CMO, RedRoute. Passionate about bringing humanity to marketing.
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Crafting great employee experiences takes time, dedication and trial and error—even in the best of times. Unfortunately, with worries about the current economic situation in the United States, organizations might start to gloss over creating great employee experiences, focusing solely on keeping the lights on. But doing so would be a mistake.
People keep the lights on at organizations. As a chief marketing officer with years of experience managing employees, I’ve seen firsthand that when employees feel welcomed, respected and cared for, they’ll go above and beyond for their company.
Here are a few steps employers can take to create great employee experiences that increase the likelihood of employees remaining committed to their jobs.
1. Avoid Assumptions
Some employers assume they know their employees. Maybe they believe their employees will procrastinate if they’re given extended deadlines, or that they won’t be productive if they work from home.
But in some (arguably many) of these cases, these perceptions are generalized—and inaccurate. They often stem from a small number of employees exhibiting certain behaviors, and managers then generalizing that all employees at the organization are like that. For example, perhaps a manager sees that two employees who work from home are consistently missing deadlines. The manager then uses those observations as “evidence” that remote work isn’t feasible for the organization and brings the entire team back to the office or implements a hybrid model.
However, instead of assuming that remote work was the wrong choice for everyone, the manager could have and should have recognized that those two employees were probably outliers and then turned those observations into a teachable moment, such as by providing coaching to the two employees so they can work more efficiently at home.
2. Focus On Employee Experiences That Drive Good Outcomes
Free snacks and getting birthdays off aren’t perks I imagine anyone would complain about, but I don’t classify them as meaningful employee experiences that drive good outcomes.
Employers should prioritize diving deeper with their employees to understand their true passions and goals and create opportunities for them to reach those goals. A weekly one-on-one with a manager will go much further than free chips in the pantry for an employee’s professional future. For instance, during those weekly one-on-ones, a manager could discover that an employee with a decade of experience in a particular field, such as technical SEO, wants to explore another passion of theirs, such as content writing. With that information, the two can work together to carve out a path forward for the employee to pursue that interest.
Employers should also prioritize providing good benefits to help employees build their lives outside of work. Those benefits include robust 401(k) programs, salary increases, better health insurance and increased PTO.
I’m not saying employers should take away “fun” perks like providing free snacks and giving birthdays off. Instead, I’m arguing that employers should first ensure their foundational benefits and processes are substantial. Think about it this way: Wouldn’t you find it a bit off-putting if your employer said you could take your birthday off when they only offer five days of PTO per year and make everyone work over 50 hours a week?
3. Address Biases When It Comes To Employee Experience Initiatives
Everyone has their own biases, including leaders at organizations. When crafting employee experience initiatives, it’s important that leaders leave their biases at the door.
Here’s an example. A leader might highly value employee outings, like dinners and golfing. But some employees might be more introverted and may not appreciate those experiences as much. It’s up to all leaders to think about who is working for them, what matters to those people and which employee experiences will most benefit them and make them feel a sense of belonging.
4. Don’t Make The Wrong Cuts
Especially during economic downturns, employers will think about how to save money.
Over the years, I’ve seen that these cuts often fall under travel, technology or both. But in some instances, cutting travel and/or technology can be the wrong move.
Let’s start with travel. Business travel can help develop stronger teams; for instance, a group of employees who attend a tradeshow across the country can build rapport with one another and return with a good number of leads. As for technology, sometimes leaders underestimate just how much it can play a role in creating and maintaining good employee experiences. Cutting an employee messaging tool and reverting to just email for communication, for instance, can quickly lead to misunderstandings, information gaps and confusion.
5. Stop Setting Unrealistic Expectations
Goals are great, but unrealistic goals can go downhill fast.
What’s an example of an unrealistic expectation? Let’s say a startup gets $3 million in its first round of funding and then tells its investors it will generate five times that amount in profit in the next two years. The startup then hires additional employees, bringing up its expenses. The employees are under pressure to iterate on the product, approach marketing as cheaply as possible, win as many deals as possible, etc. In the process, they get burned out from working long hours and can’t operate at peak performance. As a result, the startup ends up not meeting its goal—the core reason being that it was an unrealistic goal to begin with. A more realistic profit goal would have been to focus on generating two times the amount of that original funding.
Similar things happen at different levels in the professional world, whether it’s a marketing director demanding a 50% increase in organic traffic or an engineering director pushing for multiple software updates a quarter. Unrealistic expectations set everyone up for failure. Realistic expectations avoid wild goose chases—especially when the world around us feels so volatile.
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