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This week, I attended an Employee Experience conference where all I heard about was framework after framework, theory after theory, corporate jargon and buzzwords. Despite the title of EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE, we always fail to ask the vital question: How do your employees feel about their experiences with you? So, I asked this question, and the whole room went silent. I asked how do they feel when:
they are being ghosted during the recruitment process?
we offer them a job, they resign, then we withdraw the job?
the job looks different to the one they were sold?
they arrive on the first day and they don't even have a desk to sit at?
they get a welcome gift but we fail to train them for the job we hired them?
we don't train them and then discipline them for poor performance?
they have to negotiate their salaries like they were on a market?
the manager is incompetent and putting stress on people?
HR is busy organising ice cream, kayaking, or other nonsense activities instead of listening to their employees' needs?
the disciplinary process is unfair?
we make them play silly games they don't want to?
when they are forced to come into the office despite government warnings about weather conditions, and then they get stuck, unable to go home for 2 days?
when they could do the job from home, but we force them to travel 2 hours daily and spend thousands on transportation just to sit at the desk?
the manager fails to manage their performance daily and once a year "measures" it during the appraisal process?
they are promised a bonus upon achieving the KPIs, but then the company turns around and says "NO"?
they are given a promotion, and the manager uses it in every conversation to make them feel obliged; "I promoted you so now you have to..."?
we promote them but we don't prepare them for that promotion?
they are put on PIP with the aim of getting rid of them?
they resign, and we hold grudges against them for leaving us?
we delay their final settlement so they cannot start their new job on time, losing out on income?
when they feel they cannot approach HR?
when we lied to them about something and we lost their trust but now we are organising "Building Trust" workshop for them?
when they are sick and the first question is "So, when will you be back on duty?"
when we give them the Calm app, but we bombard them with out-of-hours emails?
when they have a weak leader who causes all frustration and they are sent for the "Managing Up" workshop?
when we are trying to fix them instead of our broken systems?
when they come to us with their problems, we ignore them but then we say "our people are very important to us"?
we have to make redundancies, and we cannot even face them, and we do it via a muted Zoom call?
Employees' experiences come from their interactions with our systems, policies, processes, rules, and the people around them. Therefore, we need to look at which interactions negatively impact their experiences and fix those instead of the people.
So, if you want to talk about employee experience design first you start with the question: How do they feel about working with us? Then you ask the second question: How do we want them to feel working with us? and then you design your interventions accordingly. It is really that simple. Here is how to do it and things to think about:
Or watch it here:
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