The importance of employee experience in a remote world [Q&A]

Digital transformation initiatives often focus on the customer experience. But in a world where remote working has become increasingly commonplace, employee experience is under the spotlight more than ever.

We spoke to Bill Hewitt, president and CEO of digital experience specialist Aternity, to find out more about the importance of making systems work for employees and how businesses can ensure that they do.

BN: How do you define the employee experience?

BH: Think about it as if you were a customer; you want what you want, when you want it, at the right price. Do employers have the same feeling about their employees? In most cases, they think they do, but when hundreds of applications are launched at the employee, the experience can be overwhelming. The employee experience (EX) is about their interactions with everything, their device, the applications, the network, their environment and the business process they support, including how they feel, which is probably the biggest wild card these days.

EX has become an important board-level topic for a reason. With so much talent on the market, organizations cultivating exceptional employee experiences are in a prime position to attract new talent and retain the great talent they already have on their teams. This is why businesses constantly invest in establishing healthy and motivating cultures, work out of flashy office spaces, and equip employees with the latest and greatest devices and applications that enable them to do their jobs effectively.

Any disruption to these key elements can impact an employee's ability to perform optimally, creating a negative experience that can affect the business. Forward-thinking leaders recognize EX's importance and are taking the appropriate action to ensure their digital workplace is performing well.

BN: What impact has the shift to remote work had on employee experience?

BH: The impact that remote work has had on employee experience is monumental and we are just at the beginning of an entirely new way of work .

Remote work for long periods of time is foreign territory for the majority of people. 'WFH' used to be an accommodation for single parents or someone far from the office and it quickly became a new reality for many.

This has created unique issues for a lot of companies, as the in-person culture they’ve spent years developing can’t translate the same in a remote environment, and the office spaces they invested heavily in no longer play a factor in the employee experience. In-person meetings have been replaced with video or phone calls, and water cooler chats have to happen via collaboration apps like Slack. While these are solid alternatives, nothing beats the connection you can make when talking to someone face-to-face. On top of all this, people are figuring out that they can work from anywhere, causing a dynamic IT environment that may degrade as people move to lower cost areas that may also have lower classes of technology service.

With the people and places aspect of work greatly impacted, a spotlight has been placed on the need for employers to provide their workforces with the technology employees rely on to operate at high levels and consistently make meaningful contributions.

This means putting IT strategies in place that focus on the employee's digital experience to ensure that employee devices and applications are consistently running at peak performance. Any IT-related hiccups that occur, especially with employees remote, have the ability to significantly impact overall productivity and employee morale, both of which can affect the business negatively.

BN: For organizations struggling to maintain optimal employee experiences, what investments should they be thinking about?

BH: First and foremost, any business with employees working remotely for the foreseeable future needs to know the environment their employees are working in and make sure they can adjust their application performance to meet the needs of the business. Second, they have to have the best collaboration tools possible for their own situation. Videoconferencing isn't necessary for every conversation and for many, it's counter-productive. Most employees are motivated by the great people they work with and the opportunity to make meaningful contributions on a daily basis. By arming them with the right collaboration tools, whether that is videoconfencing, the ability to work together at the same time on a document or project, or to instant message, employees are able to connect and collaborate with their colleagues easily despite being disconnected from them.

Finally, businesses need to implement IT strategies that proactively address potential issues with employee devices and applications before they grow into serious issues, focusing on the digital employee experience. This starts by gaining visibility into how end-users are actually experiencing the applications they use on a day-to-day basis and taking action to remediate larger issues immediately. Business applications are now more important than ever, as they are the primary touchpoint an employee has with the business while working remote. Any disruption creates a negative employee experience that when compounded over time can lead to dips in productivity and unsatisfied employees.

BN: What are the key components of establishing a healthy remote culture?

BH: Establishing a healthy remote culture and working environment in a remote culture is not as different as it always has been. It comes down to two key actions taken by leadership: listening to what employees are saying and communicating effectively.

Everyone has gone through phases with the shift to WFH. Some hated it at first and have grown to love it, while some loved it at first and grew to hate it. With this much variability, it's important that leaders work to address WFH concerns on an individual level to provide employees with what they need to make consistent contributions to the business.

On the other hand, it’s important that business leaders communicate with employees regularly so that they are assured that leadership is here to help them. With employees more disconnected than they have ever been, leadership communication to the staff needs to be more frequent and often than it ever was before. It can be something as simple as a company update, checking in on an individual employee or recognizing a department's recent accomplishment, and is critical in helping people feel connected to their workplace.

BN: How can managers adapt to keep employees motivated, whether they're in the office, remote or a combination of the two?

BH: Leaders that know how to properly motivate employees know that the tactics do not change whether employees are in the office or remote. Every employee is motivated by different factors, and it's on managers to find out what each employee wants to get out of a role and put them in a position to work towards that goal.

Most importantly, take time to recognize employees for a job well done, especially on group calls. It's easy to do, and it means more than anyone knows, especially when you sign off that Zoom call and have a great feeling about who you work for.

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