The recent Employee Experience (EX) Summit in Melbourne highlighted that some companies are well advanced in their journey to boost EX (such as Aurecon, Hydro Tasmania & ANZ). However, it also highlighted that most companies have no idea where to start implementing EX programs. While the presentations showcased beneficial outcomes from a concerted EX program, very few provided a roadmap for delegate organisations to reap the same rewards.
Accordingly, here are a couple of tips from Peoplogica to start the journey of maximising your Employee Experience level.
1. Get CEO Buy-In
This is the most important step, as not only do you need the CEO to 100% support your initiatives, you need her/him to allocate funds. So how do you get the CEO to financially support your people capital initiatives?
- It is imperative that you present measurable targets that will result in increased revenue, profitability and/or customer service levels (do not try and use fluffy outcomes). The measures we use include:
- Reducing Employee Turnover. Peoplogica provides its clients with the formulas that measure the benefit to EBIT by reducing turnover and early failure rates
- Increasing Sales Effectiveness. Revenues are easily calculated via increasing the number of high performing salespeople and reducing the number of not-yet-competent salespeople
- Increasing Employee Engagement. We can accurately measure employee engagement and track improvements. It is proven that any increase in employee engagement levels will result in increased revenue, profitability and customer service levels.
b. Most importantly, you must be able to objectively prove the benefits of an EX program, and how these benefits solve business problems, not just HR problems
2. Innovate & Pilot
Once you have CEO buy-in, be innovative. Research and identify a range of providers that appear to have solutions that will help you achieve your measurable targets. Do not restrict yourself to the big consultancy houses – there are so many great solutions out there, but you need to search them out. Once you have identified multiple potential providers, spend some of your allocated funds and pilot them, to make sure they WILL deliver your measurable targets. For example:
- If you want to improve candidate selection and subsequently reduce turnover using psychometric assessments, then pilot the respective provider offerings with one key focus: “Does the assessment reliably predict whether a candidate will be a future high performer or not?” If this is the main outcome of using an assessment solution then the pilot should involve the assessment of your proven high and not-yet-competent performers, with the provider having to demonstrate their solution will predict future performance.
- If you want to improve sales performance, then the pilot should involve the development of a Sales High Performance Benchmark that objectively identifies and quantifies the critical success attributes of your best salespeople
- If you want to improve employee engagement you will most likely want to use a survey that is customisable and provides a clear measure of engagement levels
3. Implement, Monitor, Measure, Monitor, Measure …
Once your new initiative has been implemented, ensure that you regularly report on progress against your measurable targets. Include in each report what financial impact has been achieved from your initiatives. Once again, focus on the impact on revenue, profitability and customer service levels.
Are you ready to start reaping the rewards from a robust Employee Experience and Engagement Program but don’t know where to start? Give us a call.
Written by Mark Purbrick
