Inculcating an invigorating employee experience within total rewards.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Article Author: <\/div>\n

Murad S. Mirza<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThe dreaded prospect of becoming irrelevant and marginalized in the Digital Age is increasingly incentivizing organizations to look for ways to attract and retain desired talent who can sustain and enhance their competitiveness with a synergistic infusion of technology. However, gone are the days when professionals depended upon the paternalistic instincts of their employers to provide them with a viable career path embellished by a progressive and fair remuneration. The capable professional of today is more informed, incisively skilled, and comes with a bushel of knowledge that enables leveraged negotiating targeted to achieve maximum gains within a mutually agreed frame of reference.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe era of “employee loyalty” has been over for a while now, but the concept of “employee partnership” that was built on the ashes of organizational allegiance is also under threat. The new arrangement seems to be one of “employee gratification,” where attractive “total rewards” packages are customized to serve as “golden handcuffs” on the desired talent as long as the organization sees a healthy ROI in terms of retaining them as part of its workforce.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe accepted wisdom in professional circles has been to innovate within the realm of compensation and benefits (C&B) under the guise of total rewards. But that is not enough anymore as employees seek experiential gratification peppered with “organizational goodness” for a robust employment relationship. To put it bluntly, if employees are frequently thinking about their “seemingly attractive” remuneration being worth the “crap” they take every day, then the organization has failed handsomely in its total rewards strategy.<\/p>\n

\n\tAny total rewards package that does not reinforce employee engagement and wellbeing is a recipe for profound talent attrition in the Digital Age. Therefore, organizations that can provide the strongest “jovial anchors” for their employees will be the ones to have a healthy pool of desired talent for effectively overcoming the daunting challenges of the Digital Age. This becomes critically important for harvesting future leaders through robust talent pipelines by avoiding the pitfalls illustrated in the following chart:<\/p>\n

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\n\tConsequently, such a realization has propelled employee experience into the limelight, and exceling in the respective context has become the defining characteristic of outstanding employers as compared to being good employers. This can be visualized as follows:<\/p>\n

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\n\tHere is a brief checklist that can be used as an overall guide for assessing the directional congruency of initiatives in the respective context:<\/p>\n

\n\t\tDo you have a formal employee experience program as part of the total rewards package?<\/li>\n
\n\t\tDo you link the employee experience program with the core values of the organization?<\/li>\n
\n\t\tDo you audit\/review the effectiveness of the formal employee experience program at defined intervals for refinement and improvement purposes?<\/li>\n
\n\t\tDo you include employee experience as a critical part of the performance appraisal of the supervisors?<\/li>\n
\n\t\tDo you get regular feedback on the formal employee experience program during employee exit interviews?<\/li>\n
\n\t\tDo you use employee experience as a recruiting tool, especially by leveraging former employees?<\/li>\n
\n\t\tDo you benchmark your employee experience program with prominent organizations in the same and\/or other industries?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n\tDetailed analysis can be done by formulating insightful questions under the following headings:<\/p>\n
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\n\tAn Employee Equation<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\tTotal rewards packages lacking an invigorating employee experience and designed to hover around the industry norm often relegate corporate entities to self-inflicted mediocrity in terms of functional agility, talent relevancy, and organizational competitiveness, while trying to meet the challenges of the Digital Age. Therefore, it is imperative that an organization is able to consistently provide an enriching employee experience that rejuvenates engagement and boosts wellbeing. Let’s explore the following equation in the respective context:<\/p>\n
\n\tIEE = FP + UE + PS<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\tIEE<\/strong> = Invigorating Employee Experience<\/p>\n
\n\tFP<\/strong> = Formal Promises (Contractual Obligations)<\/p>\n
\n\tUE<\/strong> = Unstated Expectations (Psychological Contracts)<\/p>\n
\n\tPS<\/strong> = Pleasant Surprises (Delight Factors)<\/p>\n
\n\tExamples of these elements include:<\/p>\n