HR Tactics For Prioritizing Employee Experience During A Crisis
It has been a few months and things are fairly sorted out now, as both employers and employees are comfortable with the work-from-home scenario. Now the focus needs to shift to make things better because this is the new normal.
At this stage, your top priority should be enhancing employee experience during the crisis and thereafter. Understandably, this makes sense because your team members are the resources that are actually keeping your business afloat amid the crisis.
Moreover, they are the ones who will drive your organization ahead in the future. When it comes to taking employees to experience a notch higher in crisis, the right HR tactics can make all the difference.
Here are the ones you should embrace for doing so.
Discover how the employees feel
Knowing the employee sentiments is as important as keeping track of customer sentiments in such a situation. The change for them is as drastic as it is for your business and they are bound to be uncomfortable.
Using pulse surveys to understand their mindset, challenges and expectations is a great idea. While they get you genuine feedback, surveys also go a long way in mitigating concerns, fostering trust, and consolidating relationships with the employees.
When you show the willingness and intention to go the extra mile for their well being, they are bound to give their best and stay with you.
Listen and pay attention
Communication is the mainstay of leadership in a crisis.
Even more important than communicating apprehensions clearly is the intention to listen and pay attention to the problems of the employees. However, this is something that leaders and managers often overlook. If you want to enhance the experience of your employees, be there to listen to them and show genuine intentions to resolve their problems.
After all, you cannot instill confidence in your people unless you know what matters to them. This can get challenging amid the chaos but being empathic helps.
Realign and adjust your policies and processes
While surveys and listening to the employees gets you closer to employee expectations, the real action for improving their experience happens on the policies and processes fronts.
Plan what needs to be done and what changes are to be implemented on the actual work front. The automation of the HR processes, from onboarding to scheduling, payroll, benefits, leaves, and performance assessment, is the best way to get started.
Further, you need to realign the policies and clearly communicate them to the workforce. Consider the expectations of employees and the benefits of the business while realigning the policies and processes.
Focus on areas of innovation
In such tough times, employees are likely to feel isolated and cooped up and the impact may show up as a downfall in their performance and creativity.
This is the last thing you would want to happen as your business cannot afford any wastage at this critical juncture. The best measure you can do to boost the experience and confidence of the employees is by focusing on the areas of innovation. For example, hosting virtual events and investing in employee gamification are smart ways to drive engagement.
Apart from professional training initiatives, make an extra effort to bring people together, and foster team spirit so that everyone feels positive and connected.
Pay attention to cutting turnover
When employees go through such stress, they are likely to leave and this can spell trouble for your business in terms of high turnover.
Addressing their issues is important when it comes to making their long-term experience better so that they stay with the company. Similarly, think of incentivizing them without burning a hole in your finances during the crisis. Conveying clearly the value of staying with the company is equally important for enhancing retention for the organization.
You can make the extra effort by anticipating these concerns and diffusing issues even before they arise.
The smallest efforts you make for taking the employee experience a notch higher can go a long way. And it becomes all the more important during such hard times like the one the world is going through. It shows that you value people, which reflects on your image as an employer and improves your reputation in the industry.
Surely, these initiatives are worthwhile as they enable you to attract the best talent and retain it as well.
