The big deal

The employee experience is under substantial change in a post-pandemic world. Reputable periodicals call humanization of the workplace and orientation towards employees as people and people’s experience a new brand of employee experience. Operational shifts of 2020 (remote work, supply chain reinventing, health care, e-com booming, and so on) caused overworking on one hand and workforce shortage on the other hand. The pandemic has transformed the labor market and pushed it towards an individual: it is the latter who chooses where, how long and for which cost he or she will be working. The workplace has changed too, and the price of work is crucial. It is now all about the balance between ‘how much I get’ and ‘how much I invest into my work’. The way people hired and treated as individuals is under a focus. Benefits are no more exactly the benefits itself, but procedures and treatment that employees are put into — define the success of the whole story. This tendency has already led to a tremendous understaffing. So, as the budgeting campaign for the next year is in progress, maybe it is the right time to think about the new Human Strategy.

Lesson to learn — Employee experience is now a person’s experience.

Source — Gartner CHRO Guide

The way the work is organized, autonomy and flexibility, well-being care and personal growth — are key issues to reinvent right now. It is all about ‘what I do really matters, and I see how I am appreciated’. Culture is now about human-to-human, and not about statements about ‘purpose’ or ‘mission’. Lots to think about.

The table above is the new basis for the HR action plan and EVP — people are to be treated as individuals, not as a workforce. And such Human strategy will require considerable investments.

First. It is time to realize that this is the new reality it will not change. Hm.. well, yes, it will change in accordance to Murphy’s law — to a more complex way.

Second. It is time to analyze new basic demands and start building new work infrastructure and environment.

Third. Management team has to developed soft skills and start building interrelations within the teams and within the company. New recognition tools are to be implemented without delay, ever such simple ones as small-talks.

Fourth. Workplace flexibility, information transparency tools, simplified procedures/one-click services — is a must in this season. And don’t forget about well-being programs, care and appreciation.

Fifth. Personal growth paths and career development opportunities, educational and expertise sharing tools — mean now more that even you can imagine and calculate.

Actually, use Gartner’s Guide as a starting point, the steps and actions to undertake are quite universal in this new brand Human Era.

The big deal is now indeed a huge issue, because it is a big deal with:

• investors — company are now to make considerable investments to a care.
• operations is about workplace model reengineering and extreme simplification of procedures.
• technology — is enabling hybrid workplace and automation of business processes as well as enabling offline-like communications.
• human nature is about the upgrade of interpersonal skills and empathy.

Workforce health is under a serious damage in any segment and industry. Companies undergo epidemic burnout and overstress (over 85% of employees have experienced burnout according to Gartner), therefore leaders need to delve into statistics to see the big picture of the damage and highlight the most damaged part of the workforce and the way it was damaged. And the following measures should be an issue of a Board of Directors, not an issue of a line manager. The big deal for a corporation is to understand that productivity is not more about productivity.