The Employee Experience Advantage How to Win the War for Talent by Giving Employees the Workspaces they Want, the Tools they Need, and a Culture They Can Celebrate

Research Shows Organizations That Focus on Employee Experience Far Outperform Those That Don't

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. Although everyone talks about employee experience nobody has really been able to explain concretely what it is and how to go about designing for it...until now.

How can organizations truly create a place where employees want to show up to work versus need to show up to work? For decades the business world has focused on measuring employee engagement meanwhile global engagement scores remain at an all time low despite all the surveys and institutes that been springing up tackle this problem. Clearly something is not working. Employee engagement has become the short-term adrenaline shot that organizations turn to when they need to increase their engagement scores. Instead, we have to focus on designing employee experiences which is the long term organizational design that leads to engaged employees. This is the only long-term solution. Organizations have been stuck focusing on the cause instead of the effect. The cause is employee experience; the effect is an engaged workforce.

Backed by an extensive research project that looked at over 150 studies and articles, featured extensive interviews with over 150 executives, and analyzed over 250 global organizations, this book clearly breaks down the three environments that make up every single employee experience at every organization around the world and how to design for them. 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. Featuring exclusive case studies, unique frameworks, and never before seen research, The Employee Experience Advantage guides readers on a journey of creating a place where people actually want to show up to work.

Readers will learn:

• The trends shaping employee experience

• How to evaluate their own employee experience using the Employee Experience Score

• What the world's leading organizations are doing around employee experience

• How to design for technology, culture, and physical spaces

• The role people analytics place in employee experience

• Frameworks for how to actually create employee experiences

• The role of the gig economy

• The future of employee experience

• Nine types of organizations that focus on employee experience

• And much more!

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.

Foreword xiii

Acknowledgments xvii

We All Care about Experience (Introduction) xix

Part I The Evolution of Employee Experience 1

1 Defining Employee Experience 3

Utility 3

Productivity 3

Engagement 5

Employee Experience 6

2 Research on Employee Experience 11

A Note about the Research Sponsors 15

3 Employee Experience Drivers 17

Poor Success with Engagement 18

Engagement Measures Downward 18

Engagement Has Become the New Annual Review 20

Engagement Tends to Look at the Effect but Not the Cause 21

Engagement Surveys Are Exhaustingly Long 22

Engagement Acts as an Adrenaline Shot 22

The War for Talent 26

Skills Gap and Talent Shortage 26

Changing Demographics 27

Changing Face of Talent Competition 28

Psychology (and Sociology) 29

Business Turbulence 29

Technology 30

Alternative Work Arrangements and the Gig Economy 32

Growing Fast but Not Dominating 33

The Effect on Employee Tenure 35

People Analytics 38

People Analytics in Action 40

The Future of People Analytics 43

Transparency 45

Part II The Reason for Being and the Three Employee Experience Environments 49

4 Reason for Being 51

Statements from Leading Organizations 52

The Three Employee Experience Environments 56

5 The Physical Environment 59

Chooses to Bring in Friends or Visitors 61

Offers Flexibility 64

Organization’s Values Are Reflected 67

Leverage Multiple Workspace Options 70

How Organizations Scored 74

6 The Technological Environment 77

Availability to Everyone 78

Consumer Grade Technology 82

Employee Needs versus Business Requirements 84

How Organizations Scored 86

7 The Cultural Environment 89

Company Is Viewed Positively 90

Everyone Feels Valued 95

Compensation and Benefits 96

Having Employee’s Voices Heard 97

Organization Doesn’t Ask 97

Organization Asks but Does Nothing 98

Organization Asks and Acknowledges 98

Organization Asks, Acknowledges, and Acts 98

Employees Are Recognized for the Work That They Do 98

Legitimate Sense of Purpose 100

Employees Feel like They’re Part of a Team 107

Believes in Diversity and Inclusion 109

Referrals Come from Employees 112

Ability to Learn New Things and Given the Resources to Do So and Advance 114

Learning and Development 115

Advancement 118

Treats Employees Fairly 120

Executives and Managers Are Coaches and Mentors 122

Dedicated to Employee Health and Wellness 124

How Organizations Scored 126

8 The Employee Experience Equation 131

Part III Why Invest in Employee Experience? 133

9 The Nine Types of Organizations 135

inExperienced 136

Emerging 137

Engaged 139

Empowered 140

Enabled 140

preExperiential 141

Experiential 141

10 Employee Experience Distribution 145

11 The Business Value of Employee Experience 149

Customer Service 151

Innovation 153

Employer Attractiveness 153

Admiration and Respect 154

Brand Value 154

Other Lists 155

12 Business Metrics and Financial Performance 157

13 The Cost of Employee Experience 167

Part IV Building the Experiential Organization 171

14 System 1 versus System 2 Experiences 173

15 The Employee Experience Design Loop 177

Respond 178

Analyze 180

Scenario 1 Analysis Reveals 180

Scenario 1 Insight for Your Organization 180

Scenario 2 Analysis Reveals 181

Scenario 2 Insight for Your Organization 181

Scenario 3 Analysis Reveals 181

Scenario 3 Insight for Your Organization 181

Analysis Enablers 181

Design 182

Launch 183

Participate 183

Example: General Electric 184

Respond 184

Analyze 185

Design 185

Launch 186

Participate 187

Example: Airbnb 189

Respond 189

Analyze 189

Design 190

Launch 191

Participate 191

16 The Starbucks Model of Transparency 193

17 The Employee Life Cycle 197

18 Moments That Matter or Moments of Impact 201

Specific Moments That Matter 201

Ongoing Moments That Matter 202

Created Moments That Matter 203

Moments That Matter at Cisco 203

19 Moments That Matter and Employee Experience 205

20 The Employee Experience Pyramid 209

21 What about the Actual Work? 213

22 Who Owns the Employee Experience? 217

Initiated by the CEO and Executive Team 217

Owned by the People Team 219

Driven by Managers 220

Championed by Everyone 222

23 A Lesson from Airbnb 223

24 The Role of Employees 227

25 Where to Start 229

You Have to Care, Really Care 229

Define a Reason for Being 231

Build a People Analytics Function 232

Start Small 232

Identify the Required Skills 234

Have Executive Support, Typically the Chief People Officer 236

Train the Organization 236

Tell Stories 237

Build or Improve the Experience Team 237

Deploy Feedback Tools/Mechanisms 239

In-Person Feedback 239

Feedback via Technology 241

Implement COOL Spaces, ACE Technology, and CELEBRATED Culture 242

Example: Adobe 244

Technological Environment 244

Physical Environment 245

Cultural Environment 246

Identify and Create Moments That Matter (or Moments of Impact) 250

Think of Your Organization like a Lab Instead of a Factory 253

26 Focus on What Makes Your Company Unique 257

27 Size, Industry, and Location Don’t Matter 261

Always Improve 262

Think like a Laboratory 262

Move beyond Checklists 263

Put People at the Center and Know Them 264

Design with, Not For 264

Care 264

Focus on What Makes You Unique 265

28 A Futurist’s Perspective 267

Appendix 269

Index 271

JACOB MORGAN is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, futurist, and co-founder of The Future of Work Community, a brand council of the world's leading organizations exploring how the workplace is changing. A highly sought after expert worldwide, he is regularly featured in media publications such as Forbes, Inc., The Wall Street Journal, and many others. He has a regular podcast show on iTunes and a weekly show on Youtube where he shares inspiring and motivational videos on the future of work. He is the bestselling author of The Future of Work and The Collaborative Organization. Jacob lives in Alameda, California with his wife, daughter, and two dogs. To learn more about Jacob and get access to his content visit: TheFutureOrganization.com or email him: Jacob@TheFutureOrganization.com