Enhancing Employee Experience

The 3 Environments: Physical, Technological & Cultural

Have you ever walked into an organisation’s offices that were so beautifully designed that you thought to yourself wow it must be amazing to work there? At your own office have upgrades and improvements been implemented that have created a more positive, motivating and uplifting working experience? Do you find working in a coffee shop, or at a café energising and stimulating?

These questions relate to the physical environment of work.

Is your company pushing innovation, yet you only have access to old, antiquated technology? Do you wonder why the technology you use at work is so outdated, complex and difficult to use compared to the technology, apps and social media you use in your personal life? Are there certain company technologies that you wish you had access to, but don’t?

These questions relate to the technological environment of work.

Is openness and transparency one of your company’s core values yet your leadership spends most of their time in closed offices or are inaccessible? Do you feel more energised and motivated working with a driven and determined team? Are you more engaged and focused when you feel valued, treated fairly and have the opportunity to learn, grow and develop under the guidance of mentors and coaches?

These questions relate to the cultural environment of work.

Whilst the above questions and scenarios may resonate with you, you may not be familiar with the concept of employee experience and how your company’s culture, technology and physical space directly impact on your employee experience and in turn your performance and engagement.

Everything that an employee encounters, observes or feels over the course of his / her employee journey at an organisation impacts on his / her employee experience and the culmination of these experiences over time directly impacts on employee engagement, productivity and flow.

Research indicates that companies with highly engaged workforces outperform their peers by 147% in earnings per share yet engagement levels remain consistently low. Further, research has proven that experiential organisations that invest in their employee experience outperform other companies on all key metrics, including stock price performance, revenue, profit, productivity and turnover.

What should you be focusing on to improve your company’s employee experience? 

Companies can no longer ignore the costs associated with poor engagement nor can they deny the financial benefits associated with highly engaged and intrinsically motivated employees. Companies require a new approach—one that builds on the foundation of culture and engagement to focus on the employee experience holistically.

Employees are now demanding a holistic, end-to-end recruitment to retirement experience from their employers with new modes of delivery. In order to achieve this, companies need to focus on three core areas:

1. Physical space
2. Technology
3. Culture

According to Jacob Morgan, an optimised employee experience exists at the intersection of these three environments and when all three factors are in sync. The extent to which a company focuses on each of the three environments will have a strong influence on whether the employees feel empowered, engaged and enabled.

Understanding and improving the employee experience has become critically important for companies operating in the evolving and competitive global economy. Experiential companies will dominate in the future of work and a properly designed and implemented employee experience has the power to transform a company.

For more information on how to make your company more experiential email info@bioss.com or visit our website.