Employee Experience
Give Your People the Workplace Experience They Deserve
Some are calling it the Great Resignation, others the Great Reprioritisation. Whatever you call it, workers are looking for jobs that give them greater fulfillment and flexibility – and they are leaving in droves if employers can’t accommodate.
It all began when companies started to announce plans to bring people back to the office after months of hybrid work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Safety concerns still loom large and many have realised they can do their jobs just as effectively – if not more so – without a daily commute. Whatever the case for your employees, retention has become more important – and more challenging – than ever.
In the UK and Ireland, studies show that nearly half of employees have considered shopping around for another role. While the “quit rate” is the highest it’s been since 2009.
So, what can you do to keep your people happy, productive, and engaged at work?
Focus on Employee Experience
As an employer, you need to ensure that your entire workforce feels valued. That means giving them the tools they need to do their jobs effectively in the way that works best for them. Finance and IT leaders are well positioned to help make this possible because of their constant interactions with every department. But they must collaborate and follow some simple advice.
For starters, listen. Check in regularly with employees using surveys, all-hands calls, team meetings, and even one-on-ones to find out the processes that frustrate them the most. Their feedback might surprise you. For example, you may find that finance and accounts payable love the flexibility of working from home, but that gathering, checking, and rechecking expense spreadsheets, processing paper and e-mailed supplier invoices, and manually consolidating all that data for reporting is now harder than ever. These manual processes may have been manageable when everyone was still in the office, but they’ve become a stumbling block – slowing down everyone that touches those workflows.
Technology to Support the Employee Experience
It’s time to start showing employees that you value their time by investing in cloud-based solutions that automate tedious manual processes and streamline workflows, so they can focus on more interesting and fulfilling tasks. Take our expense and invoice example: With the right technology, employees, managers, and auditors can submit, approve, and process reports and invoices from anywhere. Not only does this allow them to work smarter from home, they’ll be able to hit the ground running when business travel comes back in full swing.
By supporting remote workers with the digital and mobile technology they need to connect, collaborate, and communicate, you are giving them greater freedom and autonomy and showing them that you appreciate the strategic importance of their roles. Plus, by automating and integrating business processes and data, you have all your information in one place – giving you deeper business insight in the bargain.
Finally, make sure to show your employees you care. We recommend gifts, perks, events, and other experiences that help them connect with each other and bring some fun to work. This might mean creating new expense categories or updating your policies. Luckily, those great spend management solutions should also make those updates simple to implement and follow.
Read our full tip sheet to find out more about how you can improve retention and reduce turnover by giving your employees the work experience they deserve.