Adapting EX for a better hybrid normal

With two-thirds (65%) of businesses still to announce their return-to-work strategies, we’ve put together this comprehensive and thorough guide exploring how to adapt your employee experience for our new hybrid normal. It provides an insight into the data, tools and processes you can use to discover the right way forward in your organisation.

Ready to dive in? Head straight to our guide, The New Rules of Engagement: A Better Way to Work.

Flexibility is fundamental

In the wake of the pandemic, employee preferences and expectations have shifted – a lot. Research from Qualtrics shows the vast majority of employees and their employees felt the Great Work from Home Experiment benefitted their productivity.

• 88% of employees say they have been more productive
• More than half of employees (53%) now say they prefer remote working either “a little” or “a lot.

This changes everything – or does it?

This has implications for how businesses design their workplaces, ensure creativity and collaboration, and maintain and improve employee experience in a hybrid environment. Exactly what those implications are depends on your business and your own peoples’ preferences.

While research shows that people want to continue to have the flexibility to work from home, understanding how employees have been affected by remote work, whether they want to come back to the office, what activities they want to come back to the office for, and on what terms will be key.

By creating offices and approaches to work that are truly fit for purpose – aligning the preferences of employees with their business needs – employers can start to engage employees on a deeper level and strengthen their employee value propositions.

• 40% of employees told Qualtrics they expect their office to change significantly when they return.

Join Qualtrics, Standard Chartered, Telstra and Woolworths, as we explore the key considerations and steps in their return-to-work strategies. Watch the webinar now.

Listening better

To understand what their own employees are experiencing as they return to work – or continue to work from home – and what they need and expect in order to work well moving forward, many organisations are finding they need to introduce new listening programs, or evolve existing ones.

These programs should take into account newly-emerging drivers of employee experience, including:

• Physical and psychological safety and wellbeing
• Sense of belonging
• Employee engagement and productivity

Among the critical factors needed to ensure that your employee listening program is adequate to meet the demands of today’s environment, it’s important to regularly listen, collect actionable metrics, and empower managers with insights.

Want to uncover the new drivers of employee engagement in a new world of work? Read our Employee Experience 2021 guide.

Setting your organisation apart in the new hybrid normal

By continuously listening to employees and taking action on the feedback they receive – now and in the future – businesses can avoid common pitfalls that undermine employee experience, and instead start to set themselves apart in the eyes of their employees, their competitors and their customers.

Ready to adapt your approach to EX?

• Dive into our Employee Experience checklist, A Better Way to Work, to adapt your listening approach.
• Check out our guide, The New Rules of Engagement: A Better Way to Work In Australia.