How to Effectively Enhance Your Employee Experience to Attract and Retain Talent

In a global market where organisations across multiple sectors are struggling to not only attract but retain key talent, it’s essential to demonstrate an attractive and engaging employee experience. At CSG Talent our team of experts are specialists in hiring, talent, and branding strategies to ensure businesses successfully attract talent to their organisation. We have strong relationships with clients and candidates in the specialist areas we operate, putting us in a prime position to gain deep level insights, enabling us to effectively advise our clients on the best employee experience to support an effective talent strategy.

The overall employee experience has shifted dramatically since the start of the pandemic. Prior to this, employee experience was heavily focused on physical work and office environment and benefits centred around the office. With the increased presence of hybrid working and some entirely remote business models, the employee experience now needs to be enhanced and more personalised in the modern workplace.

Here are CSG Talent’s top tips to enhance employee experience:

Listen to your employees

It’s important to demonstrate open and transparent communication lines with both your existing and potential employees. Conduct regular and consistent internal surveys and / or focus groups to give your employees an opportunity to provide honest feedback. This will prove valuable in building your employee experience. Reaching out to employees and giving them a voice plays a big part in employee engagement. According to Qualtrics, there is a clear correlation between people feeling engaged when they are asked for feedback (59%), in comparison to when they are not (49%).

In-depth exit interviews with employees who leave is a useful process to carry out to establish the reason an employee is leaving. In many situations, there is nothing more an employer could have done to reverse the decision or avoid it altogether. Obtaining feedback allows employers insight into the reasons employees choose to leave. With this, they can act upon areas within their control to enhance the employee experience for future or potential employees.

Evaluate your benefits package

In a candidate driven market, businesses need to factor in time to review and re-assess what they offer current and potential employees. Employee benefits and perks need to be inclusive and competitive. CIPD highlight how employee benefits offer a way to attract and retain employees while contributing to improving wellbeing, achievements, values, and skills. Candidates have many considerations when deciding on their next career move and employee benefits can be a huge driving factor in that decision. Offering a competitive benefits package which adds value to an employee’s life and overall wellbeing is a great way to enhance your employee experience.

Consider the career paths available to your employees

An important consideration for an employee thinking about the length of time they may stay with a business, or when initially joining a business is the career progression opportunities available to them. Chris Mercer Jones, People and Performance Director at CSG Talent comments on the significance of clear career paths within an organisation. “It’s essential to ensure all employees are considered when highlighting career paths available in a business. At CSG Talent we recognise this ourselves and review opportunities for development and progression across our sales and support functions, a current priority for us as a business. Being able to effectively demonstrate how a potential career path may look for someone at an entry or mid- senior level not only engages existing teams but is important for potential employees and talent attraction.”

Review your salary benchmarks

Regularly conducting salary benchmarks and establishing how competitive your current salary offerings are in your market is a key exercise to carry out. By doing this, you will not only enhance your employee experience but engage employees considering new opportunities with higher salaries. It will also reduce the risk of being in a counteroffer position. Offering competitive salaries will help support talent attraction and employees will feel valued and engaged with your organisation. In a market where significant salary increases are being offered, some of which we have seen increase by over $120,000 above market averages for senior level executive positions, employers need to ensure they remain competitive. Salary is still one of the key motivators when selecting a new role and company.  

Assess your D & I policies and activities

Creating an inclusive and diverse work environment not only contributes to greater business performance through increased input and difference in ideas, but it will also help increase engagement and employees’ sense of value and respect. Diversity and inclusion should be a priority for all organisations to ensure employees feel a sense of belonging, aligned to the company culture and values. Equal and diverse representation from an employee and leadership perspective will encourage potential employees to relate to the company and picture themselves as part of the team, a feeling of inclusion.

CSG Talent’s Head of Talent, Miriam Pedersen-Smith places great emphasis on the importance of D & I contributing to an engaging employee experience to support talent attraction, “We strive to employ a multigenerational group of employees that includes differences in sexual orientation, experience, physical ability, religion, education, and socio-economic status to create an environment where all individuals feel represented and inclusive. There is strong evidence of a direct link between a diverse workforce and improved financial performance, engagement, and high business activity levels, all contributing to the success of the business and enhancing the employer brand to potential employees.”

Maintain a positive and supportive work environment

Creating a positive work environment where your teams receive support from leadership, autonomy and flexibility with their role will significantly contribute to productivity, engagement, wellbeing, and commitment to the organisation. A business who has highly engaged employees will promote an attractive work culture, this will support both talent retention and talent attraction.

Engaged employees are also more likely to support with your talent attraction and contribute to employee referral programmes. By sharing positive stories and insights into working at an organisation, it can encourage connections of existing employees to consider joining themselves.

Sha Marthenis, Marketing Executive in Australia comments on the marketing benefits behind engaged employees. “When the team feels valued and engaged at work, they are more likely to share these experiences on their social media channels. We often find employees sharing posts about work trips, functions, and employee benefits. This is not only fantastic for an employee's sense of fulfilment but from a marketing perspective it provides genuine and effective content to help promote the company’s employer brand.”

At CSG Talent, this is a big focus for us internally, to ensure we offer the prime work environment for our employees to ensure they feel valued, supported, and engaged. Not only this, but our talent experts also ensure they stay up to date with market trends and competitor insights to enable them to advise and guide their clients through the journey of enhancing their own employee experience. Our consultants have a huge network of candidates within their vertical markets, gaining crucial insights into candidate motivations and priorities when it comes to the full employee experience. This in-depth knowledge is also relayed to clients to ensure they are appealing to candidate needs.

It takes time to create an engaging employee experience that supports both the attraction and retention of employees and it’s an ongoing and evolving process. At CSG Talent this is a big focus for our HR and People Teams, with regular surveys and focus groups to gain insight from our employees to hear what’s most important to them. We’re in the process of finalising a revised benefits package for our teams across the globe with our primary focus being on providing benefits centred around family and overall wellbeing.

If you’re keen to establish how you can successfully enhance your employee experience to attract high calibre, senior level talent to your organisation, please get in touch with a member of our team. Our expert consultants can support your overall hiring and talent strategy, explore our services and expertise in more detail here.