Employee Champion Role: What Is It And Why Do You Need One?

The employee champion HR role is a fairly uncommon role in modern companies and enterprises. However, it’s not a role unheard of. The employee champion is also known as the change champion. In this piece, we’re going to look at what this role entails and why any company striving for a great work environment and success should have an employee champion.

Without further ado, let’s get right to it!

What is the employee champion role?

The employee champion HR role or the change champion in HR is a person or team responsible for evaluating the employee morale in the workplace. Apart from the morale, the employee champion also determines the level of satisfaction that the employees have. This is vital information that is then processed later to improve workplace efficiency or to make the company a more attractive place to work at.

For example, during initial tests, let’s assume that the employee champion finds a common problem in the layout of the workplace which hampers productivity and decreases work morale. This information can now be used to bring in the much-needed change that will ultimately contribute to improving the workplace, thereby making it even more attractive for current as well as future employees.

The employee champion is also an employee who focuses on other employees, and nothing else. Sometimes, the employee champion might only focus on certain aspects, areas, teams, positions or employee experience touchpoints.

You can selectively choose to boost a certain area within the company (let’s say an area that’s marred with lower than expected performance) with the help of the employee champion. When the champion figures out the current problems that are impeding productivity, they can report back to management, and suitable steps can then be taken.

In many cases, the findings might direct the management towards giving out more incentives. However, it’s not rare for a dedicated employee champion to stumble upon more structural and strategic handicaps that need complex problem-solving skills to get rid of.

Every workplace is unique and consequently, its dynamics and structure also differ wildly. Only a dedicated employee champion will be able to bring about the change that will go on towards improving the organizational capabilities and perhaps even unlock the hidden potential within a workforce.

The natural employee champions

Apart from the employee champion HR role, there are also natural employee champions. These are employees of your company who outperform others, strive to improve an area within the company, motivate their team, or more than one of the above.

These employee champions don’t need any training. They are naturally inclined towards boosting workplace morale. Sometimes, they do it unknowingly or perhaps even unintentionally.

It’s very important to categorically identify such people and incentivize them to let them know that you recognize their contribution to the overall work culture.

Workforce commitment is single-handedly the most important factor in improving productivity within an office. A good natural employee champion doesn’t just boost morale but also inspires others to work with more commitment.

This usually revolves around people skills, communication, mental support, and guidance. None of these are measurable skills or consistent skills. Employee champions might arise and fade away with time. Once you have an employee champion it’s important to retain them.

An employee champion role example is a high-performing employee in a small team or department where they act as an informal leader. Leadership, however, is not a prerequisite for being an employee champion.

The actual prerequisites differ from organization to organization and team to team.

The benefits of change champions

A change champion or an employee champion boosts productivity within a workplace. However, that’s not all.

Appointing a change champion has numerous advantages. There are many more benefits of change champions apart from a boost in productivity. Here is a couple of those:

• If an organization focuses too much on delivering and perfecting its product or expanding, it runs the risk of forgetting about the employees. This leads to a gradual degradation of confidence. This directly leads to a rising feeling of incompetence among the older employees. An employee champion can solve this problem by paying attention inwards whereas the managerial belt focuses outwards – expanding, diversification, service improvement, optimizing the other aspects of production or delivery, etc.
• The change champion is a catalysing agent. Whenever changes or policy shifts are introduced in a work environment (mostly to improve efficiency and performance), they’re likely to be met with a half-hearted response. A change champion can accelerate the shift to or the implementation of the new policy among their colleagues.

Potential key skills that a change champion or employee champion should have

Although it’s hard to pin down the exact skills required for an employee champion, it’s fairly easy to get some approximations. Here are some key skills that can be potentially the making of good employee champions in a workplace.

1. Problem-solving: Resistance is expected especially when changes are introduced. The employee champion should have exceptional problem-solving skills to remove any obstacles to a smooth transition to new policies or for enhanced productivity.
2. Providing feedback: An important part of the whole employee championing process is to report and generate feedback. This feedback is generally meant for the management but can also simply be about the tracking of the progress. If results aren’t measurable then it becomes pretty hard to gauge the success of an employee champion. That includes providing constructive criticism, but trying the best to avoid destructive criticism.
3. An encouraging nature: Encouragement goes a long way. An organization can only strive under fast-changing conditions if everyone pitches in. If an employee champion cannot get everyone to participate then it might become very difficult to adopt company-wide or team-wide changes within desirable timeframes.
4. Communicating: Strategic communication, support, and talking about any impending changes are all key to good employee management. An employee champion needs to be very good at communicating and dispersing vital information.
5. Empathizing: Changes are hardly comfortable. No one wants to break the work inertia. If any policy changes are met with unemotional or strict directives then it can ruin employee morale big time. The employee champion needs to empathize with other employees and colleagues to keep any lack of interest or enthusiasm at bay. Understanding and caring for people during changes is critical.
6. Coaching: It’s hard for many employees to adapt to new policies. This includes nudges that aim to improve efficiency. If there’s no one to coach employees through the process then any attempt to maximize the efficiency can backfire. The employee champion needs to be a coach for their colleagues. The change champion needs to coach employees throughout the implementation of any policies geared towards increasing performance.
7. Instructing: Developing people’s skills can be a difficult task. If an employee champion does not double as an instructor then certain technical aspects of policy implementation can go wrong.
8. Sensitizing: It’s important to make people sensitive towards and aware of the policy changes and the importance of those changes. As such, it’s natural for the employee champion to have a sensitizing effect on the concerned employees. This improves retention and enthusiasm through a policy change and any forms of productivity enhancement are achieved much faster this way.