Tips to Improve Employee Experience in a Small Business

If you run a small or large business you should know that good employee experience is key to your success. Experience in this case comprises every aspect encountered by an employee in the entirety of work including culture, the physical work environment, relationships, and benefits among others.

A good employee experience will attract, motivate, and retain employees in an organization. So what do you need to put in place to improve employee experience in your small business? Let us look at simple ways to improve employee experience even with a small business budget.

Leverage Employee Journey Mapping

Employee journey mapping as the name suggests is basically matching or understanding stages of individual employees in your business and giving them the required attention. Experts recommend that you use an HRIS for an improved employee experience in a small business. Yes, employees undergo varied phases in their work journey within a company. There are points where they need much attention from the employer because of certain inevitable pains. Getting an understanding of their lifecycle with the help of HRIS tools will let you fill these niches and ensure higher employee retention.

Create a Suitable Onboarding Experience

A suitable onboarding program is a perfect captain that safely steers new employees into their new destination environment. Onboarding experience gives an employee a clue about how the organization values them.  Nearly a third of new employees look for greener pastures within their first six months of work. This significant exodus is attributed to poor onboarding experience. Experts advise that businesses should design a clear, audience-specific, and measurable onboarding program.

Offer Career Advancement Opportunities

No one boards the train of career stagnation but how can you manage your career? Simply by adding more knowledge and skills. The same goes for employees in any business. According to various surveys, most employees feel comfortable working in a company that gives them room to develop their careers. Good companies train their employees and mentor them on various aspects to get more knowledge and skill. This way, employees feel like the company is investing in them and value them as well.

Address Employees Requests/Complaints

Many companies are known to stage PR shows by engaging their employees through questionnaires without acting on their feedback surveys. The ultimate consequence is mistrust from the employees and they will cease giving their feedback. If you think you have silenced them be certain that you are lying grounds for a bigger problem.

Focus on Stay Interviews

While most companies still value exit interviews, it is crucial to note that such interviews have little effect on employee retention. Instead of focusing on exit interviews why not switch your attention to stay interviews? This kind of interview provides an insight into the employer on employees’ desires and possible employee retention loopholes. This way, employers can earmark areas of improvement for talent growth in the company.

Foster Good Internal Communication

Communication is a vital component of the development of every business. Implementing a good internal communication framework significantly increases the sense of purpose for the employees. They feel that they are working for a common goal and eventually an excellent company culture- a cohesive culture- is born. Companies should leverage suitable communication tools to remotely communicate with employees and this explains why it is important to give employees communication training. 

Value employees Wellness

When employees are mentally, emotionally, and spiritually okay, their productivity level is pretty good. An overworked employee is not only physically exhausted but mentally and emotionally drained. Active employees are more productive. Most employers foster employees’ wellness through health and fitness programs, paid vacations, free healthy snacks, gyms and health clinics, and paid parental leaves among others.

Provide Employees with the Best Tools

Any modern business needs tech tools to be efficient and productive; that goes for your company too. If you hold your employees to a high standard, you should provide them with the best tools to meet your expectations. With so many advancements in technology occurring every year, it’s important to upgrade your equipment from time to time to keep up with the times. Providing your employees with up-to-date hardware and software coupled with relevant training programs sets them up for success and garners greater employee satisfaction.

Review Compensations

Paying your employees competitively is key to retaining employees in your business. Have a mechanism that compares your pay with other companies as well as the state of the current market.

Encourage healthy integration and exposure

A healthy balance of life eases stress and brings in more motivation. Programs like camp time, retreat, workshops, conferences, or training sessions related to the job create good life integration between employees.

Offer the right bonuses

Although it is good to give out bonuses to employees, research shows that employees feel better when they receive the right perks. Things like health services and work flexibility appeal more to employees than perks like lunch. So try to understand what kind of perks suit your employees to create a better employee experience.

Final thoughts

We hope these tips will help you improve employee experience in your business. The good thing is that most of them are inexpensive and implementable on a budget.