5 Ways You’re Ruining Your Employee Experience (not technology related)
By: Juanita Olguin
Tags: Employee Experience, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Workplace Culture, Workplace

2020 became the year of the employee. The pandemic caused companies to scramble to get the employee experience right. There were all manner of activities and investments in PCs, collaboration tools like Slack, video conferencing tools like Zoom, and a heavy focus on knowledge management so employees could find things while working remotely (without having to bother a colleague).

While a lot of time, money, and energy was spent on technologies and process enhancements, not enough was spent on addressing what I’ll call the “business etiquette & hygiene fundamentals”.

So, to prepare you for 2021, which is sure to be a continuation of 2020, albeit with slightly more wisdom and, hopefully, more patience, I wanted to share 5 ways companies are ruining the employee experience.

By revisiting and really taking these “business etiquette & hygiene fundamentals” to heart, I believe you will see a real change in your teams.

1. Lack of communication — employees need to know what’s going on, they are agile enough to accept changing priorities but if you don’t communicate, how can they adapt? I cannot state enough times that teams need an intranet, or team site where they can see an organized view of what’s going on. Too many times team members just don’t know what’s going on — and relying on people to communicate a message doesn’t always work — hence intranet / team site.

2. Unclear, untracked goals — employees will rise to meet a challenge, but how can they do that when they don’t know what the challenge is? Managers and leaders need to be clear on goals and expectations — and track towards this. Many times, goals and objectives get set, and then people forget. Again, employees will be agile and adapt if there needs to be a change, and this is where communication comes in. But having clear goals that get tracked on the regular will help make teams successful and employees feel like they are adding true value.

3. Too many goals, not enough people — employees want to do their best and add value! However, when you have too many goals and activities with no clear strategy or objectives, you are setting your teams up to fail. Really consider the outcomes you want and stop doing things that are not even being tracked! When you are clear and focused, everyone succeeds. When you have too many things going on and not enough people, you are creating a burnout, transactional culture.

4. Undermining your staff — you hire a staff and a team to do work, and when you as a manager or leader go against what your staff suggests — with no rationale or bad logic — that is a quick way to create a disengaged employee. This is the dictator approach and please beware because if one person is going to override research and logic, then you are creating a subservient culture where employees will not think, will not suggest new ideas and will just wait for the dictator’s orders.

5. Not being direct enough — this seems a bit counter to number four, but number five is about managers and leaders being as direct as possible in their communication and approach with employees. Another way to think about this is no ‘sugar coating’. Again, employees are agile and will respond quickly to make improvements, however, if you do not communicate or do not communicate in a direct way, this will result in a lot of gray area and potential misalignment on direction which leads to wasted time, frustration, and ultimately disengagement.

Let me know if I’ve missed any, but hope this revisiting of the fundamentals helps teams be successful together in 2021.

-Juanita