5 Reasons Your Employee Experience Sucks

Roughly 85% of employees are unhappy with their jobs. And that was before the Coronavirus. The COVID-19 pandemic and all the unplanned change and disruption it brought about in the workplace, certainly haven’t helped the employee experience or The Great Resignation. For those of you at home who are keeping track, that means a positive employee experience is more important than ever to increasing engagement and reducing turnover.

When your employees are unhappy – your customers are likely unhappy, too. It’s an endless cycle that repeats itself over and over – costing you unnecessary expenses in recruiting and customer acquisition costs.

There could be plenty of reasons why your employees are unhappy – though the best way to know for sure is to actually ASK them. Through our own work with our clients, we have also experienced plenty of what employees want (or don’t want).

If your employees are unhappy (and hate their jobs) here are the most likely reasons why. And if you know the reasons you can take action to improve.

No clear career path

The vast majority of employees want more than just a job. They want to see how their work impacts the overall mission of the organization – how what they are doing is helping the organization achieve its goals. That’s what creates an engaged workforce. And engaged employees (usually) don’t hate their jobs. Employees being able to clearly understand the employee value proposition – what’s in it for them – is a key factor to engagement. So share your strategy and goals. Map out potential career path options for your employees to contribute to reaching those goals. If you want them to be happy then show them they are needed and show them you value their expertise and contributions. And especially during times of change and disruption, ask them for any additional concerns regarding their role and career advancement.

You have a toxic culture

If you have a culture that ‘eats their own’ then many will run for the nearest exit before being digested! Culture is how work gets done around here. If getting work done around here involves having to fight a constant battle or makes employees feel like they are beating their head against a wall in frustration, then you have a toxic culture. Toxic cultures are negative, gloomy, and depressing. They bring down engagement and productivity. They bring down successful organizations. If you’re a leader and you have a toxic culture, then it is toxic because you played a role in making it toxic. So, own it and course correct, play a role in creating a high performing culture instead. You can read more here – but if you want to be successful it starts with an honest, positive, and constructive culture – not a toxic one.

Limited work/life balance

Employees have lives! It ain’t just all about you (the business.) You want them to hate their jobs, well then, ignore work-life balance at your own peril. This is especially true when the workforce is faced with unplanned change and disruption that impacts their personal lives as well as their business lives. Unless your organization functions on rigid time structures, such as healthcare, service industries, etc where service and success are dependent on having enough staff in the right places at the exact right times to service customers or patients, then having ‘core hours’ or expecting employees to work insane overtime is really not necessary. If we learned one thing about virtual and remote work from the Coronavirus pandemic, it’s that employees are more than capable of servicing customers virtually and often with flexible hours! Who cares as long as the work gets done and the customer is happy! This isn’t – 1999? We’ve got the technology to enable flexibility and balance and still meet employee and customer needs. Employees want a true work/life balance. Actually, now more than ever they’ve come to expect it. Particularly Millennials and GenZ! So be flexible, you’ll often find employees will provide the same courtesy to you and your customers.

They don’t like their boss

We surveyed our readers and asked why they were looking for a new job. At the time 65% said bad leadership was the #1 reason. We’ve all been there. We hate our boss or our supervisor so we hate coming to work. We hate coming to work so we perform the bare minimum until we can find a new job. Not good for service delivery and customer experience. If employees don’t like and trust their management, then they’re likely buying time until they can make a quick exit. It’s ok, though, you can improve. Focus on relationships. Focus on trust. You can read more here. But for starters good leaders open lines of communication, they listen, they recognize, fix process issues, and lead by example.

They don’t feel appreciated

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – recognize, recognize, recognize! Employee to employer relationships are just like personal ones. You get what you give. If people feel the relationship is unbalanced or one-sided, well, then usually break it off. People have a fundamental human need to feel valued, heard, and appreciated – particularly when they feel they’ve done a great job. If you’re not sure how to recognize for a job well done – ASK your employees. Give those who deserve it the rewards and recognition they want.

If you take away anything from this article let it be this. The average cost to replace an employee is 1.5 times their annual salary. If ~85% of your employees are looking for work elsewhere then you’re about to have a really expensive problem on your hands.

Don’t make them hate their employee experience!

If you’re concerned over how to tame high-turnover or how to retain and engage your current workforce – reach out. We’d be happy to provide you with a complimentary consultation on how you can achieve success through people.

About Scott Span, MSOD, CSM: is CEO at Tolero Solutions. His focus is – people. He is a Leadership Coach, People Strategist, and Transformation Consultant. He supports leaders, teams, and individuals to survive and thrive through personal and professional change and transition. He supports organizations to engage and retain talent and wow customers, achieving success through people, creating places where people enjoy working and customers enjoy doing business.