Employee Experience – The Next Phase

This month the ChapmanCG Germany team have been continuing to host our coffee club series sharing and discussing trends virtually.

This gathering was the first ChapmanCG event held completely in German.

A big thank you to all attendees for an open and constructive discussion on the truly unique challenges, successes and sometimes radical changes affecting employee experience.

The conversation was fast-paced and we have summarised some of the key soundbites below. This is intended to be a snapshot of ‘what is on people’s minds’ as German and international companies look into the future.

• Current and future Employees are becoming more demanding. The requests are, for example, around
  • Mobile working
  • Working from home / flexible working
  • The next step in their careers, many want to advance at an ever-increasing frequency
  • Terms and conditions; There have been instances where candidates ask the employer to sign the employee’s version of the labour contract
• Dealing with different expectations makes things complicated, for example
  • How do you create consistency in treatment, be it benefits or compensation?
  • Giving additional benefits and compensation to new employees may jeopardise the loyalty of existing employees which then affects turnover.
  • One benefit is flexibility in-office presence. The rule within one of the companies is “we are pleased to see you in the office but you don’t have to come” – helps to cater for all employees – both for whom work from anywhere or work from office are important. But does that work for all and how do you communicate and create that right environment?
• There is a sense of “Entitlement culture” that seems to be evolving and then developing loyal employees becomes a challenge. People think less in teams but more individually, which in turn is creating different small worlds within companies and then subsequently creates a disjointed working environment.
• Purpose is important for many. It helps to avoid some materialistic demands for employees. However, the relevance of purpose differs by group of employees and geography. How do you transfer purpose to various levels in the organisation, as HR and Management there is a need to communicate well to convey the purpose and to win and keep people. There is a fine line between the need for individualisation, but also standardisation and digitalisation. And obviously the company's purpose is very important.
• Some industries and successful start-ups have “spoiled” many with monetary incentives, many employees walk out of these environments have become very rich and expect a new employer to match their expectations.

Where do we go from here?

The challenges facing HR in Germany are similar to those we have seen around the world. Company culture is important, it needs to be consistent in messaging across the organisation and resonate with employees. Employees have options and so companies are concerned with their retention so the values along with the compensation a company offers have to be right for people to stay and to join. When joining the onboarding experience, in whatever format it takes, needs to be impactful and live that company culture for the new employee from day one. From there, it’s about listening, showing appreciation and adapting to the future, with differentiation to address areas where this matters most.