It will be no exaggeration to say the year 2020 changed forever how employees perceive their time in an organization. As the COVID-19 pandemic crippled the economies and battered businesses, the entire workforce faced unforeseen challenges.
On one hand, leaders were forced to rethink and reshape their approach about how to keep employees happy and motivated, on the other, employee needs changed drastically. A latest researchOpens a new window by Qualtrics involving 11,800 FTEs from 20 countries showed that a sense of belonging and a sense of pride in the company’s corporate social responsibility initiatives emerged as two new elements driving employee experience amid the pandemic.
Companies helping employees adjust to a remote working model too played an important role in attracting and retaining talent. The study notes that though the global employee engagement went up by 13 points in 2020 compared to 2019, leaders are still failing to work on the feedback they are getting.
HR News Technology: Work From Home Hacks: How To Engage With Your Employees in 2021
Are Your Employees Happy?
While there are some factors like pride in work and the organization and feelings of accomplishment from work that can measure employee engagement, one sure-fire way of knowing your staff is happy is figuring out their intent to stay.
The Qualtrics research observed that during 2020, the employees’ intent to stay three years or more in their current company grew by 17 points (70%) as compared to 2019 (53%).
However, as Marcus Wolf, experience management scientist at Qualtrics noted the reason people are keen on working with their current companies is because of the current diminished job opportunities and a certain preference for being in the comfort zone.
Also, interestingly, the executives displayed the highest levels of intent to stay (83%) compared to those less senior, and were also the most engaged (85%) lot.
What Is Driving Employee Experience?
One of the key drivers of employee experience was the sense of belonging. A whopping 73% of respondents said that they feel a sense of belonging in their organization. Though this feeling can be nurtured by valuing workers and encouraging an honest and open communication, a strong and fair leadership plays the biggest role in giving employees a common purpose. However, companies are walking a tightrope here as manager effectiveness is a tricky deal. If the companies are not empowering their managers, it is very likely that other efforts to improve employee experience will not yield the desired results.
Believe it or not, the latest Behavox surveyOpens a new window spanning 3000 respondents across the UK, the United States, and Canada found that only 22% of those surveyed felt more positively about their CEOs. Moroever, 29% of them believe that the HR team is too afraid to take action, while a whopping 36% feel they are simply too busy.
“Managers have a critical role in helping translate the ‘why’ behind changes happening in the organization and constantly pointing back to those changes being a response to employee feedback,†said Wolf.
What Are the Other Factors
Action on feedback: Unfortunately, taking action on feedback is where most companies are messing things up, despite it having a positive impact on employee engagement. While 92% believe their companies do listen to feedback, only 7% said that their company actually acts well on that feedback, stated the study. Moreover, it also observed that only half of the employees served were asked to provide feedback during the first wave of the pandemic.
Employee well-being: The last but not the least driver of employee engagement during the pandemic is employee well-being. Several studies have highlighted how many employees are struggling to cope up with remote and hybrid working models and are ending up feeling stressed and anxious. So, companies must take action and close the feedback loop.
Against this background, the Qualtrics study noted two things – firstly, only 67% of respondents rated their well-being favorably and secondly, well-being increased with seniority. At least 87% of executives rated their well- being favorably, compared to just 60% of employees at individual contributor-level.
HR News Technology: Experiencing Work From Home Burnout? Experts Say Accept and Address It
A Note For Employers
Though 80% of executives worldwide feel employee experience is important, according to a studyOpens a new window by Deloitte University Press, there is no tried and tested solution. Leaders should understand that all companies and people working in them have different needs. The only way to go about is to pay attention to what your workers concerns are and come up with plans to improve overall employee experience.