Rating: Average
The Employee Experience blurb excerpt: Recently a new type of organization has emerged, one that focuses on employee experiences as a way to drive innovation, increase customer satisfaction, find and hire the best people, make work more engaging, and improve overall performance. The Employee Experience Advantage is the first book of its kind to tackle this emerging topic that is becoming the #1 priority for business leaders around the world.
There is no question that engaged employees perform better, aspire higher, and achieve more, but you can't create employee engagement without designing employee experiences first. It's time to rethink your strategy and implement a real-world framework that focuses on how to create an organization where people want to show up to work. The Employee Experience Advantage shows you how to do just that.
My opinion: I'm a lover of acronyms and workplace culture so I wanted to love this book. But I didn't. I found the suggestions a bit vague and the constant highlighting of companies that "do it well" and those who don't irrelevant. There were some good ideas, but too few for a book of this length. I also wasn't a fan of the layout of the book or the lack of editing.
Lessons from The Employee Advantage:
These are the cultural, technological, and physical environments. This book explores the attributes that organizations need to focus on in each one of these environments to create COOL spaces, ACE technology, and a CELEBRATED culture. You can no longer overcome a bad employee experience with the pay, perks, or gimmicks so these things are critical. Evolution of employee experience:
Utility - What do employees need to work? Employees are given just the bare essentials that they need to do their job.
Productivity - What do employees need to work better and faster? Employees are given tools and processes to help them to work better and faster.
Engagement - How can we make employees happy so that they perform better? Companies go out of their way to make employees happy so that they perform better.
Experience - How can we create a company where people what to show up VS need to show up? Companies successfully create a culture in which people want to show up and don’t just work for a paycheque.
“To design great employee experiences and to create a place where employees truly want to show up, organizations must focus on a reason for being followed by 17 attributes that are abbreviated as ACE technology, COOL physical spaces, and a CELEBRATED culture.” These are the 17 things employees care about most:
Consumer-grade technology
Technology availability
Technology focusing on employee needs
Workplace options
Values reflected in the physical space
Being proud to bring in friends or visitors
Workplace flexibility and autonomy
A sense of purpose
Fair treatment
Feeling valued
Managers acting like coaches and mentors
Feeling like you’re part of a team
Ability to learn something new, advance, and get the resources to do both
Referring others to work at your organization
Diversity and inclusion
Health and wellness
Brand Perception
3 environments that affect an employee experiences:
Technological 30%
Physical 30%
Cultural 40%
COOL characteristics of the physical environment:
C: Chooses to bring in friends or visitors
O: Offers flexibility
O: Organisation’s values are reflected
L: Leverages multiple workspace options
ACE technology: “technology has a palpable impact on the organization. It’s what we use to communicate, collaborate, and get our jobs done. If the tools break down, then everything else around them, including the human relationships, also breaks down.”
A: Available to everyone
C: Consumer-grade technology (something you would also use personally outside work)
E: Employee needs versus business requirements
CELEBRATED culture:
C: Company is viewed positively
E: Everyone feels valued
L: Legitimate sense of purpose
E: Employees feel like they’re part of a team
B: Believes in diversity and inclusion
R: Referrals come from employees
A: Ability to learn new things and given resources to do so and advance
T: Treats employees fairly
E: Executives and managers are coaches and mentors
D: Dedicated to employee health and wellness
9 different types of organizations and where they stand when it comes to the employee experience:
Inexperienced: Poor at culture, technology, and physical space
Technology Emergent: God at technology, poor at culture and physical space
Physically Emergent: Good at physical space, poor at culture and technology
Culturally Emergent: Good at culture, poor at physical space and technology
Enabled: Good at culture and physical space, poor at technology
Empowered: Good at culture and technology, poor at physical space
Engaged: Good at culture and physical space, poor at technology
PreExperiential: Good at culture, technology, and physical space
Experiential: Amazing at culture, technology, and physical space
Employees can be defined as one of 3 types:
Actively disengaged employees who undermine their co-workers.
Not engaged – sleepwalking through their jobs.
Engaged – has the passion and the ability to drive the organization forward.
The best question to ask an employee “Do you show up to work each and every day with the intention of helping others succeed”
Enablers for employee feedback:
Technologies must be in place to allow real-time communication and dialogue
Managers must be comfortable receiving and asking for feedback
Transparency must be the default culture mode
The organization must be prepared to take action.
3 moments that matter in employee experience:
Specific moments that matter: Includes things like your first day on the job, buying your first house, having a child, and getting promoted.
Ongoing moments that matter: The things that happen, such as when someone takes you aside, and thanks you for your help or you get a shout out at an all-hands meeting.
Created moments that matter: Corporate away days, Christmas parties, and other specific events that leave an impact. Examples of moments that matter:
First impression
My development
My leader
My personal experiences
My innovation
My rewards
My technology
My workplace
My lasting impression
My team
My making a difference
Employee experience advantage should be:
Initiated by the CEO and executive team
Owned by the people team
Driven by managers
Championed by everyone
Connect the work employees do back to the reason an organisation exists. Allowing employees to see the direct impact of the work they are doing.
5 trends shaping the future of work:
Mobility – Access anywhere, anytime, and on any device
Millennials and the changing demographic of the workforce
Big data, wearables, automation, IoT, and AI are just a few of the things organizations are trying to figure out
New behaviors
Globalization
People Analytics: The problem with most analytics teams looking at employee data is that they provide insights that are too broad and analysis that is too slow. By the time they slice, dice and develop a strategy around the insights, the dynamics have already changed.
The key for any organisation is to continually Ask, Acknowledge and Act on employees' feedback and opinions.
Technologies must be in place to allow real-time communication and dialogue
Managers must be comfortable receiving and asking for feedback
Transparency must be the default culture mode
The organization must be prepared to take action
Idea: To celebrate someone's work anniversary give them a “special project” to work on
The Employee: It's important to note, that the employee experience is not the sole responsibility of the employer. It's equal parts up to the employee to shape their own experience, as it is the employers to provide the environment, tech, & culture. The getting started checklist:
When you’re ready to get started, Morgan even has a short checklist of reminders to help you out:
You have to care, really care
Define a reason for being
Build a people analytics function
Identify the required skills
Have executive support (i.e., a chief people officer)
Train the organization
Tell stories
Build or improve the experienced team
Deploy feedback tools/mechanisms - In-person feedback and via technology
Implement COOL spaces, ACE technology, and CELEBRATED culture
Identify and create moments that matter (or moments of impact)
The Employee Advantage Best Quotes:
“Bonuses don't really motivate workers. Once they reach a certain baseline salary, money is no longer the main driver. They need something more."
“Just because you measure something doesn’t mean you improve it”
“Employees can engage each other much better than a HR program can”
“Once an employee reaches a certain baseline salary money is no longer the main driver. They need something more”
“If employee engagement is the short term adrenalin shot, then employee experience is the long term redesign of the organisation”
What Next:
If you are interested in this book, you may want to check out our list of all Business Book Reviews
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