We now experience the rapid changes to the workplace brought by the pandemic.

Now more than ever, we realize the greater dependency of company performance with the experience of employees (especially during trying times).

The Harvard Business Review (HBR) shared a few but really helpful tips below on how to build a Great Employee Experience. They highlighted that a powerful employee experience that fosters collaboration, creativity, productivity, and engagement is crucial to driving your growth. However, you need to utilize the right employee experience technology (EX) to leverage the full energy of your employees.

HBR shares some key survey results below. HBR mentioned that fewer than a third (31%) of executives responding to a recent survey said employee experience is a high priority at their organizations.

And not all businesses that do prioritize employee experience view it as a technological concern. Far more respondents said their organizations view employee experience as the responsibility of human resources (40%) or the C-suite (14%) than IT (fewer than 5%).

But a majority of executives in the survey said EX initiatives have had the greatest impact on engagement and productivity. And many of these executives see the promise in EX improvements: 62% hope to boost productivity; 51%, employee retention; and 47%, collaboration.

Today, that difference is critical. Most respondents (93%) who said their companies prioritize employee experience felt their organizations are well-positioned to work remotely with efficiency. And a similar majority (94%) of those who prioritize employee experience consider their remote-work agility a competitive advantage.

1. Empowering Your Remote Workforce

In a remote work environment, getting that advantage depends on technological considerations: making sure employees have secure access, reliable Internet, low latency, and compatibility across systems.

“Think about IT as the pipeline that enables a good experience,” says Jeff Spar, former CIO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Reader’s Digest. “It’s an enabling component of a good workplace experience. If it isn’t working well, everyone is frustrated.”

EX often boils down to the basics. Can employees access the business applications they need—even their email? Cloud-based applications give employees the seamless, secure access they need to achieve high efficiency and productivity from remote offices.

2. Promote a Healthy Online Culture

Employee engagement takes more than productivity tools. It requires a robust corporate culture, too. And technology enables culture as much as work productivity.

Online resource groups and internal social applications, long vital to remote employees who couldn’t benefit from in-person inspiration and information-sharing, now serve entire organizations equally. In this work environment, the connectivity that technology allows is critical to employee engagement, well-being, belonging, retention, and company performance.

Organizations that prioritize employee experience see a greater boost to profitability, resilience, and growth than those that don’t, the survey revealed.

“Finding time for employees to come together is more important than ever,” says Rosanna Durruthy, LinkedIn’s VP of Global Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. “Harnessing the power of employee [online] resource groups is one way, we’ve found, to maintain connective tissue across global, distributed, and remote teams.”

3. Get Going

For some companies, adopting an Employee Experience centered approach to culture can pose challenges. Fulfilling the promise of EX requires executives’ and management’s full support to motivate employees through the changes, making sure individuals get customized EX—and clearing any red tape.

One starting point is to define the parameters: where employee experience stops and human-resources management begins. Effective employee experience policy and practices can boost management, but they’re not a substitute for it. The key is balancing organizational structure with employee autonomy, says Mike Stull, chief strategy officer of Employers Health.

Now more than ever, a company’s success depends on having a robust employee experience. And organizations implementing cultural changes that enable and support powerful EX, particularly in a remote work environment, are seeing ways their investments may make them more productive, resilient, and competitive.

Do you need help to assess and find the right tools to improve the Employee Experience in your company? Let's chat.