What is Employee Experience and how is it different from Employee Engagement? Many HR professionals and consultants would be hard pressed to answer this question.
As is often the case with new terms in any discipline, analysts and marketers of new technology platforms have been quick to embrace and propagate Employee Experience as the next big thing in HR. This has led some to believe that Employee Experience is related to platforms that help make interactions more positive by providing easier access to, for example, recognition & rewards programs, training and career development opportunities, perks and wellness programs.
The old notion that customers come first is being augmented by a new market reality. If you don’t treat employees like customers, they won’t put forth the extra effort required to keep your customers happy.
These days, the “employee experience” is generating a lot of buzz, but market leaders have always understood that creating better employee experiences is vital to success. In the current business environment, several factors have converged to make creating great employee experiences more important than ever:
Employee engagement: the buzzword is everywhere, but can anyone really agree on what it means? How do you measure it? And how can you build an effective strategy that works in your unique company culture?
Employee engagement is tricky to define because it represents different things to different people. Some companies describe engagement as an emotional commitment to the company that includes both loyalty and dedication to achieving goals. Others define engagement in terms of productivity.
The truth is that both viewpoints are right. Engagement expert and Chief Scientific officer at Engage2Excel Jack Wiley, Ph.D. defines it this way: “Employee engagement is the extent to which employees are motivated to contribute to organizational success and are willing to apply discretionary effort to accomplishing tasks important to the achievement of organizational goals.”
Read More
Now for an even more important question. If you couldn't provide answers on the spot, should you or your HR department be able to?
Today’s CEOs have data on nearly every facet of their business. Yet, many come up short when they seek objective, data-driven insights on their company’s most valuable assets–its people. If HR can’t provide these insights, who should?
Read More
