Whether you’re a locally operating small supply chain or international, high-level employee experience is the most important thing to boost your bottom line. When you drastically improve your employee experiences, you get less turnover, fewer absences and greater profitability.

Supply chain management’s essential role is to maintain productivity. But given the nature of this field, employee experience is a major challenge for managers in supply chains. However, providing a better employee experience can help you boost their morale and generate long-term revenue.

Here’s a closer look at some of the main obstacles to employee experience.

What Do Supply Chains Lack in Boosting Supply Chain Productivity?

It’s worth noting that employee experience management is the key to increasing employee satisfaction and engagement levels. After all, regardless of which field, every employee desires to feel a sense of appreciation and accomplishment.

Below are some of the most common bottlenecks supply chains experience in productivity, including:

• Lack of inspirational leadership: Every employee is responsible for their professional engagement. Yet, the managerial staff is as accountable for employees’ satisfaction.
• More focus on profits than people: Sales revenue will always be a top priority for businesses. However, unsatisfied employees result in poor performance, making profitability less meaningful.
• Poor career advancement pipeline: Not every worker is fit for advancement. But failing to advance top-performing employees in rewarding roles can quickly spoil the atmosphere within your supply chain.

Ways to Improve Your Employee Experience Management Strategy

Surely, you’ve witnessed these obstacles countless times in your supply chain business. However, there are numerous ways to avoid these pitfalls by improving your employee experience management system.

1. Increase Cross-Department Communication Efficiency

Depending on the scale of your supply chain, employees may lack a sense of purpose behind their work. Consider integrating cross-department collaboration. Doing so can help your team see the bigger picture behind warehouse management.

By implementing effective communication within your supply chain, the relationships between employees and managers will improve and lead to higher performance. You can establish better communication between departments by using communication channels like Slack.

2. Provide Ongoing Development Opportunities

The great thing about supply chain management is that it isn’t a field disrupted by constant technological breakthroughs and innovation. Therefore, employees will enjoy honing their skills in this industry.

Instead of providing employees with a mechanical, mundane workflow, opt for different development activities. This will ensure your employees feel valued and rewarded. And the higher their satisfaction levels, the more they can respond to and meet customers’ needs in the process.

3. Respond to Employee Feedback

The only way of knowing what your employees need is if you ask them. You can start receiving honest feedback by instilling a culture of respect and open communication. Take time to check in with your employees regularly to make them feel like you’re not neglecting them.

If employees are too afraid to be open with their management team, you could also have them respond to surveys anonymously. Gaining employee feedback will be essential to understanding what employees feel is lacking.

4. Provide Recognition

Today’s employees want their employers to recognize their accomplishments more than ever. This is no exception for warehouse workers. Therefore, managers must improve employee experience management by introducing a reward and recognition system.

Recognition could be as simple as creating “Employee of the Month” blog posts, offering rewards for high performance or managers giving vocal credit.

5. Enforce Goals-Tracking and Management Support

Supply chain management can often disassociate employees from the bigger picture of shipments and orders. This may come from a lack of support from their managers.

One way managers can support their teams is by introducing a goal-tracking system. Implementing KPIs and goals for employees helps them relate to the overall workflow.

Managers can also provide further support by providing frequent feedback, building their confidence, coaching employees — and asking how they can help achieve their goals.

However, some managers can lack the ambition to lead others in a way that fits a supportive role. Therefore, you may need to invest in manager development to improve the employee experience.

Make Employee Experience Part of Your Operations

Remember, employee experience is the key element to driving overall productivity and revenue. If you want to achieve your goals of fulfilling customer satisfaction and profitability, it starts with focusing on your employees.

Use these tactics to make informed decisions and improve your employee experience management. Once you make the changes within your supply chain business, you'll notice a huge difference in overall performance on the floor.