1. Your people are your brand. If you start with employee experience and you get this right, your employees will become the biggest advocates of your brand. Richard Branson famously said “if you look after your staff, they’ll look after your customers.” And he was onto something. With great employee experiences you can achieve great customer experience. And with great customer experience you can achieve growth.
2. Have one big brand idea. If you have one clear, inspiring idea that people can really get behind then you’ll create far bigger impact. Avoid having a separate internal and external idea or you’ll create unnecessary confusion and dilute the power of your brand.
3. Unify your EX. Ex is, more often that not, a team effort. Multiple people, teams, departments etc can all be working on EX initiatives at any one time. If you want to build a powerful culture, you have to find ways to join all this activity up. Unify the work so that it comes together and delivers against the common goal. Avoid working in deep silos.
4. One size rarely fits all. It’s easy to base your perception of EX on your own perceptions but it’s likely to be way off the mark. You have to do the hard yards and seek to understand everyone, not just the easy to reach groups. Find out what will interest them and make a difference to their working day. The better, truer and more clear picture you have, the better chance you’ll have of influencing outcomes.
5. Challenge the ordinary. Make sure you do any work in the EX space justice. Don’t treat it as the poor relative when it comes to thinking, effort, creativity and execution. You have to wow your employees with the same energy you’d devote to wowing your customers. In essence, make sure your work doesn’t suck and it’ll pay dividends.
6. Explore new ways of delivering EX. Yes, some existing channels will still be valuable but don’t be afraid to branch out and try new platforms and exploratory ideas. Be brave, don’t just lean on the tried and tested solutions.
7. Encourage a learning culture. We should all be working at our edge, so encourage your employees to have a go. Give people the opportunity to make mistakes, to explore, to fail and to come out stronger. Gone are the days when everyone followed one path to learn.
8.Create a safe space for employees to challenge. By allowing your people the opportunity to share their ideas, their concerns and their ways of working without judgement, you empower them to be curious and put forward positive changes. Some of the best ideas have emerged from people questioning how or why an organisation does things a certain way. Meanwhile, a culture of openness allows new perspectives on wellbeing and DE&I to move these areas in for more inclusive workplaces.
9. EX is a work in progress. To get the best out of employee engagement, you’ll never be satisfied. Keep listening, keep surveying and keep adapting. People and culture are the driving force for good business so never rest on your laurels where their experience is concerned.
