Personal and customized – The future of employee experience

Introduction

It is a time of unprecedented change and competition for companies across all sectors and sizes. Most organizations are facing increasing pressures from fast- growing start-ups disrupting traditional business models, new technologies that are reshaping operations, slimmer margins, and changing customer expectations. The workforce is also in the midst of a huge upheaval. Millennials now make up about half of the global workforce. Baby boomers are postponing their retirements and working longer.

And Generation Z is now entering the workforce in growing numbers. Each demographic brings its own views on work. For example, millennials are looking for experiences that connect with their values, a big shift from baby boomers, who typically view work as a means to an end and separate from their personal priorities. Generation Z takes an entrepreneurial approach to work and seeks out new opportunities and flexible work structures.1 As the workforce evolves, with more distinct and diverse objectives and expectations, organizations are also adapting to the impact of automation and other new technologies that are shifting not only where and how we work, but also business and operating models.

In this new workplace reality, companies must continuously reinvent themselves to respond to market change. A reinvention of the company’s talent strategy and workforce composition is a key part of that transformation. CEOs are looking to their chief human resource officers (CHROs) to ensure the organization has the right people, skill sets, and agility required to compete in an increasingly complex and competitive marketplace. Employee experience plays a critical role in reaching these goals. CHROs and other executives need to think differently about the value of employee experience, as well as their role in creating and maintaining a positive experience to help build and maintain a competitive advantage.

To attract, engage, and retain needed talent, companies must deliver a new kind of employee experience one that feels personal, relevant, and responsive to individual needs. This will require providing a technological experience at work that empowers employees to seamlessly collaborate and
innovate. And, you’ll want to create a sociocultural experience that gives employees a sense of purpose and that shows their personal values are in alignment with the organization’s values. The physical workspace can also create an environmental experience that encourages collaboration and multi-sensory simulation.

Sociocultural experience

The social experience consists of the values, attitudes, and culture that exist in the workplace. An organization’s structure, hierarchy, and leadership, as well as the relationships built between employees, can greatly influence overall employee experience (EX).

While individuals have always had high expectations of their employers, the nature of those expectations is now shifting, influenced by consumer interactions with brands, particularly on digital platforms. Today’s employees want on-demand access to data, modern tools and technology, easy transitions between different types of work, and a holistic experience where they can provide meaningful contributions in line with their personal values. Failing to meet these expectations results in significant dissatisfaction, turnover, and challenges with talent attraction and hiring.

Digital experience

The digital experience, such as the Internet of Things, mobility, and seamless interfaces, has changed how employees approach tasks and ultimately do their job. Employees seek a digital experience that is seamless and intuitive so that they can spend more time focusing on the task at hand.

Organizations need to design employee experiences that fit these evolving needs, starting with the recruitment of talent, but also continuing through to their journey as longer-term employees. Existing employees also need to be engaged, or reengaged.

Environmental experience

The environmental experience refers to both the physical and non-physical space. Environments should foster connection, collaboration, and flexibility, as well as boost concentration and productivity.

What are the expectations your organization is consciously and unconsciously setting for employees? The answer usually sets the framework for understanding the expectations that will be put in place in the future. If the experience does not live up to the expectations, there is a
gap, which in turn can lead to lower staff retention.

Creating and maintaining a clear and compelling EVP—or multiple EVPs—will be an important differentiator moving forward. In fact, 37 percent of global HR executives in our Future of HR Survey indicated that managing multiple EVPs for a multigenerational workforce or different employee
types will be a critical skill for HR in coming years, with 15 percent ranking this area as their top choice. Consider your current EVP: Is it clearly defined? Has it been tested? Where are there gaps in your organization’s ability to deliver on its EVP? How do these gaps impact the business? Next, look at the core of your worker experience: the work itself.

Often, the tendency is to look at the workers’ experience in the organization as something separate from their work. This is a mistake. By making the work for which employees are responsible the foundation of the employee experience, you place a greater emphasis on the structural elements that shape that work and thus shape the employees’ day-to-day experiences within the organization. These can include areas such as job design, job architecture, and workflow optimization.

Throughout the process of examining and redesigning the EVP, remember to talk with your workers, rather than at them. By treating workers as valued internal customers, you work to create a collaborative relationship between HR and the individuals that you serve, and are better able to deliver a relevant and authentic value proposition. This process, in which true worker needs, wants, and frustrations are openly heard and addressed, creates internal brand ambassadors who “opt in” to the future of the organization.

External companies specialize in building these types of HR bots, which can be trained on company policy documents, draw information from HCM back-end systems, and integrate seamlessly into corporate messaging systems. For example, an employee wanting to know how much vacation time they have left can simply text the question to the HR bot and it will recognize and access that employee’s records and instantly reply. Research shows organizations with specific employee experience programs and strategies report up to three times higher profit growth. Part of this growth is due to lower operating margins stemming from employees being more innovative in how they work, but lower employee turnover also contributes measurable savings. In these higher staff retention environments, managers seem to be more willing to engage with employees and have positive, constructive conversations.

Using information gathered through conversations with workers, as well as deep data and analytics, HR can segment workers into different groups and needs areas, such as what they want from their job, role type, workplace preferences, motivational drivers, and more. Through the platform model, HR can then provide targeted services to each group, connecting the right platform elements to the right worker types at the right time. These elements can range from traditional areas such as training, professional development, and guidance on career paths, to the tools and technologies that workers use in their roles. Instead of leaving these platform elements to other business functions, the HR organization of the future will weave them into a holistic experience that can be tailored as required to meet individual needs.

According to a recent study by Gartner, formal annual employee engagement surveys are declining, while other methods of acquiring and monitoring employee data are on the rise. Within organizations that have moved away from engagement surveys entirely, 64 percent report using “small-scale pulse surveys and one-off, topic-specific surveys to measure engagement.”

That said, the majority of organizations are still employing traditional, nonresponsive EX indicators. As HR’s data and analytics capabilities deepen, data usage can shift from assessing worker experience in the moment to anticipating shifts in needs, motivations, and drivers using predictive analytics. Part of this shift is taking advantage of and gaining additional value from other sources of data that already exist within the organization,
both from internal and external sources. This could include inputs from reference checks and responses to interview questions from the hiring process; information from day-to-day tasks such as conference call logs, calendaring, and travel management; and broader external inputs, such as social media. Such information contributes not only to the process of designing a tailored employee experience, but also ongoing customization and adaptation to current worker needs.

Delivering experiences to achieve value

Leading organizations are stepping back and considering the mind-set of workers. If your employees had the choice of whether or not to show up for
work tomorrow, would they? And how can you start influencing that decision? Employee experience is based on expectations: expectations that workers bring to the organization and that are shaped by the EVP and brand. In the organization of the future, HR will likely be the architect of employee experience and a “service provider” that delivers tailored working experiences that meet or exceed worker expectations.

As organizations continue to evolve, and attracting and retaining specialized skill sets becomes more challenging, HR functions that effectively deliver a responsive employee experience will likely be a significant contributor to competitive advantage. Employee experience is one of the five key areas that we believe should be at the forefront of the HR agenda to address the ongoing changes to the workforce and the needs of tomorrow’s organizations. For more on these priorities, and the critical shift in mind-set that HR needs to become a major driver of competitive advantage, download KPMG’s Future of HR report.

As organizations turn to digital labor to address workplace challenges, it is incumbent on HR leaders to protect the special elements of the culture
and employee experience to prevent a sterile work environment.