25 minute read
HEnrik kofod-HansEn, Co-founder of novosensus, a
Employees vs. Leaders: The missing link in EX
Today there is a broad consensus, that Employee Engagement is a significant driver of desirable organizational outcomes. EX is one way of creating the environment, structures, attitudes, and behaviors that support employees’ sense of belonging, commitment and engagement By Henrik kofod-Hansen
When companies invest in Employee Experience (EX) frameworks, they expect a return on investment through a higher Employee Engagement level, which in turn is expected to improve the organization’s performance. Additionally, there are appealing side-effects: Organizational well-being increases, employee loyalty improves, customer satisfaction increases, and overnies can achieve with their EX initiatives. Today there is a broad consensus, that Employee Engagement is a significant driver of desirable organizational outcomes. EX is one way of creating the environment, structures, attitudes, and behaviors that support employees’ sense of belonging, commitment, and engagement.
But something is missing.
all, the company becomes a better organization to work for.
The origins of EX can be difficult to trace, but Gallup’s research in 2012 that showed the relationship between Employee Engagement and organizational performance, is probably one initiator of the EX hype. This report has unfortunately since been misinterpreted and misquoted, leading to exaggerated claims such as “Employee Engagement drives 22% of a company’s profitability”. Whereas in fact, the report merely states that “Work units in the top quartile in Employee Engagement outperform bottom-quartile units by 22% in profitability”. It is important to be aware of these nuances because it potentially inflates the expectations of what compaThe challenges for the EX approach
When companies design their EX they often use a 7 phased Employee Lifecycle model and they create a long list of “Moments-thatMatter”. While this provides a neat and easy-to-manage structure, it is complicated by two challenges: • Often employee lifecycle frameworks are too crude, and only insufficiently adapted to describe and capture employee’s true experiences. As a consequence, it feels disconnected and generates little real value for employees. • “Moments-that-matter” frameworks are supposed to capture the moments that generate emotions, but in many companies, the employee’s experi-
TOO OfTEN, BOTH Ex ANd ENGAGEMENT INITIATIvES ARE dESIGNEd TO cREATE TRANSPARENcY fOR HR, BUT IGNORE wHAT SHOULd BE THE REAL OBJEcTIvE: TO cREATE A BETTER PLAcE TO wORK, wHERE EMPLOYEES THRIvE
ences of their leader and their behaviors are excluded, although these are the most important moments that an employee experience.
Too often, both EX and Engagement initiatives are designed with the purpose of creating transparency for HR, but ignore what should be the real objective: To create a better place to work, where employees thrive. The wish for transparency as a way to enable the organization to do the right thing is applaudable, but if the most important factor is not measured, the usability and effect will be limited.
What most EX initiatives overlook
According to Gallup (2016), up to 70% of an employee’s engagement is influenced by their manager. This illustrates how important it is for companies to pay more attention to this aspect of the employee experience, but it is rarely measured in a systematic way that provides relevant insight. Employee’s experience of their leaders, and their interplay is in fact one of the most central aspects of an organization’s emotions and functioning.
The importance of the leader and employee relationship is supported through extensive research on the so-called Leader-MemberExchange (LMX).
According to a metastudy, the leader’s behaviors, perceptions, and expectations have the highest effect on how employees rate their relationship with the leader. This includes behaviors such as inspiring with a vision, building trust, encouraging, fostering intrinsic motivation, and several other supportive leadership behaviors.
Therefore, EX initiatives must support and measure the leader and employee relationship in a granular and timely way, and EX tech solutions must be tools to capture the emotional impact of these interactions. Only then will companies have visibility into what really happens in their organization, and be able to design and implement initiatives that really improve what employees experience.
How employees really experience their leaders
Early 2020, we conducted a global survey with more than 1.800 people from the logistics and transportation industry, with the objective to identify what employee experience at work. In particular two findings can help to shed
How employees experience their leaders
My leader gives me Autonomously
I Trust my leader
My leader Inspires me
My leader has Empathy with me
My leader gives me Constructive Feedback
My leader gives me Clear Direction
My leader enables me to Build Confidence
55% 67%
47%
47%
Average responses indexed. N: 1.647.
44%
43%
42%
0 25 50 75 100 Very Poor Average Good Very Poor Good
light on what companies do not capture in the leader and employee relationship: • Employees feel they give more than they get from their leaders. They rate their own engagement level to be at a level of 70/100 (indexed), while their experience of their leaders is a mediocre 48. • Leadership behaviors are rated to be at a mediocre level. This particularly concerned supportive, empowering, and enabling leadership behaviors, that are essential for a high employee engagement level. (See above Figure 1).
Again, we look towards the research, where Dierendoncks’ research on servant leadership (2010) identified, that empowering leadership behaviors have the largest impact on an employee’s level of engagement, and a significant effect on the performance. When these supportive and enabling behaviors are only scantly available, employees and organizations reach their full potential, neither in engagement nor in performance.
Few companies systematically measure how employees are emotionally impacted by their leaders, and the tracking of leadership moments as a part of the “Moments-that-matter” approach is underdeveloped. Therefore, what may superficially look like a good Employee Engagement level, can under the surface be severely compromised. Companies are unaware of the true emotional temperature of the organization.
Leadership may not be measurable, but the feelings that it evokes in people are. Instead of attempting to measure engagement in an aggregated way, companies must invest more into capturing the emotional impact that people experience and find ways to link this back to their leader’s attitudes and behaviors.
The opportunity: Make the Leadership Experience part of EX
Through the aforemen-
tioned survey, we identified that companies have a great opportunity in front of them if they can effectively upgrade their leaders’ empowering behaviors. Employees of leaders who demonstrate empowering and enabling behaviors, report a significantly higher level of Psychological Safety, Collaboration and Engagement. This finding is relevant for how companies develop their leaders and can inform the design of development programs on empowering, supportive and enabling leadership attitudes and behaviors. (See figure 2)
Benchmarking Great vs. Poor leaders
Difference between Top Quartile Leaders vs. Bottom Quartile Potential for Psychological Safety Potential for Team Collaboration Potential for Employee Engagement
Giving Autonomy +66% +89% +98% Building Trust +105% +109% +102% Having Empathy +117% +103% +109% Giving Clear +55% +69% +84%
Direction
Giving +51% +64% +98%
Constructive Feedback
Enable to Build +62% +75% +105%
Confidence
Recommendations for a better EX approach
In order to establish an EX and Employee Engagement framework that has a tangible positive impact on employees, the following points should be considered: 1. Be clear on why you invest in an EX initiative. Is the objective truly to enable employees to thrive and perform, or is it an employer branding exercise? 2. Definition of “Momentsthat-matter” must be
based on employee interviews, and specifically capture the moments they experience with their leader. 3. Measure quarterly, instead of only once or twice per year. Business life is too dynamic to miss out on negative trends for several months. 4. Integrate the leadership experience measurements into leadership performance reviews and development. Use the data to enable leaders to better understand their role and impact, and support them in adapting their attitudes and behaviors.
HEnrik kofod-HansEn is a co-founder of novosensus, a human and organizational development consultancy in Singapore.
Employee Experience: EX 4.0
EX in Industry 4.0 era is crucial to help leaders create & deliver business value, as well as help employees, navigate ambiguity to find purpose, meaningfulness, and fulfillment in work & life By Vaibhav goel
In just two years, i.e. 20202021, a lot is changing and course-correcting in our lives & perspectives than has in the last two decades! And we are just past halfway this 2 year period, which means there is substantial ambiguity waiting for us in 2021 & beyond. These are the times when we somewhere start to reimagine the first principles in our work and life. Some of these back to
an effective ‘culture of innovation’ in the true sense, will be better prepared for these challenges!
2.Accelerated digitaliza-
tion:With the convergence of new technologies like Cloud, Mobile,
Big data & AI with low code platforms is already turning successful and well-entrenched business models upside-down.
Further, with the potential disruptions from 5G,
Blockchain, AR/VR, 3D
Printing, and Genetic
Engineering, the world within 5 years can become unrecognizable! To be able to ride this ‘wave after wave’ of tech disruption,
‘an ecosystem of agile platforms’ is central to the business capabilities of
Industry 4.0.
3.Millennials and Gen Z:
Millennials, while being digital natives and the so-called entitled generation, will bounce back with newfound strengths of strong character, tenacity, and adaptability. They have been exposed to
‘humanity and personal challenges of a lifetime within few months. It’s this age group that is best suited to adapt and not the 45-year-old plus! Millennials will have their own yardsticks of meritoc-
basics principles, but in a new and hyper-connected tech world, demands things to be done a bit differently. But where do HR and Business Leaders even start? A future-proofing guiding framework or a set of principles is the crying need of the hour and Employee Experience has to be entrenched at the heart of it in the Industry 4.0 era. But we need to unravel the mystery of EX and its framework in a simple manner. However, even before we attempt that, we need to reset our longrange vision apparatus first for this ‘new unpredictable world’, in which many of our existing paradigms are irreversibly changing for upcoming decades. These paradigm disrupting ‘global factors’ are:
1.A new world order:
From a bipolar to unipolar and now a multi-polar world transition, the realities of the globalized business world are poised for few shocks over the next decade. The evolving geopolitics, nations’ race on technology, re-drawn global supply chains, sustainable energy mix, financial world digital shifts, and possibly localized military skirmishes, would demand agility of unprecedented levels.
Organizations that build
racy, equality, transparency, innovation, and ‘fun’ in their workspaces and larger lives, basis their own ‘direct experiences’. A ‘Human Centered Design’ approach is the only way to look toward the future through their eyes. It will require the leaders to adopt ‘servaHumanCentered fundamentals and be ready to get challenged on daily basis!
So where does EX really fit along with the above global context? In fact, what is really EX, and why it is so important now? Well, EX is often defined as the “sum total of all interactions (digital and human) that an employee comes across to do his or her job in an organization”.
This definition is allencompassing and such definitions are not very practical and helpful. We need a definition that answers both, what and why of EX, and here is one – “EX is essentially sum total of all ‘touch and feel’ moments of an employee, through which an employee might gauge the organization’s culture and purpose”. Hence, EX determines the “first touchpoints” for an employee, which might make her part of a larger mission! And in a world, where a fresher talent is as independent and confident as a Vice President, with plenty of global options to choose from (including now work from home!), best organizations want to ensure that they deliver an EX, which attracts and makes talent stick, like a talent magnet, even before a fresher joins their organization! And the parochial view of ‘EX for employee retention will be irrelevant soon, as ‘WFH’ and ‘Gig’ workforce will give rise to multiple careers and multiple jobs in the near future. In this future, talent is going to bond with organizations basis their ‘personal and direct experiences’, that too multiple times in their careers!
Then how should organizations ensure a great EX with so many variables and possibilities? There is no single formula to this, and in truly agile world, the EX journey is going to be an iterative and continuous endeavor. However, a guiding framework is what the organizational leaders should identify and build a strategy around it, which might need to be re-examined and re-imagined every quarter, as we get surprised by new shocks!
A guiding EX framework for Industry 4.0, in the backdrop of the three big global disruptive factors, is articulated here. Every organization can tweak it to their context, priorities, and strategies, however, each organization will have to understand the inherent ‘multi-layered human experiences’ in the EX framework. To intuitively help understand, these multi-
Iceberg Analogy
EX' Moments that
Matter' - Digital Interactions generated value that last few seconds to few minutes
EX' Moments that Matter' - Op Model design generated value that lasts few months to quarters
EX' Moments that
Matter' - Deep career impacts based value that lasts a lifetime
Human Centered Design
• Persona centric, cross- functional workflows • Experience convergence to single- window & self service • Any time, anywhere, any device, seamlessly digital • Conversational UI
Agile Platform Ecosystem Culture of Innovation
• Knowledge
Management - crowdsourced • Enterprise Digital
Dexterity
• Policy & Benefits - Optionality, Flexibility, and voluntary • Social Networks • Connected Workspaces (Physical & Virtual) • Collaborative and Social
Tools • Teams of Teams - Self Forming Teams • Communities of Practice
• Value added analytics and insights • Meritocratic & inclusive growth opportunities • Overcoming Biases • Big Data, Al and analytics convergence • Product and Services lifecycle • External ecosystem partnerships & collaborations • Servant Leadership & Open Communication with front Lines • Experiments with Fail -
Safe support system • Trust & Psychological safety Easy but limited Impact
Extremely Difficult but lasting Impact
layered human experiences are reflected against the ‘iceberg analogy’ as depicted above: The iceberg analogy helps us understand the following: 1. Above the Surface: The most visible part of EX
‘Moments that Matter’, are most obvious to implement with plenty of solutions, tools, and consultants being available but its impact is limited, sometimes its value not even last few minutes! Nevertheless, they are important as ‘it has instant gratification need and effect’ and often the ‘first signs of a great EX’ in the organization.
2. Right below the surface:
Typically the operating models give genesis to EX
‘Moments that Matter’ (randomly or by design), which one ‘touches and feels’ on a longer time frame or critical employee lifecycle events. These
are not easy to change or reimagine, as many successes of the past, can hold back the design changes and there are tradeoffs, which leaders need to collectively agree.
3. Deep below the surface:
The deeply entrenched beliefs and factors give rise to EX ‘Moments that
Matter’ in form of subconscious behaviors & instincts, structural flexibilities, and culturedefining ‘psychological experiences’. Few design principles which can help elevate EX in this ‘deep impact zone’ are depicted in the framework, and there are many more!
This is really difficult part, but organizations that can really go deep in
EX design, are going to have the best chance to create exponential value irrespective of the ambiguity and unpredictability in the new world.
The organizations of Industry 4.0, depend on the ‘human capital and its potential’ more than ever with the ‘creativity now underpinning the technology waves’. The best bet for such organizations is to ‘super charge’ the top talent’ and help them to leverage their potential and creativity. EX, is the most powerful lever, which can turbocharge employees’ emotions and brains or highly discharge them, all at scale and at personal levels!! The organizations which will be able to re-imagine the EX in a balanced approach on paradigm-shifting ‘global factors’ along with the ‘iceberg of multi-layered human experiences’, are going to be the ‘organizations of the future for Industry 4.0.
VaibHaV goEl is the Vice President HR – Digital Transformation at Reliance Industries
Future of work and employee experience
With many workplaces operating in more of a virtual mode currently, our assumptions about employee experience may be challenged By richard smith, Ph.d.
How do you like your job at that company?” This is a question that friends often ask each other when comparing notes about different employers. The various answers to this question often shape the reputation of an organization as a good place to work (or not). Leaders in Human Resources will hope that the answer to this question provides a resounding endorsement of the employee value proposition. The employee experience has been studied in many organizations in hopes of understanding the nature of the job, the workplace environment, and how time at work is experienced.
With many workplaces operating in more of a virtual mode currently, our assumptions about employee experience may be challenged. After all, if we were to ask people how they like their work environment over the last several months, most might reply with a retort such as: “My workplace is my living room… it seems fine!” Recent trends suggest that it is time to rethink and potentially redefine how we curate the employee experience in relation to time, place, and task.
Over the past year, many organizations have created new ways of working, a heightened sense of human connection, and in some cases a unique manner of interacting. People used to come to a specific place at a specific time to do specific work… while this is still the case for some jobs, our research suggests that at least 60% have some degree of flexibility – and up to 40% have total flexibility as knowledge work dominates much of the service sector. While there are many factors, let’s look at the potential shifts of work in three dimensions: 1. Time Continuum: Specific
Time -to- Any Time 2. Place Continuum: Specific Place -to- Any Place 3. Task Continuum: Specific
Tasks -to- Any Tasks
Time Continuum: As access and connections became ubiquitous, many knowledge workers gradually found themselves to be in “Always on” mode as technology and mobile nearly became an extension of our body. The pandemic crisis forced many managers into overdrive to manage the rapid changes, uncertainty, and issues in a business requiring immediate and all hours support. As the situation stabilizes and we look post-pandemic, we see work time making a shift to more specific times: New rules in Europe limiting the “any time” phenomenon; Leaders stopping the 24/7 responsive email culture; Firms declare no meeting times/days; Managers create no camera days; People managers want to create more sense of “flexibility” vs. “always on.” While customers will
continue to expect instant responses, organizations are now shifting on the continuum for the health and wellbeing of their employees. Rather than an overall shift, we see this as situational based on the industry, role, and culture. Place Continuum: Many professionals were enabled by technology to work in a variety of locations. In many parts of the world, work from home models became a part of a more flexible work balance as laptops became standard. However, the COVID-19 responses dramatically shifted the entire world to virtual as office buildings were shuttered and lockdowns forced people to work from home. Jobs that were “impossible” to perform remotely, were suddenly “possible” as businesses re-worked processes, technologies, security, and data management to ensure business continuity. As we look toward offices reopening, many are challenging the prior assumptions about where work is performed. We expect to see many organizations making big shifts to hybrid models: Desk/Office sharing; JIT Offices; Global in-office days; All-in Jam Sessions; Geographic flexibility with regular virtual and physical social interactions. Of course, managing the virtual and hybrid workspace requires new shifts in people management, considerations for company culture, and a reset of expectations. Task Continuum: For decades, manufacturing firms have been shifting from repetitive assembly line roles to team-based structures to allow for task variety, job enrichment, and a focus on quality. Professional and office roles have often been overlooked when it comes to considering task variety. Google’s effort to allow technology professionals to work on anything for 20% of their time was an innovative step. During the COVID lockdowns, those organizations with rigid roles aligned to tasks had a more challenging time in adjusting to the rapid changes needed. Many companies are now relooking at the need for task flexibility, cross-training, and team-based structures to address the need to be more agile. Going forward, we expect to see more firms shift on the continuum: Selfmanaged team task management; Job sharing and rotation; Job enlargement; and Cross-training to create more meaning in work activities while also building a foundation for agility.
As we re-calibrate the nature of work along these three dimensions, leading employers have the opportunity to re-define the employee experience to align with the new ways of working. Several areas related to employee experience emerge: • Onsite Experience – with many people working
remotely, how important will the office facilities feature in the employee experience? Many human capital leaders are already working with facilities planners to create more common spaces if many employees will do their independent tasks from home. Re-considering a more powerful onsite experience can create positive energy toward the organization and the onsite community gatherings. • Collaboration – with employees in both onsite and off-site modes of work, how do employers ensure that the right levels of collaboration are being managed both within work teams as well as across functional areas. Recent insights over the past year have given rise to the importance of casual interactions within teams
as well as across teams as a means to avoid conflict and improve problemsolving. It can be important to consider how collaboration is orchestrated as part of the employee experience. • Innovation Orientation –while not all roles involve high levels of creativity, many people are involved in managing unique situations that can require ambiguous or dynamic work efforts. Differentiating between those who are primarily executing tasks more repetitively compared to others who must consider creativity, can help employers address the employee experiences in our new modes of working. • Manager Interaction – in some cases, a high degree of manager support and guidance is needed due to the nature of the role. With new modes of working, it is even more critical for managers to be trained on how they support people with an inclusive approach. When a role is more manager-dependent, it is important to consider how and where the work is performed to optimize the performance, but also create a positive employee experience.
Since people are experiencing work in different ways today and we are re-designing how work is performed in virtual, hybrid, and physical office modes, we must also revisit our assumptions about employee experience in these key areas. The old ways of managing employee engagement, communication, collaboration, innovation, and management are being challenged and human capital leaders are starting to refocus in these areas.
As we look out to the future, how might our virtual workforce answer the question, “How do you like your job at that company?” My hope is that we will have thought about the employee experience in a multi-dimensional way to elicit a positive response on work in the future.
ricHard r. sMitH, PH.d. is a Professor at Johns Hopkins University where he also serves as Vice Dean, Corporate and Global Partnerships at the Carey Business School.
3 Ways to improve the EX in your business in 2021
We found three critical areas every organization needs to focus on to improve its EX: employee well-being, regularly listening and taking action on feedback, and manager effectiveness By steve bennetts
After a year of significant focus and investment in employee experience (EX), HR leaders and people managers cannot afford to ease up now.
The global events of 2020 - from the pandemic through to physical separation and social unrest - irreversibly changed the working world. But in many cases, it’s important to remember some of the changes made to the EX had a positive impact, such as working remotely and the frequency at which businesses were collecting and acting on employee feedback.
In fact, globally we saw employee engagement, intent to stay, and productivity all rise in 2020 compared to 12 months previously, according to Qualtrics’ 2021 Employee Experience Trends and Perspectives on company and in their teams if they feel like they can be their true self, do they feel valued, and if they are treated with respect.
As businesses move forward, it’s critical wellbeing becomes a mainstay in EX programs - such as providing flexibility as individuals juggle the demands of home and work, giving employees freedom and trust to freely attend to personal matters, or simply taking the time to listen and act on individual concerns. When organizations and leaders demonstrate care for their employees we see it reciprocated by employees through the work they deliver.
However, it’s important to note well-being differs based on role and family situation. For example, our research found executives were more likely to report their wellbeing favorably compared to individual contributors. As a result, it’s critical leaders are able to listen, understand, and act on individual feedback collected across the entire organization.
the Next Normal reports. The challenge now is for HR to maintain this momentum as teams design and improve working models tailored to the current and evolving employee expectations. It is a challenge equally as big and important as the one at the outset of the pandemic.
Through Qualtrics research, we found three critical areas every organization needs to focus on to improve its EX: employee well-being, regularly listening and taking action on feedback, and manager effectiveness.
Employee well-being
In 2020 employee well-being became a core focus for EX models, alongside engagement and enablement. Wellbeing is impacted by how employees rate their EX across five key factors: their sense of belonging at the Regularly listening and taking action on feedback
In today’s fast-changing business environments, insights from the annual or bi-annual employee engage-
ment program are not enough. Such is the pace of change, organizations need to supplement them with regular insights from across the entire employee lifecycle. However, in order to truly move the needle on EX, businesses must be taking quick, direct action on the feedback being collected.
Unfortunately, while nearly every employee (93 percent) believes it is important their company listens to feedback only seven percent say their company acts on it really well. Closing this gap needs to be a key priority in 2021 because when feedback is acted on we see engagement, intent to stay, and wellbeing all rise above the average.
The importance of listening and acting on feedback is further demonstrated by the fact the drivers of employee engagement shifted considerably in 2020. A desire to belong and concerns around environmental and ethical practices emerged alongside the more traditional drivers like confidence in leadership and opportunities for learning development. We expect to see another shift in engagement drivers through 2021 as businesses continue to adapt their working models for new behaviors.
To overcome the challenge of collecting and acting on feedback, businesses need to rethink the ways they engage employees by using experience management (XM) platforms to modernize their listening programs. These platforms make it quick and easy for employers to collect feedback across the entire employee lifecycle, regularly track sentiment, and take targeted action to improve the services being delivered.
Encouragingly, many businesses redesigned their approach to listening during the pandemic using XM - including Bangkok Life Assurance, Star Petroleum Refining Public Company Limited, and Restaurants Development Company. Having seen firsthand the value XM brings, businesses now need to make these changes permanent.
Manager effectiveness
It’s no surprise managers impact almost every aspect of EX. It’s therefore crucial they have the support and insights they need to improve the experience for their teams.
In some cases managers might feel ill-equipped to be truly successful in their role - they are employees themselves, after all - meaning they need HR’s support to lead and influence. By ensuring employee feedback is easy to understand and action, HR will enable leaders to demonstrate key traits to their teams including establishing and maintaining trust, providing support, encouraging collaboration, and enabling career development.
Adopting tools like guide action planning solutions will help leaders go even further. Presenting managers with specific actions they can take to improve the EX shifts the dynamic from imposing accountability to enabling accountability. And as a result, the entire organization will benefit.
Next steps
There is no one size fits all approach to delivering a great employee experience as we continue to navigate challenges and changes caused by the pandemic. In the future, we will see some employees continue to embrace the new experiences they’ve adopted, while others will revert to their previous habits. Simultaneously, there’s more change ahead as restrictions continue to change.
What’s important is to listen to what your individual people need, and most importantly act on that feedback to meet those needs. By prioritizing employee experience improvement using insights, businesses will be able to make confident and precise actions to meet the unique needs of each individual.
stEVE bEnnEtts is the Head of Growth & Strategy - Employee Experience Solutions, Qualtrics APJ
