On Friday 28^th January, The Senator Group hosted a fascinating discussion: “The Post-Covid Employee Experience: Reshaping Engagement, Culture and Inclusion”.

Attendees participated in conversations around three core topics:

1. Sustaining Engaged Employees
2. Company Culture
3. Neurodiversity (EY Neurodiverse Centres of Excellence)

Event Summary

Chaired by Debbie Francis (OBE), the roundtable took place in The Senator Group’s London showroom:

Professor David Holman (Head of Organisational Psychology - University of Manchester) outlined how organisations can design work contexts to sustain engagement, by looking at workplace design; work task design; and work-life balance at home. Crucially, it is important to have a thought out, properly implemented strategy around hybrid working, which is designed to be fair and prevents employees from becoming disadvantaged by a working from home policy.

Joe Bell (Director at Evoke People Development) drew upon culture and the need for culture fluidity post-pandemic. Effective leadership, emotional intelligence and fostering an emotional commitment were all key to a positive company culture that could translate across both office and home working environments.

The presentations closed with Tori Roberts (UK Neuro-Diverse Centre of Excellence Leader at EY), who presented EY’s commitment to neurodiversity, including the recently opened neuro-diverse centre of excellence in Manchester. Tori highlighted the benefits of focusing on neurodiversity not as an EDI strategy, but as a key element of business growth in engaging extremely sought after skillsets by re-evaluating recruitment, engagement and support techniques.

“The energy in the room and the involvement from all of the attendees gave me real optimism in the future of work. The companies in the room showed real interest in learning and finding out more about the issues around reshaping engagement, culture and inclusion.” - Debbie Francis OBE – Chair of the Lancashire LEP

In the wake of ‘the Great Resignation’, understanding what motivates employees to stay with a business is key to retaining and developing staff. The employee experience is not just about meeting needs for today, it also considers the long-term impact of HR, talent management and workplace strategies.

“We organised this event to build on our existing knowledge of the employee experience; we wanted to create a forum that would generate new ideas to support a positive employee experience even as the workplace evolves post-pandemic. The result was a very though provoking discussion that has enabled us to better understand the opportunities for reshaping and improving engagement, culture and inclusion and we are looking forward to sharing these insights over the next few weeks.” - Mike O’Neill – Sales Operations Director

An enormous thank you to all participants – we are very grateful for the time and effort involved in bringing the topics to life, and making the event such a success.

We will be building the ideas raised in this event into our insight pieces, which will be published over the next few weeks.