Putting HR at the heart of the employee experience: engaging employees from an HR perspective

Creating the right employee experience and employee engagement strategy has become one of the fundamental focal points for many organisations. From high staff retention levels to increased productivity, the added value of engaged and committed employees is increasingly being recognised by business leaders.

Who owns the employee experience or employee engagement anyway, the CEO, HR, Recruitment, Internal Comms, or is it all of them? Depends on the organisation and who is pushing the agenda for change internally or who is tasked with the issues that are often resolved and improved by higher levels of employee engagement.

But let’s agree in the main that the responsibility for employee engagement and the employee experience does sit with HR, what does it mean to HR departments and are we all, whatever our specific HR expertise or discipline, doing enough to integrate the total HR perspective into the employee engagement strategy? Read more…

Internal communication mobile apps: Drivers of employee engagement!

The dynamics of how employees work, choose to communicate and interact in or about the workplace has radically changed over the past 20-30 years and most significantly in the last 5 due to the rise of technology adoption, increase in different generations in the workplace and impact of social media.  Business leaders are becoming more aware of the value, having employee centric internal communication strategies has in driving higher levels of employee engagement and the positive impact that has on the company and the value it delivers to the bottom line, via customer acquisition, growth and retention. Leaders and managers are using a variety of methods to improve, action and facilitate involvement, collaboration, processes and policies accordingly.

Strategies and business models are rapidly integrating internal employee focused targets, centralising on key working aspects and areas which offer the most optimised working environments and terms as well as providing incentives to attract staff as well as reduce staff turnover levels. Read more…

The what’s and why’s of organising and running successful employee focus groups

Employee focus groups offer businesses, opinion and behavioural based insights into how the company operates, roles offered and current performance levels.  They give opportunity, for the employee’s voice to be heard, acknowledged and integrated into subsequent actions which can then boost and increase overall, employee engagement.  This article offers the what’s and why’s of focus groups; highlighting what they really entail and what to look out for when conducting one or several.  Valuable insights into qualitative sessions! Read more…

Employee awards each day keeps the doctor at bay

(or at least a bit of daily recognition does)

Do you have an employee awards programme? If not read on.

Employees are and will forever more, be your company’s most single biggest competitive advantage (they are and never will be an asset as some individuals or consultancies might refer to them as), as you don’t own them, you and they are free to leave when they choose, with contracted notice of course. So you best be treating them right, especially the ones you really want to keep.  When treated with consistent genuine appreciation and recognition for good work and living the company values, together with a supportive and positive leadership and corporate culture, they will soon evolve to become your biggest and most active employer brand promoters and advocates. We’re not suggesting everyone receives employee awards ever day but fostering and embedding a recognition and awarding culture is definitely what we are.

There are two main aspects which encourage and cement the importance of growing and ascertaining a recognition culture within any organisation.  Firstly, the employee’s overall wellbeing and secondly the level of trust culture the organisation has created and how it is lived and demonstrated every day through the company values, behaviours and actions of all employees and particularly the leadership.

Doing either of these aspects badly has untold impact on your employer brand, in particularly to attracting talent and key candidates as well as keeping new recruits. Doing it well, has measurable positive benefits to the bottom line. Read more…

Internal Communication let you down…again?

When it comes to your Employer brand or Internal Communications and any official employee communications, the true success and measurement of effective communication cannot be solely attributed to the platform or channel it is deployed through. Just like in any form of marketing and advertising there are many touch points that an individual can or does experience, see, hears and feels, that all contribute to the amount and depth of information received and interpreted. This in turn amounts to their held views and any resulting action they take because of it: to do nothing, to apply for the job (inside or outside the organisation) to do as is being asked, be that change a process or stop doing something they used to have to do.

However, for any form or type of internal communication to offer true value and cement immediate impact, it must ascertain two key elements: an interactive process that delivers key messages and facilitates the ability to receive constructive feedback, and the language in which it is conveyed through, noting the style, tone and intended audience. Read more…