If HR is the department that pulls the employee experience (EX) cart, what about their own experience? The EX is the dynamic interplay of personal characteristics and the environment. How you assess your work environment depends on who you are and how you feel. If we do not recognize this connection, a one-sided picture of the employee experience arises. How does the HR professional experience work and life?
Early 2024, a major study was conducted into the employee experience of HR professionals. No fewer than 158 participants took part in the study organized by Welliba and HXWork. This study examined the strengths and weaknesses of HR professionals and what motivates and demotivates them.
Connection & Self-esteem
HR professionals value and experience a good connection with others. They are a real force in building and maintaining relationships. HR remains people work: acting as a mediator during a labor conflict, advising on development and training opportunities, hiring and onboarding new employees, all tasks that call upon contactual and empathic skills. It is also a talent that you can use to build and maintain relationships with other departments. HR as a bridge builder. An important task for themes such as EX, because EX requires close cooperation between HR, facility, IT and communication departments in order to develop the perfect employee experience.
Another strength is self-esteem: the extent to which someone is optimistic and sees a positive future for themselves. The HR professional is convinced that they can improve themselves and focuses on strengths rather than shortcomings. This is also a quality that is important for building healthy relationships with others and for personal well-being.
Achieving goals and monitoring workload
When HR professionals are asked what could be improved, it turns out that it is mainly staying calm in difficult situations. When the workload increases or during a difficult task. Setting goals and sticking to achieving these goals is also a point of attention. A lack of focus can arise due to excessive workload, fatigue or a situation in the private sphere. But also when new tasks or issues keep coming up. HR managers must keep a close eye on the workload of the team and help them set priorities where possible.
HR professionals love their work
The HR professionals who participated in the research really love their work. They find it motivating to have sufficient control over how, where and when the work is done (84% named autonomy and flexible working arrangements as motivators). It is not only about the possibility to work from home, but also about the extent to which the HR professional can set priorities and the freedom they experience to do the work in a way they choose. HR work is seen as valuable. It contributes to positive results for others and to achieving the goals of the organization. But HR work is also a reflection of what HR professionals are good at, according to the research.
Top-down communication demotivates
Although HR professionals love their work, there is one point that they are bothered by. It is the top-down communication that demotivates them the most. They find it important that the communication is relevant, timely and clear. You can have the best idea or strategy, but if you cannot convince others to follow your vision, your influence and impact will diminish.
Effective top-down communication is about listening to employees and understanding what communication they want to receive. It ensures that you get agreement on decisions more quickly and that there is a shared understanding across departments. HR is a department that feels the consequences of poor top-down communication. Not only does it create dissatisfaction, confusion and sometimes uncertainty within HR itself, but also among employees in general. These are all things that can really hurt the employee experience.
It is up to HR to contribute to improvement. A short study can be done on the communication needs of employees, on their preferences for communication channels. HR and the communication department can organize focus groups to get feedback and ideas.
There is another issue that hinders the EX of HR professionals. The rise of hybrid work formats seems to have increased the importance of clear processes and accessibility of information. This is an important point of attention for HR, as research shows. HR can also take the lead in investigating the most important problems and solutions.
The employee experience of HR professionals is lower than that of other employees
According to the research, the employee experience of HR professionals remains stuck at 105, while other employees score 111 (the scale runs from 70-130). HR professionals therefore have a lower EX! How can you take the lead if the EX is lower than for other groups? But don’t worry: everyone can improve his or her EX. If you gain insight into the factors that influence a positive or negative experience and receive tips and advice to get started, you can significantly boost your own EX. In this Frankwatching article, Renate tells more about self-insight.
Improve the employee experience, start with HR
HR has a very important role when it comes to measuring and improving EX in the organization, but its own EX is lower than we would expect. This means that HR would do well to also pay attention to its own team. Something that HR perhaps does too little, because it mainly focuses on improving the experience of others?
Source: www.frankwatching.com
