Employee Experience: Make it Easy to Buy, Use, and Share – Friday Distraction
(Editor’s Note: Today’s article is brought to you by our friends at Kronos, a leading provider of workforce management and human capital management cloud solutions. The Workforce Institute at Kronos released their top trends that will impact the global workforce in 2018. It’s worth checking out. Enjoy the article!)
I must admit that I was a late adopter to the Lyft and/or Uber phenomena. But now that I’ve tried it a few times, I’m a fan. Primarily because it’s “easy to buy and easy to use”.
Years ago, I attended a customer service training session which made that mantra – easy to buy and easy to use – the foundation of the program. It was all about making the customer experience (yes, you guessed it) easy to buy and easy to use. We talked about reducing barriers to purchase, speeding up delivery of the product, and finding ways to educate customers about how to use the product effectively.
I remember that mantra today. When I’m frustrated with a customer experience, I find myself saying, “I’m trying to be a good customer. And I’m trainable. Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
Today’s Time Well Spent from our friends at Kronos reminds me that the employee experience needs to be easy to buy and use as well. And in our technology driven society, it might make sense to add “easy to share”.
“Easy to buy” means having a company culture where employees feel they are welcomed, valued, and supported. It’s about employees “buying into” the organization. Oh sure, no company is perfect, but that doesn’t mean employees can’t feel like they are an integral part of the operation and a contributor to the bottom-line.
“Easy to use” refers to creating policies and procedures that help move the organization forward. It’s about only creating policies when necessary. And those policies or guidelines can be easily located and understood. I believe most employees understand that workplace rules are necessary and important. We just have to be careful not to overdo it.
“Easy to share” is focused on designing a company culture and workplace rules that can be explained by anyone. When I think of onboarding buddy programs, it occurs to me that for them to be successful, employees need to be able to explain stuff to each other. If the only two people who can answer questions are HR and management, there might be a problem.
Employees have choices when it comes to their jobs. If they like the experience, then they will stay. And if they don’t, well…then they’ll probably leave. Organizations should consider have a focused conversation about their employee experience, so employees choose them.
P.S. Onboarding is one of the first visible activities in the employee experience. If you want to learn more about creating “New Hire Momentum: The 3 P’s of Onboarding You Can’t Miss”, check out this Kronos webinar scheduled for Tuesday, January 23, 2018 at 1:00p Eastern. And if you’ve already got something planned, sign up anyway so you can get the recording afterward. The program is eligible for SHRM and HRCI recertification credit.
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