Make employee experience an asset! April 7 2019

INTRODUCTION

Trendy employee experience can be one of the major aspects of onboarding that helps new hires achieve milestones in corporate. However, employers and HR Community alike are not very much familiar with this term. Employee experience is the encapsulated feeling that emerges while working at an organization especially during the time of onboarding and on the basis of an employee's observations. It is the view of the relationship between the individual and the organization. The journey of creating employee experience starts from the time of interviewing and onboarding the candidates. Employee experience is not static. It is important for organizations to focus on employee experience to create a journey for the employee that not only makes work feel like their second home but also drives improvement in key HR metrics such as engagement, retention and productivity.

Gallup’s State of the American Workplace report found that companies with highly engaged employees experience 17% higher productivity, 20% higher sales, and 21% higher profitability, among many other positive metrics. The candidates engaged in various tasks and are provided a great experience by the organizations make them feel connected, welcomed and more confident to join the organization with enthusiasm. It is found in various researches that companies focusing on providing a great onboarding experience inspire the employees to work harder. Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, once quoted that “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” So it proves that employee experience in an organization is correlated with the success of achieving business goals.

Candidates join the organization with a lot of expectations and dreams. Their compensation is one small element considered by the employees but the environment and behavior in the organization are the major elements impacting the individual’s mindset. As per the famous Aberdeen research, "91% of the newly hired employees take the decision to be in the organization for the long term during the 1st year." So, it is believed by many employers in that creating a viewpoint that allows employee experience to come first and foster a positive first impression on the new hire's mind.

The first day of the new hire should be very simple, relaxed and focused on creating a great employee experience. To make sure that your organization is on the right path, here are some best practices to follow:

1. PLAN AND ORGANIZE CANDIDATE’S FIRST DAY OF ONBOARDING:
   • In this corporate world, many of the candidates accept the offer letter but they never turn up on the day of the joining. To avoid such situation employers should make a connect with the new hires before the date of joining. Engage them to acquaint them to organization’s history, culture, leaders and policies. Take them through the finer nuances of the organization and build an employee experience that makes them feel they already know the organization when they step into the office on their first day.
2. OFFICE ASSETS SHOULD BE EQUIPPED FOR DAY ONE:
   • Once the candidate has to wait for the assets that are to be allocated to him, it creates a negative impact and a employee experience. Companies should keep all the office assets ready for the candidate so that they can focus on other important aspects such as colleague interaction and understanding their work. It portrays the organization as a professional one even increases the work productivity of the new hire. Asset allocation, when delayed, can create a frustrating experience for the new hire and make him/her nervous when they actually get to work.
3. INTRODUCE NEW HIRES TO THE BUDDIES AND THE LEADERS:
   • Every teammate or manager of a new hire is likely to be busy with their own work on their first day of joining. So if the new hire candidate is introduced to their buddies before their first day of joining, it creates a positive impact on the candidate as he feels welcome and valued. On the contrary, no or minimal interaction with the new hires can have a very negative impact on the new hire and adversely affect their employee experience. They are already leaving the comfort of their organizations or home, and to abandon is the worst possible thing that can happen to them. The consequences can be as adverse as them re-evaluating their decision to join a particular organization.
4. SHOWCASE THE NEW HIRES THE COMPANY TOUR:
   • If a video of company tour is shared with candidate before joining the organization, then he is aware about the culture of the organization and feels confident to join the organization. Company tours in form of videos are more compelling and create an impression of positive experience.
5. PROVIDE A STRUCTURED PLAN TO NEW HIRES:
   • Put yourself in the shoes of an employee who is entering an organization for the first time. In most cases, you would be a nervous wreck. What adds to the anxiety is that the new recruit is completely oblivious to how the organization functions. To be comfortable and to perform to the best of their ability, they need to be acquainted with the organization’s people, values and culture. And, what better time to start this journey than just after they have accepted the offer. During the Interview stage, they have impressed you and now it is your turn to make the right first impression. Does your organization is providing new hires a structured plan for success. Employers believe that a structured plan motivates new hires to work productively as they feel that the organization is worried about their success.
6. AUTOMATED SOLUTION FOR DOCUMENTATION:
   • Getting finished with the documentation before day 1 creates an amazing first day for the new hire. It is a relief not only for the candidate but even for the HR function of the organization. Valuable time is saved and utilized instead for something very productive. The cost of getting done with documentation, compiling and reconciling it, and making the entries manually into the system can be a huge load for the new hire and the HR alike. An automated solution for onboarding the new hire builds the employer branding for the organization simultaneously creating a great employee experience. As per the Aberdeen research, it is found that 91% of employees were retained in companies with standardized onboarding as compared to 30% of employees at laggard organizations with unstructured or no onboarding in place. The employers can solve the major problems of retention and high cot of onboarding by making a simple move towards HR Documentation Automation.
   • Especially in today’s scenario of a candidate-driven hiring panorama, you need to make sure you’re doing all you can to hold the new hires you’ve labored so tough to recruit. It’s worth taking the time to make certain you have an onboarding approach that prioritizes the new employee experience and builds engagement. A lot of organizations historically have focused only on one aspect of organizational change and that is culture. This is how employees feel when they are inside of an organization, the vibe that they get the organizational structure, leadership style, compensation and benefits, etc. While culture is a part of the employee experience, it is only a third. Only a comprehensive onboarding program that focuses on all aspects of a new hire’s enablement cycle can create an onboarding experience that makes the organization the new hire’s second home.
7. SHOWCASE THE NEW HIRES THE COMPANY TOUR:
   • If a video of company tour is shared with candidate before joining the organization, then he is aware about the culture of the organization and feels confident to join the organization. Company tours in form of videos are more compelling and create an impression of positive experience.