A good Customer Experience is inseparable from a matching employee experience. The employees of any company are part of its first line of recommendation of its own products and services, and the first question that any employee should ask himself is: would the professionals and workers of my company be willing to buy or recommend what we put on the market? If a team is not able to feel the colours of the firm they work for, it will be difficult to establish a permanent line of satisfaction with customers.
The above is something that virtually any businessman, manager or professional of today could endorse without a tremble in their pulse. However, the extent to which this maxim can be misguided in its execution can be shocking. A mistake persists that is basically the same as the one we have when we try to address Customer Experience policies: if we do not know what satisfies a customer most and best, it is difficult to get it right; thus, and in the same way, if an employer does not approach the concerns of employees, it is possible that no matter how much he offers them, he will not succeed in managing the experience.
In this respect, the research by the Knowledge Academy of the renowned recruitment company Michael Page is very striking. It has found a very significant fact: almost two thirds of employees feel that their companies are investing in benefits that are as costly as they are useless for their own purposes, or ineffective in engaging them in the company's objectives. In other words: personal benefits they don't want, don't need, don't use, or none of the three. The study, accessed by the prestigious online magazine The Experience Magazine, surveyed nearly 2,000 UK employees to better understand and discover the workplace benefits they want most.
Although, due to their geographical origin, they are not completely comparable to other labour and business realities, we can take note of possible dissonances in our own business environment. Are we investing wisely in benefits policies, or are we spending money on compensation that employees neither want nor need? For example, we can set out some benefits below, and let the reader put them in the order he or she thinks is best:
1. Private dental insurance.
2. Gym membership.
3. Retail vouchers to spend on favourite brands.
4. Life insurance.
5. Private health insurance.
6. Coverage of technological equipment and personal devices.
7. Accident insurance.
The following is the correct order and percentage of support for these compensation policies based on the responses of the employees surveyed.
1. Private health insurance. 42.7 per cent say that it should be an essential part of any benefits package.
2. Retail voucher package. 7 out of 20, i.e. 35 per cent, would support this idea. This is a blessing in disguise: employees are and want to be customers, and it is clear to them that certain brands enjoy their preference. Will your own company be one of those brands?
3. Life insurance, present in the preferences at almost the same level as the previous benefit: 34.5 per cent.
4. Private dental insurance, also in the top but slightly below the previous one: 32.1 per cent.
5. Gym membership, with no less than 30.3 per cent of respondents in favour, certainly in line with health concerns at levels never seen before.
6. Cobertura de accidentes personales, que es uno de los «beneficios» que habitualmente figuran en las contrataciones. ¿Es importante? No lo parece para los empleados, pues menos de 1 de cada 5 (18,5 por ciento) está de acuerdo con esta compensación.
7. Cobertura de seguro de dispositivos (smartphones, tablets, ordenadores). Un «beneficio» que figura en la parte más baja de la tabla, con solo un 16,3 por ciento de adhesiones. Parece que aunque a nadie le resulta plato de buen gusto perder su dispositivo, o que este se rompa o se estropee, no es un gran drama que necesite una costosa inversión por parte de su empleador.
These data should be cross-checked with other data expressed by the respondents themselves, if they were the ones who would have to bear the costs out of their own pocket. In this way, it can be determined not only which investments make the most sense to them, but also which ones they would be more willing to be offered, because they are likely to undertake them themselves in any case:
1. Travel insurance, a preference of 43.4 per cent of respondents. No less.
2. Life insurance, also with a significant 38.2 per cent.
3. Gym membership is something that, with or without being part of the benefits package, 28.9 per cent of employees take on as part of their regular expenditure.
4. En cuanto al seguro médico privado, existe aquí una importante disonancia, pues solo 1 de cada 6 (16,6 por ciento) está dispuesto a invertir por su cuenta en este beneficio. Recordemos que estaba en el primer puesto de los beneficios «irrenunciables», con un 42,7 por ciento.
5. And the figure is also significant for dental insurance, as only 12.8 per cent of employees would be willing to open their wallet to finance it, compared to 32.1 per cent.
6. The same percentage, 12.8 per cent, is found in the case of retail vouchers.
7. The last place goes to accident insurance, with 11 percent, which confirms that it is definitely of little interest in shaping an adequate employee experience.
A work environment is more than performing a task in exchange for a salary. Anyone who wants committed employees must start by committing to the lifestyles they want and asking them for information about them. Moreover, the smartest investment is to have a portfolio of benefits available, and individualised advice to find the most favourable and appropriate ones. The goal, as always, is to sell more and better: more satisfied employees equals more convinced customers.
