Employee Experience: Maintaining a positive corporate culture

How can we maintain a positive and consistent employee experience, both now and in the future? Stephen Moore, Head of Asia, Pacific and Japan at Ceridian, looks at ways to keep employees engaged, despite the disruption.

It is estimated 2.7 billion people, or more than four-out-of-five workers in the global workforce, have been affected by lockdowns and stay-athome measures during COVID-19. 1 What, in more ‘normal’ times, might have taken years was accomplished in weeks when many organisations transitioned workers to the world’s largest work-from-home environment. In New Zealand, it is estimated that 10 per cent of workers – 200,000 out of 2 million – started to work from home when the country entered lockdown at the end of March. 2

Many have heralded working from home as the way forward, mainly because of advances in technology, which have made it easier than ever to stay connected. A University of Otago study of 2,595 New Zealanders working from home

during lockdown revealed 89 per cent wanted to continue working this way for at least part of the time post-lockdown. 3

The lasting impact on workforce culture and employee engagement is still very much unknown. Maintaining a positive and consistent employee experience now and into the future will be essential to drive productivity, engagement and a positive workplace culture. While there is no golden formula, organisations can encourage and foster a strong culture, even with a distributed workforce.

Increase visibility

For employees to feel informed and connected, maintaining visibility is essential. At the height of the pandemic, many businesses hosted global employee town halls, knowing that going remote was going to be a significant change for many people and would be met with questions and some anxiety. Many companies are continuing to do these today. A well-defined and widely understood communication process can help create trust within the organisation and ensure employees are kept up to date on company information and policies. It also creates a feeling of community and strengthens their loyalty to the company.

For employees to feel informed and connected, maintaining visibility is essential.

Encourage two-way communication

It goes without saying, but now more than ever, organisations must be proactive and transparent in their communications as changes occur. They also need to prioritise and ensure employees’ voices and concerns are heard. Engagement analysis tools allow businesses to collect feedback and identify patterns and trends in employees’ emotional states. With this information, you can build action plans to respond quickly to employee concerns, as well as help reduce turnover, burnout and absenteeism.

However, it is not just enough to ‘listen’ to how employees are feeling; leaders must act on the insights they receive from their workforce and communicate changes effectively.

1 https://www2.deloitte.com/za/en/pages/human-capital/articles/workforce-strategies-for-post-covid-recovery.html 2 https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12318950 3 https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/releases/otago737417.html

Empower employees to manage their schedules

During lockdown, the traditional 9 to 5 workday necessarily transitioned to more of a productivity model, focusing on output rather than set working hours, which both employers and employees have embraced. As new ways of working become established, and more New Zealanders continue to work from home, organisations must empower employees to balance their work and personal matters by allowing their people to schedule time away from work or work to more flexible schedules. This mind shift will demonstrate we are applying the principle of managing outputs and not simply recording timebased inputs.

Provide an accessible pay experience

When employees are financially stressed, both their health and work performance can suffer. According to data from Ceridian’s Pay Experience Report, we found 70 per cent of employees felt at least slightly stressed about money on a regular basis. Concern about financial health is one of the biggest causes of employee stress, potentially affecting mental and physical health, if left unchecked.

Technology provides companies with the tools to share information about employee pay from their mobile device, tablet or laptop. This provides greater visibility and immediacy to their income streams and can significantly help to reduce stress around finances.

Provide holistic benefits

Employees are grappling with many changes and navigating day-to-day life with a degree of uncertainty. Organisations can offer wellness programmes that include mental health benefits, to help ensure workers have access to the type of care needed to prevent, treat or manage psychological distress and burnout. While two-thirds of Kiwis working from home found the shift from the office “easy or somewhat easy” to adapt to, it doesn’t guarantee this sentiment will continue as time progresses.

Maintain a positive employee experience

It’s well documented that an engaged employee is happier, more productive and more likely to stay with their company. From a business standpoint, an engaged workforce positively affects the bottom line.

While business leaders continue to cite employee engagement as a priority, many organisations struggle with how to do it well, and as the country and the world adapt to a new normal, employers will need to urgently rethink how to foster a strong workplace culture.

Offering an intuitive, personalised and consistent experience – from flexible schedules to communication, wellness benefits and the way employees are paid – will reduce friction points and help employees better manage stress and anxiety.

Leadership must set the tone for the workforce, and this starts with genuine engagement, as well as open and honest conversations every step of the way. It’s a shared journey.

Stephen Moore is responsible for overall leadership of the Asia, Pacific and Japan region at Ceridian. His focus is to deliver world-class innovations and experiences to customers, helping them optimise performance using Ceridian’s intelligent HCM and deep business insights.

Steve has held a range of senior executive positions, including APJ and ANZ leadership roles at SAP and managing director roles at Unisys and Lawson Software. He was General Manager at Fujitsu Consulting and led PeopleSoft’s APJ Services business. He has sponsored several ground-breaking initiatives and is particularly passionate about driving the advancement of the social enterprise sector and empowering disadvantaged young people.