Touchpoints, The Key To Your Employee Experience<\/h2>\n

Did you ever dine at a restaurant where the d\u00e9cor and service were fantastic – but the food was sub-par? Have you requested paperless statements (i.e. electronic) at the urging of your bank – only to receive regular solicitations for their platinum credit card via snail mail? Or had a delightful conversation with a customer service rep who tried to help you navigate a broken process?<\/p>\n

As individuals, we have relationships with entities or organizations that are not unlike our relationships with other people. There are multiple ways we interact with these entities that shape how we view them. The relationship we have with our employer is an important example.<\/p>\n

Employee Touchpoints Explained<\/h3>\n

Employee engagement\u2026 workplace satisfaction\u2026 employee value proposition<\/em>. All of these terms refer to how employees \u2018experience\u2019 their employers. This set of experiences (or touchpoints<\/em>) becomes the foundation for the degree to which employees are pleased with the \u2018job\u2019 part of their lives.<\/p>\n

Examples of touchpoints include:<\/p>\n

\n
• Every<\/em> communication (written or verbal)<\/li>\n
• Day-to-day interactions with leaders<\/li>\n
• The performance management process<\/li>\n
• Workplace design<\/li>\n
• Policies<\/li>\n
• Benefits plans<\/li>\n
• Exit processes<\/li>\n
• Recruiting<\/li>\n
• Celebrations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  The rest of this article will make an underlying assumption that you believe it is in your organization\u2019s best interest to have a healthy work environment and that touchpoints will play a key role.<\/em><\/p>\n

  The Spectrum of Employee Experience<\/h3>\n

  At one end of the spectrum is an approach that involves no effort in managing touchpoints. In other words, no attention is paid to the alignment between how the organization interacts with employees and what you want their relationship with the organization to be.<\/p>\n

  At the other end of the spectrum, the desired employee experience is well-defined and serves as a filter for all actions that affect employees. Values drive not only what<\/em> is done, but also how<\/em> it is done. Essentially, the organization practices what it preaches.<\/em><\/p>\n

  In reality, many organizations fall somewhere in the middle. Some touchpoints are managed intentionally and foster the desired employee experience – and some are not. The touchpoints that are not aligned create space for confusion and work against<\/em> an organization that wants to be viewed as authentic.<\/p>\n

  A Recommendation<\/h3>\n

  Start with a quick audit of your employee touchpoints. You can do this alone. Or better yet, pull together a group of people from all levels of the organization and walk through the following:<\/p>\n

  \n
  1. Review<\/strong> the desired employee experience. If this is something you have trouble articulating, then you can buy me a cup of coffee and we\u2018ll talk through it.<\/li>\n
  2. Identify<\/strong> the different ways employees \u2018interact\u2019 with the organization throughout the lifecycle of employment. These are the touchpoints<\/em> (see examples above). The list may be long.<\/li>\n
  3. Rate<\/strong> each touchpoint from 1 to 4 to indicate the degree to which it aligns with, or supports, the desired employee experience. This rating should indicate how the employee<\/em> would feel. Your perspective as a leader may be very different than theirs.<\/li>\n
  4. For those rated lowest, develop<\/strong> a game plan to lift the rating. In many cases, simply communicating more effectively the reason behind why<\/em> things are done the way they are is the key.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     Taking these steps will result in an approach that causes<\/em> the desired employee experience as opposed to hoping<\/em> that it happens. Something so important deserves<\/em> attention and a plan.<\/p>\n

      <\/p>\n

     Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

     Touchpoints, The Key To Your Employee Experience Did you ever dine at a restaurant where the d\u00e9cor and service were fantastic – but the food was sub-par? Have you requested paperless statements (i.e. electronic) at the urging of your bank – only to receive regular solicitations for their platinum credit card via snail mail? Or …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,6],"tags":[76,73,70,75,74],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":813,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions\/813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepeopleadvantage.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}