When you think about your current job, what sticks out in your memory? Your first time walking in for an interview with your now-manager? Training courses you've taken during your tenure there? Everyone in your organisation — from entry-level employees to seasoned supervisors — has specific moments that matter to them.
The first meaningful moment happened all the way back when they first applied and interviewed for their job. If they choose to stay for the remainder of their career, the final impactful moment will be when they retire (and boy will that fly by!). Every day, week, month, and year, things happen that influence different people’s careers in little and big ways. Rather than letting these moments pass by, businesses can shape and enhance them through the use of human capital management (HCM) technology.
An employee's journey in moments
Let's take a look at some of the key moments that matter in an employee’s lifecycle, and what makes these particular milestones so important:
Applying and onboarding
The beginning of any employee's experience with their company starts the moment they apply for an open position and come in for an interview. This part of the process can be full of excitement (and yes, even butterflies) for candidates, and once they accept their position it’s key that employers are able to engage with their new hires right from the start.
This is where the HCM software comes into play, helping to capitalise on applicant and new hire excitement by facilitating a streamlined and immersive recruiting and onboarding process. It’s critical to have an intuitive, branded applicant experience that draws interested candidates in and lets them simply apply for relevant positions.
Even with a smooth recruiting process in place, it’s important to remember why onboarding has gotten a bad rap in the past — all the excitement from hiring and accepting the position can quickly be swept away by a dull or overcomplicated onboarding process. With a unified HCM solution, though, onboarding is engaging and helps new hires maintain that same excitement they felt when they first shook hands to accept the position, all while also letting managers quickly make sure that their newest team members stay on track.
Enrolling in benefits
After learning more about the company culture and policies, employees will enroll in benefits and set themselves and their families up with medical and dental care, as well as taking advantage of any other coverage or perks your organization offers. During this process, they might work directly with HR to figure out which coverage plans work best for their personal circumstances. The types of benefits a company offers can be an important differentiator for workers, and can even be the reason a candidate chooses one employer over another. A self-service portal where employees can access details about their benefits and manage them on their own is incredibly valuable here.
Setting performance goals
Another important moment in the employee journey is when staff members work with their department managers to better understand what’s expected of them and what they can do to develop both personally and professionally. Setting clear and achievable performance goals is critical, as it helps define employees’ positions — and can also provide the driving motivation workers need to complete daily tasks.
On the flip side, performance goals also help employers and supervisors gauge staff members’ progress during regular performance check-ins. Having clear standards to evaluate during these conversations helps team leaders make fair assessments of how employees are doing and know both where to recognize strong contributions and where to focus more heavily on development or improvement plans.
Getting paid
Isn't payday the best? It's a moment that matters for employees of every level and in every industry. While many employers have done away with paper checks, setting up a system that allows workers to access and view their pay stubs is the digital world equivalent. And unlike singular moments like being hired or completing onboarding, payday is a recurring moment that can — and should — be managed through an HCM solution to make it easy for employees to check their pay, set up direct deposits, and find important tax forms anytime, anywhere. Just having the security of regular access to this information makes a huge difference in terms of employee engagement.
Enjoying time off
Every hard-working employee deserves a little time away from the office. When workers decide to take vacations, they want to access time off information instantly, see exactly how many days they’ve accrued, and how much time they can take off. A unified HCM system helps make it simple for them to put in their time off requests and get approval. Best of all, the employer has visibility into all of these activities, so stakeholders can track available accrued hours, time taken off throughout the year, and more to ensure a fair process that employees feel gives them the time away they deserve.
Tracking meaningful work
Taking things to the next level, employees and employers can also use an HCM system to track daily routines and recurring tasks that workers handle from each day to day. Sure, it may seem tedious, but tracking everyday work can provide a true picture into an employee’s overarching accomplishments and show just how much they’ve done since being onboarded.
Some people call this the "grind" — we call it the employee journey. And for companies to accurately track their workers' experiences, they need to capture all the meaningful moments, including everything from the daily and weekly routines, to the monthly and annual achievements, to the one-time celebratory successes. This not only provides valuable data for process improvement and business strategy, but also helps to increase the level of meaningful, fulfilling work employees are doing each day.
The proof is in the performance
Why exactly is it helpful to track the entire employee journey, rather than just zeroing in on a few of the major highlights? In today's workforce, monitoring the employee experience is vital to businesses that want to improve employee retention.
66% of today's workers admit they’re not engaged at work, per a 2018 Gallup survey. A disengaged workforce can quickly lead to high turnover — and this isn’t even the only issue that can result here. Organizations that don't have strong work cultures often have lower productivity than those with employees that feel that their work has value — another Gallup study found that companies with highly engaged workers outperform their competitors by 147%.
I know you're probably saying, "I get it. Employee experience is important." Knowing the value of engagement is one thing, but implementing a strategy aimed to improve it is another altogether. The vast majority — 90% — of leaders believe an engagement strategy can impact their business's success, but only 25% have a strategy in place, according to research from Bain.
Conclusion: Turning moments that matter into opportunities for engagement
Too many employers aren’t providing enough opportunities for their employees to provide feedback. But when employees are encouraged through transparent access to the right information at every step of their personal journey, they feel that their voice and work are more valuable. When they use a unified HCM system, organizations are actively improving the employee experience and, as a result, lowering turnover rates and increasing revenue.
Time is precious – especially in business! The longer you wait to implement an employee engagement strategy, the more opportunities — and high-quality workers — you'll lose out on. No thanks! If you'd like to learn more about what you can do to connect with your employees during the moments that matter to them, check out our Moments that Matter ebook and get on the path to optimizing your employee experience today.