The best of both: how a great employee experience powers business performance

As HR expert Josh Bersin once stated: “Employee experience is the single biggest lever that organizations have to drive innovation, productivity and profitability.”

Over the last couple of years, we’ve noticed a clear trend in our clients’ businesses: an increasing focus on employee experience (EX) and understanding of how it can drive business performance.

The evidence supporting this is mounting. A report from Mercer showed that organizations with a strong employee experience are:

• 1.8 times more likely to be innovative.
• 1.7 times more likely to be customer-centric.
• 1.5 times more likely to attract top talent.
• 1.4 times more likely to be profitable.

Yet, while the evidence is clear and executives agree – 70% of leaders stated that an improved EX leads to improved customer experience, which results in revenue growth – there is still work to do. A recent report from Korn Ferry found that while driven by good intentions, 84% of EX transformations fail. There isn’t a single reason for this, but there are recurring themes.

Key reasons why EX efforts fail:

Lack of investment: While the EX benefits are clear, there remains a challenge in unlocking budget to deliver. Fount discovered that 39% of EX teams operate without any budget.

Siloed initiatives: EX initiatives often exist in silos and are disconnected from the broader organizational goals. 79% of leaders struggle to coordinate EX efforts across their business (State of EX report).

Delivering EX ‘the old way’: Well-intentioned EX initiatives often fall into the “communications trap”. And while communication matters, more focus needs to be placed on how we deliver true experiences that shift behaviours. This requires a blend of skills, from design thinking to behavioral science -– so businesses can deliver experiences that genuinely inspire and motivate employees. And it’s needed – only 15% of employees expect EX excellence from their employers (Forrester), showing dissatisfaction, which often leads to employee demotivation and disengagement.

Three ways to stack the odds in your favour

One of the biggest challenges with employee experience (and culture conversations more broadly) is the sheer size of the subject. Where do we start? How do we get it off the ground? How do we build momentum?

Here are three ways to improve your EX and drive huge benefits for employees, customers, and the business:

1. Start somewhere and be specific.

Laser in on a business challenge (or opportunity) you’re thinking about right now. How can you make it easier for your people to get things done? How can you encourage faster decision making? Rather than trying to change an entire system, start small and be specific about what you’re tackling (and how it’ll benefit the business). Take the first step, prove it works, scale.

2. Listen to your employees.

Do three things:
First, challenge your assumptions with them – is your view of the problem right?

Second, unpick the problem to really understand what’s going on.

Third, involve them in ideas for solutions to the problem.

For example, we recently worked with a professional services firm struggling with a declining net promoter score (NPS). We used our real-time online crowdsourcing platform VYTALS to engage with 250 customer-facing people. In three weeks, we uncovered the real reasons the score was dipping – people could repeat the customer service pillars but didn’t know how to apply them in real life. Their ideas to overcome the challenge shaped a wide-ranging program, including leader-led, team-based conversations, training and organizational-wide knowledge sharing.

3. Focus on the experience.

It sounds obvious – it’s called employee experience, after all – but too often, solutions lack a spark and fail to actually change behaviors. This required leaders to blend a deep understanding of human behavior with a creative mindset.

AstraZeneca engaged us to create a more focused and productive organization. We developed a challenge that immersed employees’ imagination and creativity to inspire them to implement real change – how can you save 1,000,000 hours? By engaging employees in the solution, the business surpassed the challenge and freed up 2,000,000 hours of employee time through simple, practical interventions and nudges.

The way forward

The case for EX is clear. And those organizations that foster an engaging employee experience are leading the way – inspiring, enabling, and empowering employees to do their best work.

Think about what the landscape of your business is today. What’s stopping progress? What’s already working and could be supercharged? Focus on that and share what progress you’re making to inspire other parts of the business to get specific, listen, and deliver real change.