With No End in Sight to COVID-19, Companies Need to Increase Their Focus on Employee Experience

August 24, 2020by Katie WagnerEmployee EngagementThe EX RoundupInternal Communications

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Support and Inspiration for the Workplace
Our hand-curated Employee Experience roundup features articles, resources, guidance and inspiration for those who have a role and responsibility in shaping the employee experience. We cover a variety of sources and topics that include internal communications, employer branding, content, employee communications and campaigns, HR trends and workplace culture.

 Employees Are Feeling the Burden
In our latest roundup, learn why we are not feeling prepared to handle the new normal. This outlook shouldn’t surprise most of us. However, it’s easy for companies to assume their employees are adapting and are able to power through any and all challenges. 

 Clearly, research is showing us something different. According to Gallup, the virus has employees feeling less prepared to do their job, less informed about their company’s internal plans and less cared for when it comes to their well-being. 

Looking Beyond Employees: Recognizing the Individual
Since every employee is experiencing unique challenges, companies must view their staff as individuals and attend to each person’s whole self. An industrial-sized approach won’t cut it. Companies need to be deliberate in how to support their employees. Now more than ever, organizations have to start supporting their employees on a personal basis to ensure their employees feel prepared, supported and aligned.

EX Roundup

Covid-19 And Civil Unrest Has Disrupted Employee Experience For Good—Forbes, Denise Lee Yohn @Forbes @deniseleeyohn
“Employers need to rethink every aspect of EX – from recruiting, to onboarding, training, communications, performance management, etc. plus all the daily, seemingly small interactions and experiences that impact how employees think, feel, and do their work. Even an organization that had a healthy, effective culture before the pandemic can’t assume that returning to old employee practices is going to work. Like it or not, EX has become the linchpin in the success of an organization going forward.”

As COVID-19 Continues, Employees Are Feeling Less Prepared—Gallup, Vipula Gandhi @Gallup @Vipula_Gandhi
To start, leaders should get better at having one-on-one conversations with managers and providing tools and resources—especially training on how to manage dispersed workforces and have effective coaching conversations.

4 Effective Ways To Make Your Virtual Workplace More Inclusive—TNW, Giselle Defares @thenextweb @zilvertong
While the pandemic has increased stress levels for many, it offers a new opportunity for companies to readdress how they’ve discussed employee mental health. Research shows that when mental health in the workplace is acknowledged it leads to better performances, engagement, and wellbeing of employees.

Redefining Employee Experience: How To Create A “New Normal”—Strategy+Business, Bhushan Sethi & Jean-Francois marti @stratandbiz @bhushansethi @jfmarti
“For remote workers, it will require you to radically reimagine the virtual workplace in two ways. First, you’ll have to address the conditions your people need to work harmoniously from their home base indefinitely. Second, you’ll have to give them all the tools and support they need to transition real-time collaboration to the cloud and the screen, long-term.”

Dispatch X

This is an expert from the latest edition of Dispatch X from Liquid: where brand experience, customer experience and employee experience come together in one consolidated hub. The pandemic’s new normal continues to transform our collective outlook on everything around us. It’s redefining how and what we do that make us uniquely human. Consumers and employees have been faced with extraordinary challenges, forcing brands and companies to shift and adapt to best serve new, profound needs. Our most recently curated list of Dispatch X articles sheds a little light amid a dark time, sharing insights on how brands and organizations are playing deeper, more meaningful roles in people’s lives. What’s shifting? What’s taking new shape? What’s in store?

Katie Wagner

Katie’s passion and experience in building authentic brands has enabled her to serve in a trusted agency-side role as part practice lead, part agency team leader and overall strategic advisor. She draws on her diverse background to ensure that the agency is doing the right work in support of culture design and employee experience, so that it resonates with her clients’ brand objectives and positively impacts their employees, customers and business.