It’s good to launch a new concept, but you still need to know why you’re doing it and in what direction you’re going. We know the components of a successful employee experience but it is good and even essential to have a few guiding principles in mind to be able to take the lead and make the right decisions.
These governing principles do not come out of nowhere, I would say that they are merely examples of common sense that come from two sources. Firstly, what I have observed and what works and secondly, the basic trends that are those of today’s world. And it makes sense: no company is an island, and to believe that what affects the outside is neutral on the inside is to put blinkers on and deny the obvious, which is that the people who work on the inside are also people who live and are otherwise customers on the outside.
1°) Consumerization of the enterprise
The employee will expect the same experiences and facilities in the enterprise as he lives as a customer outside. It is no longer possible that the same tasks are infinitely more complicated when they are done at work than in their private life, whether the tools are Hube Golberg Machines compared to what they have at home etc.
In short, everything that has been done for the client will one day be done for the employee…
2°) Omnicanality of work
It is no longer possible to distinguish what happens on the premises from what happens online, or what happens on and through a computer, mobile or tablet, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s at work, at home or anywhere else.
Today too many things work or are available on one channel but not another. We do things in meetings that we can’t or can’t do online, we do things on our PC that we can’t do on our mobile. You can access information and use tools at the office and not when you work remotely. And finally, there are employees who work in factories, stores, who do not have computer equipment and are subject to real discrimination in terms of access to information and certain services compared to those who work in offices at headquarters.
3°) Servicization
It is necessary to introduce the notion of employee service in the business and, more generally, to think of everything that is put in place as a service for an employee who, in the end, still serves the customer.
Too often, when we look closely at many processes, they have been built to constrain the employee instead of serving him and, moreover, he is seen as the executor when he is ultimately the client because he activates it to fulfill his mission.
4°) Employee Knowledge
Businesses only have an administrative knowledge of their employees and for the rest the information is so siloed between different actors (recruiter, hr, payroll, manager…) that nobody has a 360° knowledge of who they are, their expectations, their needs and even what they do.
5°) Extended enterprise
Businesses is not islands. It employs service providers, freelancers, partners and no longer only in a logic of service but also in a logic of partnership and co-execution which is part of the long term. Should those who contribute as much as they do to the company’s success be treated as foreigners or even sub-employees ?
6°) Automation
No matter what form this takes, robots and other artificial intelligences will establish themselves permanently and sustainably in the organization. In some cases it will be necessary to rethink work to assign them all the tasks where the human has little or no added value. But, and this will be the most difficult, it will above all be necessary to rethink work to take advantage of the collaboration between humans and robots which will be at least in the medium term the most efficient configuration.
Photo : Employee experience trends de patpitchaya via Shutterstock
