Creating the Ideal Employee Experience

The employee experience is the biggest driver of business success. From productivity to retention, everything is affected by the employee’s work experience. So how do we create the ideal employee experience? Dave Carhartt, VP of Advisory Services at Lattice, shares his insights on BambooHR’s The Era podcast.

8 Key Points to Consider

When building an employee’s experience, here are some key lessons to consider:

1. Start with empathy. Without inhabiting the employee’s perspective, you cannot understand their experience. Consider their expectations and their responses before acting. Empathy is the foundation of all employee experience decisions.
2. Anticipate needs and invest ahead. When you notice shortcomings resulting from the business’s scaling, you are already on the back foot and trying to catch up. Do your best to anticipate the employee’s and business needs. Invest ahead in people infrastructure. Where possible, deliver more and a bit sooner than someone needs.
3. Invest in managers of managers. According to Dave, managers of managers can have an outsized impact on the functioning of a team. Dave explains, “A new manager with the right kind of training and support and enablement can get many things right the first time…. Even a decent manager, if directed by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, can get off into really bad places.” It’s often said that people don’t leave bad jobs; they leave bad bosses. As Dave points out, that makes those bosses’ bosses doubly important.
4. Focus on what will be meaningful for your employees specifically. You may feel the pressure to enact every program and provide every perk. However, avoid trying to chase every project you see on your LinkedIn feed. No company is doing everything at once. Instead, invest strategically in what will impact your employees the most.
5. Have a compensation plan. In a tight talent market with decades-high inflation, difficult decisions must be made about compensation. On top of this, the New York pay transparency law will go into effect this November. For companies hiring remotely, this will essentially mean publishing their entire compensation structure. Therefore, the time to create a plan if you don’t already have one is now. Set priorities so that your employees will be taken care of while you attract new people.
6. Market your benefits. Many companies find that their thoughtfully designed benefits package is underutilized. Once you have customized your benefits for your employees, you must market them. Take a page from marketing experts and learn to tell the story.
7. Account for hard-to-define norms. An employee’s day-to-day experience is often affected as much by the implicit rules as it is by the explicit ones. Do your employees avoid taking advantage of the unlimited leave you offer? Is there tension between teams regarding when your hybrid employees do and don’t come into the office? Try to make explicit the implicit norms governing employees’ behavior. Set expectations so that employees are free of pressure. Make sure they know the rules they need to follow—and the guidelines they don’t.
8. Be transparent. There are many factors to balance with any project, and we all want to execute flawlessly. There can be pressure to put up a facade of control and perfection. Dave shares, “I felt like you had to get something to a state of perfection with the 10-page FAQ and everything; it’s all secret until it just gets launched on the unsuspecting employees.” But when figuring things out, try to be open about your mindset and challenges. This can alleviate the pressure to nail it on the first try. Employees who know where you are coming from are likely to be more understanding. Dave continues, “The more I was open…, the more that people seemed to come along on the journey with us.” Also, this can help set expectations for employees that things are still subject to change. Finally, this can help employees feel like they have a voice too. They can tell you if your actions aren’t fulfilling your stated goals. This can only result in better outcomes for all.

Final Thoughts

If you’re ready to help build and live the ideal employee experience somewhere new, Signature Source is here to help! With a combined experience of over 60 years in the industry, our expert team of relocation industry veterans ensures an unparalleled advantage in pairing the right talent with the right job at the right company. Search through the list of openings we are recruiting for on behalf of our clients to find your new home, or contact us directly if you want to know more. We look forward to hearing from you!