How to Enhance your Google Workspace Employee Experience?

What is Employee Experience?

Employee experience is not a fad, nor is it a trend. It is a fact. The world of work has changed and the relationship that employees seek to have with employers has altered. The Baby Boomer generation is making way for the Millennials, and they are a force to be reckoned with. McKinsey states that by the year 2025 they will make up 75% of the workforce worldwide. That is a majority that will not be ignored when they demand a positive experience from their employers.

Employee Experience Definition

How would you define “employee experience”? In simple terms, it is everything that happens in the relationship between the employee and the employer. This includes all the interactions the employee has from their first contact to the time the relationship ends, either due to the employee leaving of their own accord or being terminated.

Employee experience also includes the experiences that involve the employee’s role when interacting with customers, suppliers, colleagues, managers, and others. It also includes how comfortable the employee feels in the workplace’s physical environment and whether they feel comfortable and competent when using the tools (digital and physical) required to do their work.

Why is Employee Experience Important for Companies?

Gallup described it best when it pointed out that, “Employees are consumers of the workplace.” We know unhappy customers may not necessarily complain directly to the company involved. They may talk to other people in their circle about how and why they are unhappy. If the situation does not change, they simply move on.

The same thing happens with employees. The main reason people decide to change from one job to another is to take advantage of “career growth opportunities.” (Gallup) These employees simply don’t feel that they are being managed in a way that their talents and abilities are being used to their best advantage. Hence, the employees are not feeling motivated to do exceptional work.

These are experiences that are personalized, simple, and reliable. Employers need to check in with employees regularly, and employees expect to be treated like the unique individuals they are. Many employees are active on social media and like unsatisfied consumers, they are not shy about sharing their dissatisfaction with a company they feel is not listening or responding to their needs. Too many “bad reviews” from current and former employees can cause damage to the employer’s brand.

When companies focus on listening to their employees and devoting time and attention to their needs, the company gains as well. The employees work harder for them in return.

Technology and the Employee Experience

What is needed to create a great employee experience in the work environment? Employers need to pay attention to three elements that exist in all organizations.

1. Cultural Environment

A company’s culture encompasses how employees feel about their employer. It includes:

• Their compensation and benefits
• The overall atmosphere or ambiance that exists inside the organization
• The employer’s leadership style
• The company’s organizational structure

2. Technical Environment

Along with company culture, the quality of an employee’s experience also depends on how well their employer has adopted digital technology. A savvy company recognizes the importance of investing in a digital transformation (integrating digital technology throughout the business to deliver value to customers). When employers provide the right digital tools and equipment for workers to do their jobs effectively, this strategy enhances the employee experience. Digital tools may include:

• Mobile devices
• Desktop computers
• User interface

An employer should keep up with technology so that it can supply its workers with current models of the tools they need to do their work properly. Optimized tools for user experience can also have a huge impact on employee experience and productivity.

3. Physical Environment

The physical environment in the workplace is anything that can be seen, touched, heard, smelled, or tasted. All of these elements affect how employees feel during their workday. It includes items like the

• Office furniture (desks, chairs, tables, bookcases, etc.)
• Music (if it is available in the workplace; type, volume)
• Sounds (beeps and clicks from keyboards, notifications from digital devices, conversations between employees, outside noises heard inside the workplace, etc.)
• Amount of light in the workplace
• Smells of food, perfumes and scented personal care products, flowers, and cleaning products

Correlation Between Technology and Employee Experience

There is a strong correlation between employee experience and engagement with workers’ satisfaction levels with job-related technology.

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Today, many applications are available to support employees. Instead of helping workers to become more efficient, having too many options can complicate their work. An employee can end up wasting time switching between apps or searching for information instead of spending their time more productively.

In order to deliver a great employee experience, companies have to rethink and better organize the applications they offer to their employees.

LumApps for Google Workspace

Enhancing Google Workspace Employee Experience: 10 Ways

— Part 1: Enhance the Google Workspace Experience (formerly GSuite)

1. Centralize your Google Workspace information

Centralize your Google Workspace apps and content in one place. This will simplify your employee experience, reduce time spent looking for information, and increase productivity.

Employee Dashboard for Google Workspace gives employees access to work apps and resources from a single interface, which can be customized to meet their needs. Apps can be uploaded according to which ones employees use most often, or employees can choose their apps from a “basket” of available apps to suit their preferences. They can also display their Gmail, Google calendar, and files.

Enable Google Workspace’s search function.

Employee Dashboard for Google Workspace – LumApps

2. Curate and Personalize the Employee Experience

Put employees at the center of your digital workplace tailoring their experience to their role and needs. Deliver personalized content to employees based on their needs and preferences. Allow workers to personalize their newsfeed and choose apps from a catalogue, taking into account their language, geographic location, and business division within the company.

LumApps Newscenter

3. Organize Google Workspace Apps and Content

When a company provides business context around apps and content, it is doing what is necessary to create a strong culture that will engage employees. To make finding relevant information quick and convenient, ensure that it is stored in an organized manner.

HR Portal is a powerful tool to keep employees informed and engaged. It combines the following:

• Human Resources News, HR People Announcements
• Google Calendar – Upcoming HR Events
• Google Drive and Docs for Key HR Policies and Documents
• Google Forms to Collect Feedback/Surveys/Polls

LumApps HR Portal

4. Provide a branded experience to Google Workspace

You’ll want to ensure that your employees are seeing and interacting with a design that echoes and reinforces your brand culture. This idea is even more crucial during times when the company is going through a major change, such as rebranding or mergers and acquisitions.

LumApps Design Experience

5. Deliver Google Workspace Training Resources

• Secure the deployment, accelerate the adoption, and increase the use of Google Workspace with a place to gather training resources. These include tutorials, videos, and FAQs.
• Answer employee questions.
• Share tips and best practices.

Google Help & Support allows new users to discover best practices and access help from more experienced employees. This strategy can be faster and more efficient than having all queries run through a support ticket system. This is the place for administrators to post polls, articles, and resources for employees to keep them up-to-date about changes to the platform.

Google Workspace Support Community on LumApps

— Part 2: Extend the Google Workspace Experience

Google Workspace is wonderful for communication and collaboration. However, it doesn’t solve the problem employers have around culture, engagement, and alignment. Google Workspace needs to be used in tandem with an employee communication platform.

6. Communicate directly with employees to keep them informed

No one ever wants to be blindsided by news, especially as it pertains to their source of income. Whether the company is doing well and meeting all of its goals or is experiencing some challenging times, the fair (and responsible) thing to do is keep employees in the loop.

• Share company news, strategy, and insights to ensure that employees are advised first of developments. They need to understand where the company is going.
• Leadership Corner is a specific online space for the CEO to share thoughts, encouragement, company milestones, and discuss changes.
• Google meet & Google Chat: Communicate directly with your employees

Part of the digital employee experience is that employees want to have a voice in the company.

• Town Hall is a central area for planning and sharing. It gives employees a virtual space where they can hear about the latest events affecting your company.
• Make a point of collecting any questions or concerns before, during, and after town hall meetings. Keep in mind that some employees may wish to think over their response to the town hall before asking a question, raising a concern, or asking a question. It’s a good idea to allow employees to continue to provide feedback and propose employee experience ideas after the event has finished.

Slack Integration for All Hands – LumApps

7. Recognize Employees for their Work

Everyone wants to feel appreciated for their contributions to the company. Be sure to:

• Provide corporate recognition as well as peer-to-peer recognition.
• Recognize employees that go beyond in their day-to-day activities.
• Announce promotions and thank employees when they leave or retire.
• Employee Recognition Center allows employers to acknowledge their employees’ contributions virtually. Individuals and teams can be featured, along with content explaining how they have exceeded expectations.
• Allow for the community to make announcements to recognize employees who stand out.

LumApps Recognition Center

8. Don’t Forget about your Frontline Workers

All your employees may not have access to Google Workspace. It does not mean you leave your frontline workers behind. Frontline employees can be connected to your employee communication platform leveraging Google Cloud Identity.

Frontline employees also need to be informed and connected – read news, like, comment, post updates. But more importantly, they need to be able to access useful resources for them to do their work (such as security procedures, …). They need to be able to ask questions, look for experts so that they can get help to perform their work more efficiently and safely.

9. Use Data to Provide the Best Employee Experience

Employers can gain a much better understanding of their employees’ experience by using digital employment experience software to measure employee satisfaction.

• Use analytics to understand what matters to employees and the topics they are most interested in, then perform data-driven improvements.
• Identify influencers within the company through their online behaviors (posts, comments, and likes).
• Enlist their help in shaping the future of employee experience by encouraging influencers to continue sharing their thoughts about the company and how it can improve. Other employees will be encouraged to join the conversation and do the same.

10. Boost Employee Social Advocacy

You have worked on the nine points listed above to improve the employee experience. Employees should be now happy and engaged, and you can count on them to be positive ambassadors for your brand. It’s one of the greatest ways to improve your brand image, to gain visibility and credibility, and thus to convince your target to buy or convince a candidate to apply.