If you are one of the many managers looking to maximize productivity while at the same time minimizing the risk of losing your job, your focus on employee experience (EX) is critical. The employee experience (EX) is essentially the totality of an employee's positive and negative perceptions of an organization and their interactions with the people in that organization .
Employee experience (EX) is a relatively new term that is changing the way employee engagement is viewed. Because it is a new term, you may find it difficult to find enough books or articles on the topic yet. In this sense, our partner Decision Wise's "Employee Experience: Attracting Talent, Retaining Top Performers and Achieving Results"by our partner Decision Wise offers invaluable insights. A positive employee experience (EX) greatly improves employee retention in any organization. So as a manager, you need to moderate your employees' experience to maximize your productivity. Having evaluated a large number of 360-degree feedback reports, I can safely say that the best way to do this is to find the middle ground where you can influence your superiors while ensuring that your subordinates respect you and follow you.
So let's take a look at some of the "don'ts" that derail the employee experience. Unfortunately, we see too many managers terrorizing the company and leaving a wreckage in their wake in order to get the results the company wants. Are you one of those managers? Are you willing to increase your chances of trampling on the engagement of your employees in order to look good to the people at the top of the organization? Then here are 5 proven strategies to dramatically ruin the "employee experience" of employees in your organization while still achieving good results:
1-Polish the Job Description
While it is important to attract and retain good employees to your organization, you don't want them to stay too long. The best place to start is to create the dream of the "perfect job". Take a look at what is in your current job description and remove anything negative or boring. Emphasize the autonomy this position offers and the competitive salary that comes with it. Appeal to the reader's emotions by talking about how meaningful the work is and how it makes a difference in people's lives. Be generous in your optimism about the position. If you are struggling to come up with new ideas, add small social benefits. For example, instead of telling them that they will work regular shifts, tell them that you have flexible working hours.
Once contracts have been signed and the employee has moved into their new position, it is important to disguise the true culture by hiding or ignoring the bad aspects of your company's culture and highlighting the good. You can do this by preventing negative talk in the office and using scare and intimidation tactics. Find a way to punish behavior that is not "team friendly". It shouldn't be so bad that it leads to a lawsuit, but it should be severe enough to attract attention. You also need to find a way to monitor what employees are talking about in the office.
Most managers monitor employees' e-mails, but you can also eavesdrop on other people's conversations by inviting yourself to lunches and regulating phone use during work. Intimidating employees is one of the most effective strategies you can use to get them to follow the rules and avoid having to explain your decisions.
3-Change Policies and Procedures Frequently without Notice
Now that your new employee is somewhat committed, you can start removing temptations. (This will save even more time and money.) Send a complex, vague but "important" email to the entire company asking for a new procedure that will "improve the efficiency of the organization". This could be anything from making the dress code more formal to putting an additional weekly meeting on everyone's calendar. The goal here is to complicate the process, because if an employee questions it, you can tell them that they will not understand this strategy because of their current position.
4-Change the Salary and Benefit Structure
Another great way to create a negative employee experience (EX) is to renegotiate salaries and benefits. This method gets a lot of attention from employees. You need to be careful about how you do this, if you change it too much, employees may quit or go on strike. But if you don't change it enough, employees may not be affected by the change. Some of the common things you can do are to reduce bonuses, no longer give additional paid time off to those who are more senior, or promote without giving them a raise. Keep an eye on how much money you can squeeze out of each employee by maintaining a level at which they will stay with the company. Some employees may not be as sensitive to changes in salary or benefits as others (see below for details).
5-NEVER Appreciate the Good Work of Employees
Finally, I should point out that some employees value appreciation more than money. Some of your employees may not seem to be sufficiently affected by the reduction in salaries, if you notice that this is the case, take extra steps to find out what gives them hope and happiness about their work. Often, they are being recognized for their work by a colleague or other managers. If you find out who is giving these compliments, fire him or her immediately. Even better if you fire him or her in public and even in front of the person he or she is praising. You send a message to other employees that it is not acceptable to publicly praise anyone other than senior management.
While these strategies can be effective to varying degrees, the most appropriate way to measure the effectiveness of your strategies is to use surveys, more specifically an employee engagement survey. Conduct an employee engagement survey periodically (at least annually) to monitor your progress and find areas that need attention. Conducting a survey and not using the feedback, not doing anything about it, is always a great way to undermine the employee experience. As the need arises, adapt appropriate strategies to keep your subordinates on track. It's not easy to create a bad employee experience (EX), although it's easier than doing the opposite. But with these strategies, you can impress your manager by carefully keeping your team's performance somewhere in the middle, while ensuring that your best performers don't stay with the company long enough to replace you.
What do you think? If companies are not attracting or retaining top performers, what do you think could be improved? You can send me your bad examples and suggestions for improvement with the form below. I would like to mention your ideas in my future blogs.
Other blogs that may interest you:
Employee Experience: It's More Complex (And More Important) Than You Think
Trust is the Oxygen of the Employee Experience
Employee Experience: Managing Expectation Differences
Customer Experience Blossoms with Employee Experience