive more job applications and employees will be less likely to leave and forfeit their health plan.

Employee satisfaction is very important because it creates the foundation upon which engagement can thrive. Employees must first be satisfied before they can be engaged.
MAGIC - DecisionWise

We define employee engagement as an emotional state where we feel passionate, energetic, and committed toward our work. In turn, we fully invest our best selves—our hearts, spirits, minds, and hands—in the work we do.

The five drivers of employee engagement are Meaning, Autonomy, Growth, Impact, and Connection. Meaning is finding purpose in the work you perform. Autonomy is having the freedom to do your best work. Growth is feeling stretched and challenged in your job. Impact is about making a difference and getting things done. And Connection is about belonging to something greater than yourself.

So where satisfaction helps to attract and retain employees, engagement also helps with retention but it is the main driver of performance. Engaged employees want to do their best work and deliver results for the company.

Satisfaction is more transactional– you pay me and I do my work- engagement is transformational – where I love my job and want to make a difference.

Both concepts are important. No matter how engaged employees are in their work, if they feel under-compensated, a satisfaction element, their engagement will suffer and they will probably look for other job opportunities.

If you would like to learn how to measure both the satisfaction and engagement levels of your employees, download the DecisionWise employee engagement survey. Thanks for reading or watching and best of luck in your efforts to create an engaging workplace.

Take a look at more videos to assist in building a better organization:

VIDEO: 5 Employee Engagement Best Practices

VIDEO: Employee Satisfaction and Engagement. What’s the Difference?

VIDEO: The Influence of Managers on Employee Engagement

VIDEO: The Impact of 360-Degree Feedback Coaching

 

Employee Engagement Survey

VIDEO: The Influence of Managers on Employee Engagement

Engaged Employees


Download: Employee Engagement Survey

Let’s talk about our research on the Influence of Managers on Employee Engagement.

We recently conducted the largest study of its kind to compare the level of employee engagement of managers to that of their direct reports. This study included data from 22 companies, almost 19,000 employees, and 2,300 managers.

We first measured the overall level of engagement for each individual using a set of research-based anchor questions from their annual employee survey. We then grouped managers and employees according to their level of engagement into four categories: Fully Engaged, Key Contributors, Opportunity Group, and Fully Disengaged. Then we compared the level of engagement of managers to the employees they lead. 

Employee Engagement Example Graph

For the 808 managers that were Fully Engaged, we found that 36% of their employees were also Fully Engaged, 48% were Key Contributors, 12% were in the Opportunity Group, and only 3% were Fully Disengaged. 

For the 1154 managers who were Key Contributors, the level of fully engaged employees drops to 24%. So the percentage of fully engaged employees increases 50% from a Key Contributor manager to a Fully Engaged manager.

For managers in the Opportunity Group and Fully Disengaged categories, only 14% of their employees were fully engaged.

So you can see that fully engaged managers lead more engaged employees. That finding, in of itself, is not very surprising, but what is important, is that the percentage of fully engaged employees increases 163% from Opportunity Group managers and Fully Disengaged managers to Fully Engaged managers. That’s a huge difference. 

So how do you engage managers? Here are 3 best-practice recommendations:

3 Ways to Engage Managers

 

Employee Engagement Survey

VIDEO: The Impact of 360-Degree Feedback Coaching

Business meeting


Download: 360-Degree Feedback Survey

Watch this short video and learn more about our research on the impact 360-degree feedback coaching. By coaching, we mean sitting down with someone to debrief their 360-degree feedback results and helping them to create an action plan. For the purpose of this study, we collected feedback from 244 leaders from a Fortune 500 company with locations around the world. 

Leadership Coaching Meeting

These leaders had recently received 360-degree feedback and were provided coaching by internal HR professionals. We wanted to understand the effectiveness of the process. We asked questions about the process, the survey, and the coaching experience and here is what we found:

 94% of those that received coaching and set goals felt the 360 process was effective.

Conversely, only 34% of those who reported that they did not receive sufficient coaching felt the 360 process was effective.

Register: 360-Degree Feedback Coaching Training

This means that if you don’t provide any coaching support on your 360 feedback process, 66% of your participants will not feel that the process is effective. That is a huge waste of time and money.

So, how do you provide an excellent coaching experience? Here are three simple steps:

  1. Schedule 90 minutes to meet individually with each participant.
  2. Help the individual interpret the results by providing context for the scores and overall themes.
  3. Guide them in creating an action plan that addresses 2-3 development opportunities.

If you’d like to learn more and become certified as a 360-degree feedback coach, contact DecisionWise about our coaching training programs.

360-Degree Feedback Survey Download