Four ways to improve employee experience

At Simplified CX, we talk extensively about both customer experience and employee experience (EX) because we strongly believe that great EX begets great CX. Simple. How can your employees provide your customers with a positive experience if they don't get it where they work in the first place? They might try to ignore the various inconveniences they face or even mask their true feelings, but—one way or another—it'll eventually impact their performance and participation in CX. Therefore, in order to streamline and enhance CX, it's essential that you start with EX.

In the past, we've written about the importance of employee empowerment and the need to take mental health seriously. In this article, we'll be sharing four things you can do to improve EX.

Equip them with the right tools

This is the first thing you need to look at because even the right person for the right job might sometimes falter if they don't have the right tools—those that save time and effort. Now that AI-based tools and capabilities are gaining traction, you can help your team members leverage their power to automate mundane work and support decision-making. At the same time, encourage them to find the right balance between human effort and AI usage: AI for heavy-duty data crunching and analytics, and human effort for tasks that demand creativity and authenticity.

Furthermore, empower employees in non-technical roles through no-code/low-code software with which they can build custom solutions to streamline their day-to-day work. Similarly, learn about the challenges they commonly face and consider their input while purchasing software or any other tool they require for work.

Use an internal help desk to resolve issues

For employees in customer-facing roles, customers are people from outside the organization, but for those in departments such as HR, payroll, admin, and the like, customers are people within the organization. That said, it's a good idea to set up a help desk in your organization which caters to the needs of internal customers—i.e., employees.

There are good help desk software tools out there that let you set up departments and then route employee issues/emails to the relevant departments via automated workflows. A setup like this enables you to track and handle issues from one place so that you can keep tabs on the EX at your organization and make improvements where necessary.

Set up an internal social media platform

Much like an internal help desk, an internal social media/networking platform can enhance EX greatly. First, employees get to collaborate more effectively and share knowledge and best practices with their colleagues. Your organization will for sure have an IM app for communication and collaboration. So how can a networking platform make things better? With IM apps, conversations are mostly one-on-one or within a group of people who know one another. An org-level networking platform opens up the audience base to employees across all teams, and thus helps widen the range of perspectives and ideas being discussed.

Second, an internal networking platform can help bridge two gaps in your organization:

• The gap between different teams and business functions: Each team can share updates on latest developments, major milestones, challenges overcome, and so on.
• The gap between decision-makers and employees at the lowest level: C-suite leaders can communicate directly with those people who translate their vision into reality, and can provide direction and assurance as and when needed.

What does bridging these gaps lead to? More transparency, visibility, clarity, and motivation.

(Bonus tip: If you decide to set up an internal networking platform, consider enabling anonymity so that employees can share their thoughts and concerns more freely.)

Conduct reverse performance reviews

This is not something that organizations usually practice, but if there's one definite way to improve EX, it's this. By now, it's common knowledge that poor management is a leading cause of employee attrition and dissatisfaction. Yes, employees have always sought greener pastures due to other reasons, but poor management is one reason that you can identify and control. So establish a reverse performance review process whereby team members highlight things that their managers can do better.

Even if this isn't a practice in your organization, if you're a manager who cares about your team members' experience, consider performing this exercise at least once a year. Do it with an open mind and empathy because you've trodden the same path at some point in your career.

As for how you go about it, there are two ways: 1. Identify specific areas of your performance as a manager and restrict your questions to those areas, or 2. keep it open-ended and give team members the full scope to share their thoughts freely.
The kind and extent of feedback you receive will vary depending on which approach you choose, but either way, you'll receive an opportunity to introspect and identify areas of improvement.

To reiterate, EX has a direct bearing on CX. So if you're committed to improving CX outside your organization, start by improving the EX inside your organization. What are some other things that organizations do to improve EX? Feel free to share them in the comments!