Employee Experience: EX-CX

Reach goals together

Over the past year, a strong trend in personnel management has become clearly visible globally: "Employee Experience" or "EX". It is about an employee who has a very positive experience of their job will be engaged, stay in the company, attract new talent and do such a good job that it is noticeable in the customers' experience.

Banal, some would say. Another motivational measure from the management, others will say. Wait. 

The point is that the philosophy behind EX presupposes that management and employees together form a workplace that provides an exceptional employee experience. If you look at this as something the management "should do with" the employees, you are doomed to fail. It is about a trust in and joy over one's colleagues, and a genuine belief that together you can achieve everything you set as a goal. This is reflected in a willingness and ability to help create the conditions for people to do a good job.

 

EX presupposes that management and employees together form a workplace that provides an exceptional employee experience.

 

Employees first - then customers

Central is the belief that employees who have a very good experience of their workplace work in a way that gives customers an even better experience. In other words: A good employee experience leads to a good customer experience. Or «EX → CX»!

What can this trend be traced back to? In 2010, Indian business leader Vineet Nayar turned the current management philosophy upside down with the book "Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down", with the eminent thinker CK Prahalads wise preface. The book sparked a long-awaited debate about the rationale of considering employees as input factors that were tried to be put into a system and controlled by a combination of incentives and corrections. Or "carrot and whip," "lures and threats," or "reward and punishment," as others critically describe it.

Efforts to increase employee engagement have been popular for a number of years, and managers are measured by their employees' engagement. However, more and more people are looking more critically at engagement surveys, at how to give employees opportunities for influence ("empowerment") and the criteria that lie in measurements of which workplaces are "best". These measures are often permeated by a perspective on "us and them", and a belief that measures must be put in place to motivate and engage employees. This objectification of employees as "someone we have to do something with" is quickly seen by employees, and the company achieves no or little progress. Which often leads to even more measures of the same kind, and a vicious spiral is underway.

New generation and digitalisation open doors

Two other factors have strengthened the wave of belief in the employee experience as both a goal and a means.

First, new generations of employees are entering the labor market with different expectations and perspectives than those that have come before them. Some shake the heads of this generation and think that they will probably find themselves at ease, while the smartest leaders understand that it is the other way around: It is an open invitation to change and adaptation. And they know that those who succeed in getting the most talented talent to come and stay in their company, have a big competitive advantage.

Global giants such as Google, Cisco and Facebook have long understood this, and are investing heavily in EX because they know that good intentions, measures and superficial actions have no value in the battle for the best. It is a truthful and consistent culture, a stimulating and well-functioning work environment and the best tools for the job that counts.

Secondly, digitalisation is emerging and opening up completely new opportunities, giving life to new business models and processes, and mercilessly killing old ways of working and thinking. Many of the jobs of the future are scarce, and far-sighted managers understand that there is no point in a sequential way of thinking where management thinks, defines and specifies and employees are provided, instructed and managed. It is necessary to be light on your feet and work together with structure as a tool - not as an obstacle and barrier.

 

It is a truthful and consistent culture, a stimulating and well-functioning work environment and the best tools for the job that counts.

 

In 2016, it was clear that the wave was beginning to break. Articles about EX appeared more frequently. Several HR CEOs followed in the footsteps of Airbnb, changing their position from CHRO to CEEO: from Chief Human Resources Officer to Chief Employee Experience Officer. Other variations are "Global Director, Employee Experience" as at sports giant Nike in the US, or "Director Employee Experience" at airline Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong.

 

New "contract" between employer and employee

In the spring of 2017, the development gains further momentum. 

In the 2017 edition of its annual Global Human Capital Trends report, consultancy Deloitte has swapped "engagement" for "employee experience", writing: "Looking across all 10 trends we discuss this year, it's clear that employee experience is a key theme in 2017." They point to key input factors: "Leadership, organizational structures and teams, career mobility, learning, diversity, employer brand and HR services all impact an employee's experience."

Deloitte sees this as "a new contract between employer and employee" and points to the link to the customer: "Just as marketing and product teams have moved beyond customer satisfaction to a total customer experience, HR is reorienting its efforts toward developing programs, strategies and teams that understand and continuously improve the total employee experience." 

Tracy Maylett and Matthew Wride have published their book "The Employee Experience: How to Attract Talent, Retain Top Performers, and Drive Results". 

Based on a massive database of surveys, the authors have extracted some valuable findings, writing "When we took a closer look at the data, we saw a clear pattern: The most engaged companies were those with managers who carefully handled employees' expectations and built trust."

Their findings also make it clear that this is about genuine interest in fellow human beings: «eng employee engagement has never been something that managers can create through orders», and point out that «engagement grows organically on a fruitful field of culture, meaningful work, respect and trust . »

Maylett and Wride provide practical guidance on what has proven to work, and propose entering into - explicit as well as implicit - contracts as "instruments for establishing, understanding, managing and adapting employees' expectations". They point to contracts in three dimensions: 

• The trademark contract that includes the promises that the company's identity gives to both customers and employees.
• The transaction contract that describes the mutually accepted operational terms for working together. 
• The psychological contract which is an unwritten and implicit set of expectations and obligations that constitute the conditions for interaction in the relationships. 

 

Workplace, tools & culture

Author Jacob Morgan has just published his book "The Employee Experience Advantage" with the subtitle "How to Win the War for Talent by Giving Employees the Workspaces They Want, The Tools They Need, and a Culture They Can Celebrate".

It is precisely these three areas - the workplace, the tools and the culture - that Jacob Morgan through his research and analysis of 252 companies has come to the conclusion that are the key to a successful employee experience. He has launched his "Employee Experience Index", and points out in detail which 17 factors have the greatest effect. And with effect, he talks about a proven connection between succeeding in creating a valued employee experience and improved results in productivity, earnings, profitability and share price. 

Jacob Morgan is convinced that it all starts with the employee and describes how a company that has succeeded trains its managers to "see things through the eyes of their employees and act accordingly". He is unwavering because through his review of the companies he sees the difference between true faith in people and calculated efforts: “Care. You can not teach this and thus create a kind of sense of care "and continues" if your managers do not care about people, in fact care, then there is no amount of effort and investment in the employee experience that will yield any results. "

Even though we in Norway have long traditions for cooperation, corporate democracy and involvement, we are wise to note this development internationally. The institutions, norms and procedures we have in Norwegian working life work and are generally respected. 

In the flora of philosophies, concepts and tools, there are also methods that are based on how we work in our part of the world. The Swedish company Agerus has used Scandinavian working life research as a basis when they have developed their concept of measuring whether a person - employee, manager, athlete, etc. - wants to accomplish something, knows what to do, can do it, is allowed to do it and feels that one should act: "Will, know, can, get should." The idea is precisely to work with people the prerequisites that provide the opportunity to perform, rather than working exclusively with the achievements themselves. 

But the fact that our working life is generally well-functioning does not mean that everyone believes in the basic thesis that we should not treat employees, but rather treat the conditions for our employees to use their abilities, get an outlet for their needs, let their commitment ignite and so on. master challenges and succeed in creating value.

It's easy to be complacent and welcome others "after" before suddenly discovering that you were overtaken in the battle for the talents that make the difference between a good and solid company and the pioneering companies that change our lives and our thoughts and show the way into the future. Now it's time to keep up!