These tips will help you improve your employee experience strategy today
Looking to enhance your employee experience strategy? Try gifting.
As more and more organisations recognise that their greatest asset is their workforce, we’re seeing increased investment in employee experience strategies. And a significant part of this investment? Team gifting.
In this article we’re going to define what an employee experience strategy is, how it feeds into other aspects of employee life, the benefits of developing a strong employee experience strategy – and how you can maximise your employee experience strategy with some simple yet effective gifting.
Employee experience itself encapsulates what people encounter and register emotionally over the course of their employment at an organisation. It begins as soon as a new hire accepts their offer, continues throughout their development within the company, and ends on their final day of work.
An employee experience strategy is the combination of all the things a company does to ensure its employee experience is top-notch.
Employee experience runs alongside the employee lifecycle simply because it encompasses everything an employee encounters during their time with you. Think employee wellbeing, physical work location/s, company culture, colleague interactions, engagement, leadership methods, salary, job progression and so on.
Why is it important to have a strong employee experience strategy?
Staff churn - Following on from the pandemic, resignations are still on the rise. A recent survey found that 1 in 5 of employees are looking to change jobs within the next 12 months. With this culture shift, it’s become even more important to find new ways to keep talent happy and satisfied with their current employment.
Recruitment - With record levels of job vacancies available, employees can afford to be picky about where they choose to work. Furthermore, employee review sites are becoming increasingly popular, meaning that companies need to ensure their employee experience is on point to attract and keep new talent.
Customer experience -Many organisations fall into the trap of prioritising customer experience over employee experience. But don’t forget: you can’t achieve exceptional CX without exceptional EX and a fully formed employee experience strategy. Loyal and happy team members are much more likely to pass on their positivity to your customers.
Employee engagement -Employee engagement is the measure of how invested a team member is in their work and workplace. By nurturing a culture where staff feel connected to their work and the business as a whole, companies can inspire everything from increased motivation, greater feelings of trust and responsibility, improved output and quality collaboration amongst other positives. Engagement is often confused with employee experience, but one follows the other. High levels of employee engagement are inextricably linked to a good employee experience strategy.
4 ways to improve your employee experience strategy with team gifting
Gift giving isn’t necessarily as linked to occasion as you first might think. Behind the gift itself is an intention – usually of care, consideration and appreciation for the recipient. Gifting strengthens interpersonal bonds in a process called mutual reciprocation.
Sending gifts to employees helps them feel seen and appreciated, and in turn team members often instinctively reciprocate by working hard, demonstrating company loyalty, and becoming further invested in their workplace.
Let’s look at some simple ways to build a robust employee experience strategy by incorporating gifting into daily office life.
Reward and recognition It’s a simple fact that if you want the best people working for you, their hard work should be recognised above and beyond their monthly pay cheque. Sending small gifts to say ‘thanks for the hard work’ is a cost effective way of letting your people know you noticed their efforts.
Recruitment and onboarding In the world of remote working it’s easy for new starters to feel isolated. Sending takeaway vouchers for virtual team lunches is a great way to make sure no one feels left out in those crucial first days, and will help ensure new hires get off to a positive start.
Personal and professional milestones Celebrating big life events like birthdays, weddings, babies, promotions and work anniversaries is a great way to show your people you know they are more than just employees. If you want to go the extra mile, consider gifts that can be shared with friends and family.
Seasonal opportunities Whether it’s an iced coffee on a hot summer day or a case of beers to watch the World Cup final with this winter, the year is packed full of occasions to help instil gifting into your employee experience strategy. Huggg’s scheduled send feature lets you plan ahead and make sure you don’t miss any opportunities to show your hard working people that you're thinking about them.
Check out our YouGov report into reward and recognition to find out more about how to can boost your employee engagement strategy with gifting.
