The world around us in post covid pandemic era has changed more rapidly than ever before and many changes envisaged in a coming decade by most optimistic estimates have transpired into reality within this small period. From work from home becoming a reality to surge in technology solutions to rapid increase in gig economy, people have much more opportunities than companies ever anticipated.
These rapid revolutionary changes in processes, technology, people and the way we work have led Company Executives and Leaders to get entangled in this vicious web of internal and external business dynamics.
But, one thing is for real that with the surge in employment opportunities attracting and retaining talent is the most daunting task in the hands of business and HR leaders.
According to the latest Manpower Group Employment Outlook Survey, the “Great Resignation” is impacting the hiring sentiments in most Sectors.
Hiring sentiment in India is the strongest reported in eight years, improving by a whopping 43% when compared with this same time an year ago.
According to this survey, India has reported the strongest hiring prospects (+49%) in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by Australia (+37%) and Hong Kong (+37%), while the weakest regional labor market is expected in Japan (+11%), Taiwan (+13%) and Singapore (+14%).
With the changes in the way we work, surge in attrition rates and this increase in demand CEOs and HR Leaders need to relook the way the “Employee Experience” is being managed to engage and retain the employees,
5 key embodiments to stay afloat and competitive in business:
1. Employee experience is the epicenter of business model
In a highly competitive market of today it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Organizations to Attract and Retain talent. And with evolution of social media brand perception has become key when it comes to recruitment and retention.
With employees being much more selective in choosing the companies they will like to work for and accessibility of information, especially platforms like Glassdoor, Linkedin, AngelList, it is no longer an option, but an imperative to look at Employee Experience as competitive business advantage.
2. Decentrailized and hybrid work force is real
Post Covid era has brought changes in the way we work, like never before. The very people who were ready to migrate to any place for a job now have ample opportunities of working remotely.
A Gartner survey found than 82% of company leaders are planning to let employees continue to work remotely
The positives are being seen by both Organizations as well employees. While Organizations see much reduced investments into managing and running infrastructure, the employees save their time in travelling to office, save investments on managing alternative accommodation, get flexibility to work, get enhanced work-life balance and much more
With Organizations as well as Employees seeing benefits of Hybrid / Decentralized work remote working has become for real either with decentralized offices OR split across decentralized offices and Work from home (Hybrid-Remote) or complete Work From Home (Fully-Remote) requiring all new approach of communication and engaging with employees.
3. Employee well-being is not only the buzzword
As remote work blurs the line between work and life, HR Leaders are prioritizing employee well-being and mental health. This focus on nurturing employee well-being is critical to developing workplace resilience.
The Future Workplace 2021 HR Sentiment survey found that 68% of senior HR leaders (of which 40% were CHROs) rated employee well-being and mental health as a top priority.
Employers should also consider the impact of agile working; focusing on delivering communications effectively, and looking at how their health and wellbeing benefits can provide additional support to affected employees. The impact on mental health should not be overlooked, and employers should explore how they can help support employees’ emotional wellbeing during this period of uncertainty.
4. Hearing Voice of Employees is the only way to lead to success
Employee voice refers to the ability and willingness of your people to share their input, questions, concerns, and suggestions with your company for both internal and external company issues. An official voice of the employee program is a way to systematically collect and respond to that feedback.
There are a few key signs you might already have an informal voice of employee program in place, including:
- Employee willingness to speak up in meetings and make suggestions
- Team members coming forward on a regular basis with unique proposals, suggestions, and questions
- Workers who problem-solve on their own and then share the insights with the team
These all show that there’s a solid work culture where people are encouraged to share their ideas and have confidence that they will be heard.
But most employers start and stop their employee voice program either there or with a simple suggestion box. Voice of the employee is about so much more, including the implementation of strategies where employee voice is captured intentionally and regularly.
More so with Remote Working it has become imminent for CEOs and HR Leaders to listen to employees often to make them feel belonging and gain feedback on their experiences, needs, ideas, suggestions to design employee experience strategy which help to keep them engaged, retained and productive.
5. Digitization, data, analytics are no more an alternative but a realistic imminent
The Business World has changed and HR can’t afford to lag behind. “The War For The Future of HR” is already over, and “data analytics” has won!
For decades the world of business was dominated by established brick-and-mortar firms like General Motors, Sears, and GE. However, over the last handful of years, what it takes to dominate in business has shifted dramatically. To the point where the new dominating firms like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook lead with the highest market cap value (across all industries) because of their speed and innovation.
This new vanguard of firms prospers not because of their physical facilities or a century of storied corporate history, but because they have increased their innovation rates, speed, and adaptiveness, almost exclusively with the use of data analytics.
Because of their rapid growth and rise to dominance, CEOs at other firms now want to adopt the analytics approach made famous by these top firms. And that means that CEOs now demand that each and every business function shift to the analytics model, with its emphasis on data, digitalization, data scientists, and predictive analytics.
Data driven digital approach is the only way forward by hearing voice of employees, collecting and analyzing their experiences throughout their lifecycle frequently. This will not only help HR Leaders in building culture of inclusivity, but, also will help them get insights into key employee metrics like Employee Sentiments, Engagement, NPS and gain predictive signals of attrition before employee actually leave.
“The Future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become an obvious”
John Scully
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At Umwelt.Ai we are digitizing Employee Experience Management and delivering data driven predictive insights to CEOs and HR Leaders by helping you listen to your employees throughout their journey irrespective of where they are and understanding their sentiments, needs, desires, beliefs in real-time to help you take proactive, informed actions and keep them engaged, retained and productive.