Ready, set…EX! Blog series part 3
Measuring success
We know a thing or two about designing and measuring a great Employee Experience (EX). In this series, we pull together top tips to help you overcome common hurdles encountered by HR teams starting out in EX. In our final instalment, we’re looking at how to measure impact.
An EX program that delivers increased engagement, performance and profitability is great. One that proves it is better. That’s your challenge in any EX role, especially if you’ve built your business case on hard stats.
Set a baseline
Before you start, it’s crucial to baseline your current EX. You don’t have to do this for the entire business – you can isolate a team or location if that’s easier (and more cost effective). What’s important is that you capture your current state using quantitative and qualitative analysis. Don’t take survey answers for granted, either: dig into them with related data sets, focus groups and even simple observation.
Measure the change
Once you have your baseline EX, you can begin to predict and quantify the impact of improving it. You’ll already know what you want to achieve and why. But now you can start setting detailed – and quantifiable – targets. This part is often the hardest. Our recommendation is to start off by keeping things simple. Instead of trying to analyse relationships between hundreds of variables, pick two or three external and internal metrics that are critical to senior leadership (for example, new product development, revenue, or labour costs) and focus on demonstrating the link to these first.
Keep your ear to the ground
Getting EX right doesn’t mean setting targets and then checking in 12 months later. In fact, that’s a sure-fire way to fail. It’s important to measure your progress with a real-time monitoring strategy, particularly when it comes to driving behavioural and culture change. Continuous listening methods like pulse surveys or social listening on internal channels like Yammer or Workplace tell you what’s working and what isn’t. And that gives you a chance to change.
Adapt your plan
Knowing one of your EX program streams isn’t delivering is one thing. Changing it is another. To ensure success, it’s important to use the findings of your listening strategy to inform your next steps. Flexing your approach can be the difference between achieving your targets and creating a negative employee experience. Most of the time (if your hypotheses are correct), these adjustments will take the form of ongoing optimisations.
Want to know more?
Get in touch to talk defining, diagnosing, designing and measuring the right employee experience for your business.
