“To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace.”
Perhaps Doug Conant, former CEO of Campbell’s Soup, could predict the future. Conant shared these insights far before the COVID-19 pandemic came into being — and yet they ring true now more than ever before.
But what exactly did he mean by “winning” in the workplace?
In short, it’s all about your people. With hybrid working models becoming the norm for many employees — in fact, approximately half of the U.S. workforce reports that their current job can be done remotely from home or at least partially remotely, according to Gallup — the need for happier, more engaged workers has become a critical component of business success.
This is because the more engaged an employee is with their company, the better their output is. And, of course, it’s only a short leap from highly engaged employees to highly satisfied employees — meaning that for many companies, employee engagement is becoming table stakes for talent attraction and retention.
At HqO, we’re all about creating engaging, meaningful workplace experiences that put the people of an organization at the very center of their business strategies. Though experiences may seem like an abstract concept to measure in terms of investments, our customer stories are proof that they go a long way in differentiating their workplaces and enhancing employee creativity and productivity.
Let’s dive into how we can measure workplace experiences to prove the ROI of employee engagement for any organization.
Return on… Experiences?
We’re all familiar with the term “return on investment,” or ROI, but the most important performance metric in the modern world is what some industry experts and thought leaders are calling “return on experience,” or ROX.
According to Unily, ROX is “a metric that looks across your enterprise to measure various factors that have a direct influence on the customer and employee experience -– which ultimately prove decisive to your bottom line.”
Measuring the successes (and failures) of your workplace experiences ultimately achieves a few things:
- It allows you to own the relationship with your people, making sure that you can anticipate their needs both in and out of the workplace.
- It solidifies your company brand and culture, allowing you to bring an iterative approach into the workplace that is as agile as your employees are.
- It empowers you to add value to your physical workplace environment, encouraging your people to use your space for collaboration, socialization, and innovation — even when they have the choice to work from home.
Knowing why you have to prioritize your workplace experiences is only half the battle, however. The other half involves remaining proactive through data and analytics.
Metrics of Engagement
Every workplace will have their own data and feedback sources when it comes to workplace experiences and employee engagement.
For example, an organization that leverages an end-to-end workplace experience platform may have an easier time of tracking their successes and engagements. With a platform or building app that every member of your company can use, employers can gather meaningful insights from digital event registrations, content clicks, employee behavioral data (gleaned from mobile access and resource booking, for example), and even feedback from their platform’s various communications and employee sentiment tools.
Organizations who haven’t yet adopted a modern toolset might have to purely rely on guesswork or what they see; companies such as OfficeVibe take a deep dive into factors that reflect employee engagement such as productivity, absenteeism, turnover, and the speed of onboarding.
They, like Unily, mention the importance of technology (specifically employee engagement software) in facilitating and measuring your company’s workplace investments, further solidifying that the future of the workplace is one that is tech-driven and people-focused.
Want to learn more about creating engaging workplace experiences, or how to measure your business’ success? Schedule a consultation today.
