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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:

For the past decade, many in the HR industry have been calling for radical changes to the performance management process and an end to the annual performance review. While many companies have moved to more frequent programs for individual goal setting and performance feedback, reports of the death of the annual performance review (to steal a quip from Twain) “have been greatly exaggerated.”

People want to know where they stand.
When Facebook reevaluated its performance management systems several years ago, according to a November 2016 article in Harvard Business Review, they conducted focused groups and a follow-up survey with 300 people that revealed 87% wanted to keep a more formal process.

HR leaders have always been challenged to manage dual responsibility for operational and strategic HR functions. Meeting the day-to-day needs of the organization in areas such as recruitment, comp and benefits administration and risk management must be integrated with initiatives for improving engagement, productivity and retention. In times of high employement and  economic expansion, balancing responsibility for operational and strategic functions takes on elevated importance, as attracting, motivating and retaining talent becomes the critical enabler for growth.