Employee experience, simply put, is creating an environment where employees want and do not need to work. It encapsulates what people encounter and observe over the period of time they work in the organization.

With the ongoing pandemic, there has not been a better time in history for organizations to focus on the employee experience they are providing. If you are a business leader or a C-suite Management professional, this is the question to ask yourself – “Have you treated your employees the same at times of crisis and at times when they are doing great?” According to Jacob Morgan, best-selling author & Keynote Speaker, there are 3 environments that define employee experience – Culture, Technology, and Physical Space. They are what he says makes the Employee Experience Equation. We will look at them one by one.

Culture

There are numerous ideas and schools of thought about what culture is. Some people believe that culture is what happens when the manager leaves the room. There are also many who think that culture is cultivated from the values, attitudes, practices, and the mission of the company. All of this may be true or none at all. According to Jacob Morgan, culture stems from the feeling your employees get from working for your company and you as a leader. It is influenced by the style of leadership and how that inspires a sense of purpose among your employees. Believe it or not, the corporate culture practiced by your company has a direct effect on 40% of the overall employee experience and hence has the power to energize or drain your team.

Technology

Technology, or the means to pass information in the modern cyber-era, is the backbone of any organization. Imagine a day at work with your network completely down and inoperable. For your employees, the company’s technology are the laptops, desktops, or mobile devices the company has provided them with for the purpose of their work; video conferencing solutions they are provided with, applications, software, learning tools, and user experience and design element that impact how employees use these various tools. The management cannot provide faulty equipment to the employees and expect them to show up to work with commitment and the drive to achieve their targets. The world today is all about collaborations and communications. Using outdated technology can make it severely frustrating for your employees and creates an environment that is unmotivated and unproductive instead of being engaged, happy, and productive. Technology is 30% of the overall employee experience.

Physical Space

The physical workspace is the physical area around you in your office – the floor, the cubicles, the toilets, the people you work with, and everything in your office building. It also refers to the physical perks you might be getting such as the parking lot, the cafeteria, an on-site gym, or a lounge area for the employees and visitors. Some companies even have areas for employees to take a quick nap. Of course, during the pandemic, employees have been shifted to working remotely. This has made them even more frustrated. As a company, if it is financially feasible, it is your responsibility to provide them with the necessities to ease their new situation and support in any way appropriately plausible. The physical space your employees work is the rest of the 30% of the employee experience equation. The physical space they work in is supposed to energize and motivate them to complete their tasks and achieve their goals.

The future of workplace and talent retention has a huge dependency on creating an employee experience that motivates them and this is something a lot of the major companies around the world had started to realize pre-pandemic. Only 10% of those companies have successfully adopted a positive employee experience and there’s a long way to go in terms of investment and knowledge. UAE is a business hub of the world and it is high time that we thought the employee experience we are providing to the lifelines of our industries.