Right employee experience is key to retaining and attracting new talent, and HR Tech can enable organisations to create an ideal one, today. “You need a good employee experience to win the market. It’s one of the core jobs of HR today,” shared Sourabh Deorah, CEO, Advantage Club in a keynote session at the first edition of People Matters TechHR Pulse Mumbai.

According to Deorah, a great employee experience is ‘engaging, meaningful, fulfilling and is spread across all generations.’ It begins with rewards and recognition, flexible benefits, concern for employee’s health and wellness, moments that matter, festive gifting and bringing them all together through communities and clubs.

The impact of a fulfilling employee experience can be felt across parameters such as employee engagement, productivity, performance and employee retention. According to a study by Gallup, people who are engaged are 17% more productive. “An engaged employee is 4X likely to stay in the organisation. The retention rate of employees who are recognised is 80% better than employees who are not,” informed Deorah. 

Companies also get diverse implicit benefits if employee experience is done right. “One can get good EVP, improved employee happiness and better employee branding. EX also makes recruitment easier, and it happens as an undercurrent where people are saying good things about you, all because of the right employee experience,” he added.

Here are some key takeaways from the keynote titled, ‘Unlocking Next-Gen HR Tech to drive the best EX’:  

Rewards and Recognition

The first thing to have is a good R&R policy in place and digitise it. It is essential that these are not complicated, and unlike an appraisal which happens at the end of the year.

You must give R&R in real-time, and technology can be an enabler for it. With the help of AI, you can identify who should be recognised, and when, based on different parameters. It is also important that rewards are easy to use for the employee and AI can make that happen.

R&R should ideally be given out publicly, and AI can drive the personalisation component. This is essential to make the experience that much more special for the employee. 

Typically, 2-5% of a person’s total CTC is a good budget for an effective R&R policy. As people rise higher in ranks, this share would reduce. Rewards can be a mix of monetary and non-monetary, wherein monetary rewards work best when 35%-60% of the organisation receives it atleast once a year while non-monetary is more about peer-to-peer appreciation with the aim of recognising 65-70% of the organisation atleast once a year.

Flexible Benefits

The power of choosing flexible benefits should lie with the employee. If employees are empowered or given the choice of benefits that work best for them, the utilisation it will be 95%-98%. AI can drive the customisation process and analytics can track benefit utilisation. There can even be employee self-service portals, and tech can enable the systems integration.

Health and Wellness

After the pandemic, every organisation cares about wellness and tech offers a unique opportunity to drive these behaviours. You can introduce wearables for wellness tracking, promote healthy habits with specific measures such as group stepathons, gamified wellness challenges, telehealth services, AI-enabled wellness training, along with flexi top-up insurance and benefits.

Moments That Matter

Moments that Matter are ideal for creating a good employee experience as they are essentially relevant for employees. You can provide automated awards, special digital badges, social wishes, celebratory awards and customised awards, all with the help of tech. 

Communities

You can create communities within the organisation, where people can begin associating beyond work. It is a good retention and a powerful tool to keep employees engaged beyond work to reflect a holistic affair. These can be virtual communities, digital forums or discussion boards. 

As Deorah concludes the keynote, his advise to HR and organisations is simple: All of it should be driven with the help of the right technology partner who is not just worried about how the HR feels, but also employee-oriented. The chosen partner can be leveraged for compliance support, scalability and adaptability, streamlined administration, personalised experience, data-driven insights and enhanced communication.