Meeting my client at the local coffee shop had become a ritual for us in the past year. She had moved into the executive suite in a new organization which had a reputation for struggling – with performance, each other, and their CEO. Her history gave great promise to turning it around though as she was known for being a “people person” and past teams she had led had engaged productive employees. But, between sips of her cappuccino, she disclosed her frustration. The team was not turning around, and she had just gotten her Employee Experience scores back. Not only was her team still miserable, but it was also now on her watch.
As I backed her away from the edge of “I should never have taken this on,” she began to share what she had been doing to change the tenor and tone and enroll her group. As she told story after story of free-pizza-Fridays and take-your-dog to work days, it became evident that she honestly didn’t know why her previous team had been happy nor did she know how to turn this one around.
Once she stopped to breathe, I took her back to twenty-four months ago when we started an organization design process with her previous organization. Ostensibly the process intended to put in place regional P&Ls and change how they serviced customers. But the reality was we had also built and designed an organization that positively influenced employee experience. We didn’t just hope the new organization would get results and engage employees but structured it precisely to do so.
In a recent Forbes article, Denise Lee Yohn defines employee engagement as the “sum of everything an employee experiences throughout his or her connection to the organization — every employee interaction, from the first contact as a potential recruit to the last interaction after the end of employment.” She goes on to explicitly state that EX is not “employee engagement — that is, employees’ commitment to your company and their jobs —EX is the means to that end. Too many companies only pay attention to the results of annual employee engagement surveys and don’t proactively design and manage EX to produce better engagement.
As I talked to my client about the true meaning of the concept, her eyes widened and exasperated she said “the sum of everything? Are you kidding me? I should quit now.” Her frustration was rooted in the belief that as the leader, she thought she was responsible for defining (and building) every aspect that would influence her employees’ experience and the thought was overwhelming. But just like a museum the experience can only be curated, not mandated, or bought. Employee experience is a dependent variable, and each organization (and leader) has to figure out the equation for their people.
On your own, you could invest significant time, dollars, and resources in trying to develop that equation (think of the janitor solving the math problem on the blackboard in Good Will Hunting) or you could use an inclusive process so that your employees design it themselves.
Thinking about EX when designing work processes, structure, jobs, culture, leadership, and people systems as opposed to hoping you get the experience people want after you’ve finished. This isn’t a new concept – good organization design work has been around for decades. But re-emphasizing some of its core tenants as you start to think about (and be held accountable for) employee experience is critical as increasingly leaders look for shortcuts to making change happen. In particular, it is critical that your organization design work focuses on the following:
- Sense of purpose connected to a larger vision – Why are we here? Increasingly employees want to understand this and make a conscious decision to join (and stay with) an organization that actually believes it has a purpose beyond a CAGR of 10%. This doesn’t mean we all need to work in places that are trying to save the world but knowing what we strive for, what motivates us to get up every morning, and what to measure ourselves by is more valuable than we think.
- Clarity of strategy, roles, and their connection – When you start by defining EX as the sum of everything an employee experiences about an organization, it’s amazing how likely (even great) leaders will overlook the connection of strategy to everyday work. Yes, strategy can be a far-out concept, hard to draw the lines directly to the job you do at your desk every day. But making that strategy articulate, actionable, clear (most defined by what we say “no” to), and represented in the very structure in which we reside is a first step in making sure EX will be positive.
- Work that is more meaningful and productive when done together – Obviously there is a significant amount of work in organizations that is done by solo contributors but even when we work individually, designing patterns of work that create interaction, recognition, sharing, curiosity, and visibility leads to a more meaningful experience for all.
- Governance that creates true connection – What is most difficult to design in organizations are not the sub-groups to which we belong, but the linkages that bridge those seams. Boundaries between teams or departments necessarily create divisional sense of purpose and function, distinct tasks and performance measures, and evolving (and different) norms, and behavioral expectations. These boundaries lead to insularity and make it difficult to understand others’ perspectives, accommodate differences and act for the greater good, and execute in a coordinated fashion. Designing linkages that will counteract the inherent boundary conflict at the seams that structure creates becomes critical for optimal EX.
- Opportunities to develop and advance – Today’s employees are much less loyal to a specific job/leader/organization and much must be done to relook at an organization’s ability to provide options for movement, development, advancement, and perhaps most importantly, the self-management of one’s own career. Designing an organization for mobility, growth, and opportunity is what employees are looking for.
There is no doubt that ping-pong tables and pizza parties can bring a smile to the face of an employee, but they should not be confused with the principles and processes of employee experience management. For that, we must look deep into our organizational structures and make the changes that will pay much greater dividends than new snacks for the break room.