Who are your most important customers?

There’s a paradigm shift taking place among companies - those that are starting to think of their own employees as their customers. These companies see their employees for what they are - the most important asset to build their brand, drive innovation and create the future of the company.

This need for talented, motivated and engaged employees leads to an ever-present focus on finding and keeping quality talent. In fact, the findings in C-Suite Challenge 2018 which result from a survey of over 1,000 business leaders, cite attracting and retaining talent as the top concern among CEOs in 2018. Today, candidates pick companies more than companies pick candidates. Candidates access information on company culture long before hitting the interview. If they’re turned off by reviews or can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll move on, rejecting you before you even know they’re looking. That’s even true when it comes to your current employees, now that staying at a company for less than three years is the new norm. All of this together is leading to a renewed focus on the employee experience.

This article from McKinsey explores the customer experience and encourages companies to stop thinking exclusively about the touch points they have with their customers, but to evaluate the customer journey as a whole. As you read this article, think of your employees (or more specifically, your relocating employees) as the customer.

When you switch your mindset to think of your employees as the customer and focus on the employee journey rather than individual touch points, it may lead you to think about your employee experience (and mobility program) in a new way. This shifting focus may lead you to ask different types of questions. – Is this process intuitive? Can it be simplified? What’s the most frustrating part – how can it be reworked? What information can we provide proactively to reduce questions down the road? Thinking this way will certainly disrupt the status quo, but as they say in the article, “most companies perform fairly well on touch points, but distinctive performance on journeys can set a company apart.”

Evaluating the employee journey through a process as complex as relocation is a big undertaking, but if done correctly, it can be a key element to building a world-class mobility program and winning the war on talent.