15 Data-Backed Ways to Improve Your Employee Experience

15 Data-Backed Ways to Improve Your Employee Experience

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We all know the basics of employee satisfaction. And sure, happier employees make for a pleasant work environment. But when we talk about how to improve employee experience we’re thinking about the entire employee lifecycle in all its complexity, from onboarding to exit.

(Plus, how those day-to-day experiences foster higher employee engagement, company profitability, retention, productivity, and customer satisfaction — but we’ll get there in a minute.)

So, think of the tips presented here as your cheat sheet for creating a positive employee experience. And these insights, drawn from more than 2,000 employee surveys, will help you strengthen the major areas of your program and create a business case for the employee experience.


Meet the 4 key areas of the employee experience

There are four key areas that make up your organization’s employee experience:

  • Connection: The bonds between an employee and their manager, coworkers, and your organization’s mission and values.
  • Alignment: The employee’s clear understanding of what they must do to succeed at their job.
  • Appreciation: An employee’s confidence that their work has value and they’ll be recognized and rewarded for their contributions.
  • Growth: Learning opportunities, continuous feedback, and ongoing support for career development.

Let’s take a second to deep dive into each and grab some quick tips to improve employee experience at your organization.


Connection

Connections drive a great employee experience and a sense of well-being. And by creating a company culture that fosters meaningful relationships, you will boost employees’ overall sense of happiness and desire to be productive. In fact, our Employee Experience Study found that if you have a friend that you see most days at work, it’s like earning $100,000 more each year.

Here are some quick tips for strengthening connection in your organization:

1. Communicate core values early and often — not just during onboarding

  • Bulletin boards, TV screens, social media, performance reviews, and HR newsletters are easy opportunities

2. Create opportunities for coworkers to connect

  • Think quarterly off-sites, team-building activities, group lunches, a shared break room in your office, etc
  • Help new hires have great first impressions by pairing new employees with onboarding buddies

3. Encourage regular 1-on-1 Sync-Ups between employees and managers

4. Get feedback with engagement surveys, and take action on the results (it’s easy with our Surveys & Insights solution.)


Alignment

Alignment is the North Star of the job: The sense that one has a clear understanding of their work, what it means to be successful at it, and how to achieve that success. As a result, organizations that articulate clear parameters for success create a powerful workplace of motivated self-starters.

Here are some quick tips for fostering clear standards of alignment in your organization:

5. Clearly align company vision, mission, and values to individual contributions

  • In performance conversations, tie organizational values to individual goals
  • Publicly and privately recognize employees who reflect company values

6. Work with managers to establish regular performance Check-Ins and 1-on-1 Sync-Ups

7. Help people see the impact of their work

  • Encourage employees to recognize and give back to each other for their accomplishments. Having a Recognition & Rewards solution makes that simple.
  • At all-hands meetings, share customer stories, case studies, and anecdotes

Manage your whole employee experience in one place. Learn:

What is an employee experience platform?


Appreciation

Here’s a simple fact: Your employees’ experience is greatly enhanced by the feeling that they’re recognized and appreciated. In fact, 81% of people say they’re motivated to work harder when their manager shows them appreciation. So think beyond perks. Instead, ask yourself: How do you use appreciation to create a positive experience?

Here are some quick tips for building a culture of appreciation:

8. Make recognition detailed and specific

  • Go beyond a simple thank-you — if you were to reread your recognition one year from now, would you know what it meant?

9. Share appreciation in the moment

  • End-of-year callouts for actions that happened months ago are far less impactful than in-the-moment praise

10. Make appreciation public

  • This amplifies your intent and allows every success to be celebrated across the organization (at WorkTango, we use our public recognition feed)

11. Empower peers to recognize each other

  • Recognition should come from more than just a manager — create a culture where peers recognize each other for victories big and small

Learn how a platform changes the game:

C Suite business case template

How an Employee Experience Platform Powers Your Company

 


Growth

When surveyed, 88% of people said learning and growing in their job mattered to their employee experience. In other words, employees need growth to stay engaged with their work long term. So by building growth opportunities into the employee journey, your organization will reap the rewards in employee satisfaction and personal development.

Here are some quick tips for creating a sense of growth in your company:

12. Look into unconventional opportunities

  • Professional growth doesn’t have to be a tuition reimbursement plan, or a structured learning program
  • Instead, try conventional opportunities including mentoring, lunch and learns, and meet-ups

13. Set goals on the employee, team, and company level

  • Try using  goal management solution (like our Goals & Feedback) to help employees track their progress and tie personal growth to business success

14. Raise awareness of learning and development opportunities

  • Mention them in newsletters, intranets, or office signage, and offer Incentives for attending and participating

15. Create clear expectations around career advancement

  • Communicate promotion cycles as well as what is required for employees to advance to the next level of their career

Ready to improve employee experience?

So there it is: The employee experience is no longer part of the distant future of work. That future has arrived, and companies taking note are reaping the rewards. And we should know — WorkTango customers investing in the employee experience report 50% higher retention, increases in program participation, higher Glassdoor scores, and more.

By focusing on the four key areas of the employee experience – connection, alignment, appreciation, and growth – companies are able to create workplaces where employees are inspired, aligned, and ultimately thriving. So find out how WorkTango can help revolutionize your employee experience.

 

At WorkTango, we’re revolutionizing how the world’s most forward-thinking companies engage and inspire their people. We offer the only holistic Employee Experience Platform built for the modern workplace that enables meaningful recognition and rewards, offers actionable insights through employee surveys, and supports alignment through goal setting and feedback.

WorkTango is built for the workplace we all want to be a part of – where priorities become clear, achievements are celebrated, and employees have a voice. To learn more, check out our platform overview video, or schedule a demo.