What is the Employee Experience?
EX / PX / WX - many abbreviations attempting to describe what it’s like to be a worker and our ability to produce, delight, perform. So what is it? There are a multitude of definitions out there, ranging from a replacement term for employee engagement, all the way to a total overhaul of HR systems to be more user-friendly, and everything in between. And before we dive into the definition let’s start with the question:
Why do we need to design a Workplace or Employee Experience?
Understanding the steps it takes to create a great employee experience, as well as critically engaging with the many valid counter-arguments that follow, is even more confusing.
We need to change the culture! Again? But we did an XYZ program last year and it didn’t make a difference. Plus, what is our ‘culture’ and can we really change it? We need to double down on the quarter-end results, not deal with the fluffy HR stuff.
We need to listen to the employee’s voice! But we’ve been running quarterly engagement surveys and we have a 95% participation rate! We are also sending weekly pulse surveys. Isn’t that enough?
We have to become digital! Of course, we invested in a new HRIS system last year and are in the process of implementing a new ATS and now going through an RFP for a new LMS. (How many more acronyms can HR use that employees don’t really care to know?) In the wake of the pandemic crisis, we all moved to remote work so we’ve already become digital! Mission accomplished!
We have to make the work environment open and fluid! Well, an open floor is not conducive to productivity, so people need to have private space. No, we need to keep everyone remote because the productivity spiked since we went remote (and “so what!” if it might be related to overworking the backdrop of the crisis). No, people better come to the office when we reopen the office.
Maybe we leave everything the way it is -- too much change creates chaos and people are experiencing change fatigue.
Any of this sounds familiar?
No judgement.
Here is the definition I use: workplace experience is the cumulative experiences workers have with an organization before, during, and after their employment journey, designed to maximize organizational and individual success.
What does an Employee Experience Framework include?
Naturally, you need a mental model of the Employee Experience. Here is a way to build an organizing framework and a limited set of questions to reflect on - and maybe even consider when building your people analytics strategy.
EXPERIENCES:
Inclusion: Do you have a culture where everyone feels they belong? Do you have a “public square” or “town hall” channel (be that a physical way of gathering and discussing, or virtual way of raising questions, issues, and concerns)? Do employees feel they can freely speak about things that are of concern without experiencing repercussions? Are policies designed for everyone or are they only benefiting specific segments? For example, better health insurance coverage that is only available to executives, eligibility for student loan assistance only available to recent graduates (and more likely on the younger age spectrum) versus parents who are carrying the burden for loan repayments for their children. Are you age inclusive?
Accessibility: is your workplace accessible? Do people with physical limitations have the ability to use the same tools, same entrances, same spaces? Is your website and digital tool accessible? Do you consider people who have certain physical and mental limitations as people with disabilities or people with diverse-abilities?
In short, when you design any workplace offerings, are you making people feel they belong to different classes or they are all treated in a way that makes them feel cared for? This doesn’t mean that everyone expects riches to be bestowed upon them, but rather that there is fairness in how resources are allocated, and more importantly, there is transparency on how those decisions were made.
ORGANIZATION:
Culture: How do people treat each other? Both in the moments of success and failures? Do people understand each other and empathize? Do they feel visible? Do people relate to what it's like to be a family caregiver, or a parent, or a single mom, or a person with a disability (especially of invisible one)? Do people have the ability to adapt their workload to the times when they are performing at peak capacity and when they slow down to recharge their batteries? Is there tolerance for being human? Do leaders role model the behaviors of compassion and empathy?
Teaming norms: Is the work organized to be done primarily by one individual? Is the organization believing in the “lone creator” with exceptional abilities and traits? Do you have an individualistic culture or a collaborative? Is there belief in tapping into the organizational community that stretches you, challenges you and also helps you get things done? Do people generally enjoy working with each other? Do they have the ability to work on some “skunk works” projects with each other, just because they are passionate about it?
Processes and Policies: Do you have policies that govern nearly everything in the company, or procedures that describe exactly how things need to be done, or processes that one cannot deviate from and there is an army of compliance professionals policing the adherence? Do you add to the collection of those or refine them every single time someone makes an error, or does not comply? Are there loopholes that allow people to make exceptions from all those rules if the opportunity to “do the right thing” comes up? Do you trust your employees? Do you trust that they generally have a positive intent? Do they trust you?
WORKSPACES:
Physical work environment: What’s the look, feel, and vibe of your office environment? Is it an open space or a cube farm? Is the furniture ergonomic? Does it allow you to reconfigure things fast? What color scheme are you using -- bright and loud or calm and subdued? What is the level of noise and can people find quiet spaces where they can concentrate without being interrupted by a loud conversation or startled by the running of the espresso machine? Do you have an espresso machine or free tea/coffee? As the organizations start reopening their physical offices, the post-pandemic world looks a whole lot more different. Are you providing sufficient comfort and confidence to your workers that it is safe to be there?
Digital workspace: How do people use technology to get work done? Do you have a single sign-on option or do they have to log in to 17 systems to be fully productive? We might be exaggerating with 17, but maybe not -- no judgement. Are systems integrated and does data flow seamlessly between them? Are the technical features available on the desktop also fully available on mobile interfaces? Can you activate anything with voice control? Is the Wi-Fi strong enough? Does your tooling feel like you are in the Flintstones era, or in the Jetsons’? Do they have a choice?
Virtual workspace: Can people access the work tools they need and do their work from anywhere? Do they have the ability to continue to be productive regardless of when they choose to do the work? Do they have to carry two separate phones (one personal and one work-issued) because the security doesn’t allow data to be separated on one device?
Of course, some of these questions will not apply to workplaces where you have to be physically in a warehouse, or on a manufacturing line, etc.
The core question is -- are you using what you have at your disposal to make the work environment work for people (versus against them)? Is the workplace supporting them in getting their work done, in being productive, in feeling safe? Or is it a source of minor or even major irritations?
Mirrored Reciprocation: the principle driving great Workplace Experience
To understand how WX works, let’s reflect on the laws that govern our world. Let’s start with Newton’s Third Law of Motion: "For every action there will always be an equal and opposite reaction.” In the inorganic world, this law looks like this: you push a wall with a force X and the wall will push back with an equal force Y. In the biological world, the same principle applies: the more forcefully you pull a cat by its tail, the more painful the resulting scratches from his claws will be.
In human relationships, the same idea holds true: when you disrespect, ignore, trick, manipulate, discriminate against, or disempower someone, the chances of receiving anything different in return will be slim. In personal relationships, also the same: you’re looking for someone you can completely trust, with principles and courage, who is smart, kind, loyal, understanding, forgiving, and unselfish, and once you think you’ve found them, you spend all your life probing and testing them to make sure they are real, which, after a while gets old and irritating.
The exact same laws of mirrored reciprocation apply at work.
An Employee Experience Example: The Hiring Experience
Let’s start with hiring. You look for the ideal candidate out there, and in your image, they have to be someone trustworthy, smart, loyal, and dedicated to everything your company stands for. You court them and convince them your organization is the best place to work. She might have some inklings of discomfort with the not-so-glowing Glassdoor reviews, and she may experience some cognitive dissonance during interviews while meeting with the hiring manager who seems hurried, stressed, and overwhelmed, and she might not like the low-ball compensation offer, but she still accepts the position.
Then she walks through the door and starts seeing reality: systems are outdated and not integrated (slows down productivity, increases errors, and leads to frustration, especially when contrasted with our external consumer experience), and getting anything done requires dozens of approvals (lack of trust in employees and big bureaucracy), and making a suggestion for improvement is frowned upon (fresh thinking is discouraged, status quo is preferred), and everything is done to attain unrealistic or meaningless targets (focusing on the process and effort, and not the outcome), and all the decisions are made in the context of increasing shareholder value and satisfying customers, at times at the expense of other stakeholders like suppliers (“oh, we squeezed all we could from them"), employees (“they are on H1B visa and can’t go anywhere”), regulators (“how can we do some financial engineering here to pay less in taxes"), environment (“there is no global warming"), and the communities in which you operate (“ it’s too expensive to do business here"). How can she continue to stay trustworthy, smart, loyal, and dedicated to everything your company stands for the long haul?
You might say: But our company is different. Take another look, on the ground, in the trenches, when the targets are missed, when a person quits “for better opportunities,” or when she goes and posts about your company on Glassdoor.
No judgement…
在争夺最佳人才方面，员工的体验越来越重要Josh Bersin教你五大策略来最大化员工体验在争夺最佳人才方面，员工的体验越来越重要，人力资源需要关注授权，发展和吸引人才进入热门就业市场的核心优势，Josh Bersin写道。
作者：Josh Bersin
我们生活在有趣的时代。几十年来，全球经济第一次增长。失业率几乎处于30年来的最低点，薪水终于开始上涨，雇主正在积极争夺一套新的技能（“机器学习技巧”现在是LinkedIn领域最热门的工作，需求增加在过去五年中近10倍）。
但是这个地平线上有一片小小的灰色云。正如我在2000年股市崩盘时所记得的那样，在非常高的经济增长时期，就业市场变得非常困难，雇主不得不改变他们的策略。
突然之间，每个人都在争夺同样的人才（大会董事会首席执行官的研究表明，“找到并留住人才”现在已成为首席执行官的头号问题），企业开始担心人力资源战略和领导力，以及求职者开始快速跳来跳去。事实上，具有按需技能的人突然开始像电影明星一样行事，游说高薪，比较雇主，并进一步推动公司改善他们的就业品牌。
对于人力资源领导者来说，“员工体验”的整个主题突然成为一个成败的问题。如果你的公司没有得到很好的尊重，在社交媒体网站上获得高评价，并被认为是“不断增长的工作场所”，你会发现吸引人才越来越难。当然，大多数人不会经常换工作，但拥有非常独特技能的人开始走动。销售人员，工程师，产品专家甚至入门级员工开始转向增长最快的公司，使得发展缓慢的公司陷入低谷。
“对于人力资源领导者来说，'员工体验'的整个主题突然成为一个决定性的问题”
人力资源的新挑战
这种情况的问题在于它对人力资源造成了全新的压力。突然间，公司突出了员工体验，生产力，参与度，留存率，福利，奖励以及诸如福利，附加福利，工作环境以及免费午餐，免费晚餐，免费洗衣等各种奇怪的事情。免费健身房和锻炼项目。在我住的硅谷，如果你不给人们美味的早餐，午餐，（经常晚餐），你根本无法吸引工程师。这种不断升级的战争利益不断增加。
在我的职业生涯中，我经历了许多这样的循环，而且我的个人经历表明，许多人只是继续耕耘，留在原地，从经济改善中受益。但高潜力和领导者可以轻松找到新工作，所以我们必须密切关注他们。大多数公司正在重新设计他们的继任管理计划，促进人才流动性，入职培训，按需学习和职业发展，因此需要做很多事情。
最糟糕的是，正如我在2001年和2008年所记得的那样，这一切最终都会崩溃。在未来的某个时候，全球增长将停止，我们都会怀疑这些昂贵的，以员工为中心的计划是否可以承受。我记得我们2008年IMPACT会议的主题是“少用少得多”。我们现在不在这里，但最终会来。
重新调整员工体验策略
人力资源是否准备好了？绝对。我一直在与世界上一些最具标志性和重要性的公司会面，他们的人力资源团队重新关注职业管理，员工体验，新奖励计划以及各种有趣的数字生产力和福利策略。
让我们都在这里享受美好时光。是的，这个热门的就业市场造成了很大的压力，但如果你专注于赋权，发展和引人入胜的核心优势 - 你就会蓬勃发展。现在云层在地平线上，让我们享受阳光吧。
“如果你不给人们美味的早餐，午餐（经常晚餐），你根本无法吸引工程师”
5个最大化新全球经济中员工体验的策略
关注就业品牌。了解并研究候选人如何看待你的公司，并将这些信息反馈给首席执行官和高级商业领袖，以便推动管理层改进文化，参与度和工作环境。
保持当前的工资和福利。现在我认为公司必须每六个月刷新一次奖励计划。每年都不够快。我曾经和那些给员工半年一次审查和加薪的公司谈过，即使这在某些情况下可能还不够。现在公布大量的薪酬信息 - 员工可以找到它，所以您应该领先于此。
重点了解员工的旅程，并关注端到端的员工体验。这意味着从候选人到新员工到第一天，第一个月，第一季度，第一年，第一次促销等等。设计思维的概念现在已经被很好地理解，因此您需要使用它们来构建一种数字化的体验，以帮助人们在职业生涯中茁壮成长。
重新设计您的L＆D战略。今年是2018年，采用微型学习策略的一年，更新您的LMS和工具，并深入了解“工作流程中的学习”的概念。我很快就会写更多内容 - 但让我提醒你，当人们觉得自己“没有学习”时，他们会离开公司。你可以解决这个问题。
通知首席执行官和高层领导。让他或她知道你的留任率，聘用的难度，以及哪些业务领域正面临人才短缺或技能差距。如果您需要聘用更多招聘人员，投资新的开发计划，或从根本上改变工作模式以适应，您需要他们的帮助才能迅速动员。在竞争激烈的时期，首席执行官希望尽其所能帮助，所以要抓住机遇。
图片来源：iStock
以上由AI自动翻译，原文请阅读：
Josh Bersin’s top 5 strategies to maximise the employee experience
The employee experience is increasingly important in the battle for the best talent, and HR needs to focus on core strengths of empowering, developing and engaging people in a hot jobs market, writes Josh Bersin
We are living in interesting times. For the first time in decades the entire global economy is growing. Unemployment rates are almost at a 30 year low, salaries are finally starting to rise, and employers are competing vigorously for a new set of skills (“machine learning skills” are now the hottest according to LinkedIn, a job that has increased in demand by almost 10 times in the last five years.)
But there is a small grey cloud over this horizon. As I remember quite well during the 2000 stock market crash, during very high growth economic times the job market becomes very difficult and employers have to shift their strategies.
Suddenly everyone is competing for the same talent (Conference Board CEO research indicates that “finding and retaining talent” is now the #1 issue on the mind of CEOs), companies start to worry about HR strategies and their leadership pipeline, and job candidates start hopping around quickly. In fact people with in-demand skills suddenly start to behave like movie stars, lobbying for high salaries, comparing employers, and further pushing companies to improve their employment brand.
For HR leaders the whole topic of the “employee experience” suddenly becomes a make or break issue. If your company is not well respected, highly rated on social media websites, and considered a “growing place to work,” you find it harder and harder to attract talent. Sure most people don’t change jobs that often, but people with very unique skills start to move around. Salespeople, engineers, products specialists, and even entry-level employees start to move to the fastest growing companies, leaving the slow growth companies in waves.
“For HR leaders the whole topic of the ’employee experience’ suddenly becomes a make or break issue”
New challenges for HR
The problem with this situation is that it creates a whole new stress on HR. Suddenly companies are focused on the employee experience, productivity, engagement, retention, benefits, rewards, and things like well-being, fringe benefits, the work environment, and all sorts of strange things like free lunch, free dinner, free laundry, and free gym and exercise programs. Here in Silicon Valley, where I live, if you don’t give people a gourmet breakfast, lunch, (and often dinner) you simply cannot attract engineers. This escalating war of benefits keeps going up.
I’ve been through many of these cycles in my career, and my personal experiences shows that many people just plow along and stay where they are, benefiting from the improved economy. But high potentials and leaders can find new jobs easily, so we have to watch them closely. And most companies are re-engineering their programs for succession management, facilitated talent mobility, onboarding, on-demand learning, and career development, so there is a lot to do.
And worst of all, as I remember in the year 2001 and 2008, this all will eventually come to a crashing end. Sometime in the future this global growth will stop, and we will all wonder if these expensive, employee-centric programs are affordable. I remember the theme of our 2008 IMPACT conference was “doing less with less.” We aren’t there now, but it will come eventually.
Refocusing strategies on the employee experience
Is HR ready for this? Absolutely. I have been traveling around meeting with some of the most iconic and important companies in the world, and their HR teams are refocusing on career management, the employee experience, new rewards programs, and all sorts of interesting digital productivity and wellbeing strategies.
Let’s all enjoy the good times while they’re here. Yes, this hot job market creates a lot of stress, but if you focus on your core strengths of empowering, developing, and engaging people – you will thrive. The clouds are out on the horizon for now, let’s enjoy the sun.
“If you don’t give people a gourmet breakfast, lunch, (and often dinner) you simply cannot attract engineers”
5 strategies for maximising the employee experience in the new global economy
Focus on employment brand. Understand and study how candidates view your company, and bring this information back to your CEO and top business leaders so you can push your management to improve culture, engagement, and the work environment.
Keep salaries and benefits current. Right now I believe companies have to refresh their rewards programs every six months. Annually is just no fast enough. I’ve talked with companies that give employees reviews and raises semi-annually and even this may not be enough in some cases. A tremendous amount of compensation information is now public – employees can find it so you should get ahead of this.
Focus on understanding the employee journey, and focus on the end-to-end employee experience. This means everything from candidate to new hire to first day, first month, first quarter, first year, first promotion, and on. The concepts of design thinking are well understood now, so you need to use them to build a digital-enabled experience that helps people thrive throughout their career.
Re-engineer your L&D strategy. This year, 2018, is the year to adopt a micro-learning strategy, refresh your LMS and tools, and get behind the concepts of “learning in the flow of work.” I’ll be writing a lot more on this soon – but let me remind you, people leave companies when they feel they are “not learning.” You can fix this.
Keep the CEO and senior leadership informed. Let him or her know your retention rate, how hard it is to hire, and what areas of the business are suffering from talent shortages or skills gaps. You will need their help to mobilise quickly if you need to hire more recruiters, invest in a new development program, or radically change job models to adapt. In times of competitive growth CEOs want to do everything they can to help, so take advantage of the opportunity.
Image source: iStock
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