From our work with clients, we’ve pulled together the top five learnings that we think HR professionals should know to help them create better employee experiences:
Email, social media, collaboration sites and news apps create what Google calls ‘a constant sense of obligation, generating unintended personal stress’. As well as being bad for our health, when we’re stressed it impairs judgement and productivity. Stop and think before you send that email to 10+ people – is there a better, more effective way? Keep messaging clear, short and easy to digest.
If large numbers of your people are effectively walking in the wrong direction, it’s going to be harder to achieve business goals. Make sure line managers get the bigger picture and support them in translating it so it’s meaningful for their teams. Share the strategy visually – it’s much easier for employees to understand and to connect to it that way – and listen to your feedback channels. Here, little and often works best.
We all work more effectively when we have information: we feel trusted and able to make considered choices. Share news, especially bad news. If there’s a void of communication then employees will fill it. Don’t try to put a spin on news but share as much as you can and be open and straight. It pays dividends.
Despite huge corporate investment in digital transformation projects, many employees tell us that there’s often an assumption that they will ‘just know’ how to use new online tools. Organisations are missing out on the return on investment and the opportunity to engage people. When you’re planning comms for any roll-out or change, work with IT and IC to include awareness and engagement messaging, get people talking the same language, and create an ambassadorial community to inspire others.
It’s easy for employees to feel disconnected at work. So many are ‘deskless’ workers, either front line or hot deskers. Also, people tell us that line manager communication isn’t as good as it should be. Start with great comms from day one – and that means from when a new employee accepts the job, not just when they walk in the door. Support line managers with comms skills training. Many of them are promoted for being great engineers, sales people or scientists, not great managers. And ask remote workers how they want to receive content – what works for them. Tailor your approach to your audiences to meet their unique needs.
Want to know more about how Sequel is helping clients shape employee experience to deliver brilliant business performance? Contact Suzanne Peck.
For a copy of The Modern Employee Experience Report 2020 contact hello@sequelgroup.co.uk