B2E (Business-to-Employee) refers to actions between the company and its personnel at the corporate level such as recruiting, onboarding, team building, training, tools for sharing internal resources and employee loyalty. One of the most important dimensions within the B2E perspective is that of internal communication systems such as the company intranet which offers employees access to internal materials, company guidelines, policies and other resources to support employees in their work.
When the customer experience includes direct contact with your employees, Employee Experience becomes an important aspect of the entire Customer Experience. In addition, the opinions of employees, which may be expressed on portals such as GlassDoor or on LinkedIn, are important for the brand’s overall reputation.
In this post, we will identify the main aspects of B2E as a way of improving the business relationship. We’ll also look at how internal communication systems can use B2C tools to evolve.
Caring for people, a company’s most important asset
Forbes points out that many companies still don’t view employees and company culture as assets. In such organizations, HR means payroll, staffing and benefits management. In such an environment, there is no role focused on employee engagement. And this can become detrimental for keeping skilled employees.
Employee Retention is about the company’s ability to maintain a stable and lasting relationship with its talent, thus avoiding excessive internal turnover and ensuring continuity of business activities. Excessive turnover at the workforce level makes it more expensive to bring a new employee on board, and we can’t forget the sunk costs that result from investments in an employee who then leaves the company.
Beyond remuneration: benefits and the working environment
Remuneration is not sufficient for determining the level of engagement in an organization. Flexible working hours, teleworking, an adequate pension and other benefits have a significant impact on the decision to accept a job in the first place or move to another company.
The work environment itself (the people and the culture), but also the way the workspace is designed are crucial in an employee’s assessment of the company. And once you’re in the door, the onboarding experience, which often starts at day one, is especially impactful for new employees.
Training and growth paths
According to CIO, employee retention goes hand in hand with training. In a survey of US professionals, 80% of respondents said that the company’s willingness to pay for training courses is one of the main reasons to stay with the company over a five-year period.
In this respect, B2E tools can be of assistance:
- Internal company communications: Company intranets can serve as a single portal for communicating and sharing content for all internal processes
- Corporate training center: Offering an internal resource for developing skills can help standardize knowledge and support the adoption of skills in a way that is ongoing and strategic.
Communication between company and employee: a key factor for a successful relationship
Communication is the central point of B2E and a factor that determines the success, or failure, of any initiative. Capgemini develops the concept of Business to Employee Listening, an approach that is similar to that of customer journey mapping, but which identifies the touchpoints of reference for the employee’s experience within the company.
The first step in this approach is to define the questions to be considered, then collect the information. These forms of employee listening can take many different forms:
- Social monitoring to see what employees post on social networks
- Mystery employee: Similar to the idea of the mystery shopper, this can be new employees who share their experience with the company from a consumer viewpoint or having more experienced employees or top management spend time directly interfacing with different teams
- Focus group: Used to elicit employee feedback on company initiatives
- Surveys: Can be administered online or through interviews
Combining the empirically collected information with the data available can provide a broad picture of internal business activities and support companies with the information they need to make significant changes in the business or culture.
The results in terms of employee satisfaction can be identified in the following points:
- Improved enterprise-employee communication: with access to data at all times and in all circumstances for ongoing activities;
- Improved knowledge management: better sharing of internal content makes work more efficient and improves teamwork.
The quality of the experience in the workplace affects the employee’s decision to belong to the company, so it’s necessary to implement some best practices in order to create a favorable virtuous circle, according to the objectives and business strategy.
Personalized communication for internal systems
The next step in business communication is to send personalized messages to employees, taking advantage of modern technologies which support data collection and enable sending dedicated and personalized communications.
For example, Poste Italiane selected Doxee to create a video for employee communications via the Poste Italiane intranet site. Corporate employee benefits is an important topic, and companies want to take advantage of tools to help them inform employees about the benefits available to them.
The personalized video presented employees with a full list of company benefit options.
This includes expense reimbursement and special vouchers. With this tool, individual employees can quickly and immediately choose the option that works best for them. Doxee Pvideo®‘s technology provides a user-friendly video and enables real-time data collection.
The future of business is in B2E
There are many reasons that companies choose to invest in B2E systems. These include:
- Global dimension: the ability to communicate in real time with employees around the world in a standardized manner is now necessary to meet the needs of planning and strategy
- Workforce composition: especially in the IT world, the shortage of skilled personnel, combined with demographic trends, becomes a challenge for all companies
Providing efficient tools, and implementing effective forms of employee retention, will be critical to business continuity.
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