Employee Experience Expectations

Evolving Employee Experience Expectations in 2024

Creating an exceptional employee experience is more than a one-and-done endeavor. As people, markets, and the world around us change, so do employee expectations. Evaluating these shifts and what you need to do to not only create but sustain an optimal environment for your workforce is beneficial to your business. Here, we examine evolving employee experience expectations in 2024 and how to navigate them.

Pay Transparency and Compensation Strategy

Nine states and several major cities have enacted pay transparency laws to date, and many more are sure to follow. The requirements stemming from these measures vary, but generally involve elements such as making pay ranges visible in job postings or providing pay ranges and related criteria upon request. For employers, this means that having a sound and thoroughly vetted compensation strategy in place is vital.

Compensation strategy is the overall approach your business takes to reward employees for their work. It encompasses salary, benefits, incentives, development opportunities, and related variables. A well-designed compensation strategy helps your business attract, retain, and motivate top talent, aligns with overarching values and goals, and reduces legal risks.

Compensation benchmarking is a recommended first step in assessing your compensation strategy as it allows for comparison of your practices with those of similar companies in your market(s). It starts with identifying critical roles and the proper comparative criteria. Data on salaries, benefits, and incentives is then gathered from typically proprietary sources and analyzed for discrepancies and opportunities. Insights from this work inform whether adjustments to your compensation practices are merited. Compensation benchmarking should be refreshed periodically and can be efficiently carried out by an external HR expert who is experienced with the process and has access to needed data.

Work Model Flexibility

During the pandemic, many predicted that more and more businesses would increasingly adopt remote work. Instead, observers have seen a recent rise in employers calling workers back to a central workplace. SHRM notes that the share of job postings “advertising remote or hybrid work options fell from a peak of 10.3 percent in February 2022 to 8.3 percent in December 2023.”

While the prevalence of remote work opportunities has declined, employees’ desire for flexible work models has remained high. The good news is that flexibility can still be achieved in an office-based setting. Many businesses are doing so with programs and options such as:

• Flexible Work Hours: Allowing schedule adjustments such as start/stop times to better fit personal needs and preferences.
• Compressed Workweeks: Opportunities to work longer hours on fewer days per week (e.g., four 10-hour days vs. five 8-hour days).
• Remote Workdays: Designating certain days when employees have the option to work remotely, promoting balance between in-office collaboration and remote productivity.
• Family-Friendly Policies: Implementing policies such as parental leave, childcare assistance, or on-site daycare facilities to support employees with family responsibilities.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to promoting workplace flexibility. Engage your employees in dialogue about what’s important to them, put the right mix of options in place to meet their needs, and demonstrate the value that your business places on their wellbeing.

Personalization

The business media outlet Reworked wrote in a recent article about the emergence of Personalized Employee Experiences “as a way to bridge the gap between employee expectations and EX initiatives.” Here, personalization doesn’t mean different rules and different approaches for every employee. Akin to the elements of flexibility noted above, personalization involves finding the balance that best meets most individual needs while simultaneously meeting the needs of the business.

Personalization in employee experience also involves recognizing and identifying differences across your business’s various functions and groups. For example, back-office staff may have a very different perspective from warehouse workers or employees who are frequently in the field with customers. Businesses with multiple locations are also likely to find differences in employee experience expectations across their locations. The more you understand the variables that shape your employees’ expectations, the better you can respond to them.

Enhance Your Employee Experience

Time devoted to evaluating and acting on opportunities to improve your company’s employee experience is time well spent. Forbes cites research showing that companies that provide a positive employee experience generate 25% higher profits and find 60% more engaged employees.

Get a fresh and objective assessment of your compensation strategy, evaluate employee flexibility in your business, and seek ways to better personalize employee experiences. Your employees and your business will be glad you did.

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How much would employee experience enhancements benefit your business?  Request a Free Consultation with a vcfo expert who can help with compensation strategy and benchmarking, work modeling, and putting the right employee experience pillars in place. We’ve partnered with more than 5,000 businesses in our 28 years and are ready to put our experience to work for you.