Employee Experience isn't a fad. You just have to take it seriously

Yesterday a friend and I were talking about nutrition, diets and lifestyles. We were reflecting on all the nutrition plans and the infinite variations that exist.

My friend is an omnivore and I’m a vegan. Even though we both have different eating habits, we both agreed that health and fitness depend on discipline and taking things seriously. We acknowledged that, while it’s true that there are many fads in the nutrition world, for those who truly want to transform their lifestyles, then the underlying principles to make those changes happen remain valid: discipline and take things seriously.

The same applies to Employee Experience.  

Employee Experience isn’t a "lose 45 pounds in three days" kind of thing. Employee Experience isn't a fad. It isn’t just an expression used in the heat of the night while debating whether employees are being treated fairly at work or not.

Employee Experience is something… and something very important. Employee Experience is the right thing to do for the employees, but also for the organization. Employee Experience isn’t hippy, it is a business imperative. Employee Experience isn’t a mis and overused expression by speakers at conferences and technology companies in their product descriptions. Employee Experience is one of the most potent ways to ensure organizational long-term profitability, impact and sustainability, but also employees' happiness, sense of purpose, meaning and belonging.

Sadly, we have gone through extreme business buzzwords mis and overuse before. Unfortunately, that has made it more difficult for anyone to actually believe and take Employee Experience seriously and not as a fad.

For example, words like disruption, innovation or exponential have gone through similar experience of mis and overused. However, just as in nutrition, the underlying and most powerful principle in Employee Experience remains the same: employees are clamoring for a better experience at work (where they spend one third of their lives if not more), and not the mediocre, exploitative approach that has existed through generations. And to respond to that clamor it is vital to take Employee Experience seriously.

It isn’t a fad that the workforce is overworked, overwhelmed, stressed, frustrated, suffering from depression, among other things. Disengagement at work, while getting slightly less terrible, continues to be a powerful force preventing people and organizations to achieve and become their best. Work-related mental health illnesses and stress are slowly killing people (literally and figuratively). And when I say "work", I don't mean the act of "work", which most people find as an amazing outlet to their professional aspirations. I mean "work" as in "going to do a job that sucks". Today, most people can’t find a voice for their passions and dreams at work, and every single one of these issues has a very high cost for the longevity of any organization and, of course, for the well-being of the human!

A lot of these things stem from the way people work and the work they do. Therefore, because people aren’t having the best experience at work, the idea of Employee Experience can’t be a fad.

For too long employees have come to work with one purpose only: repeat pre-established processes over and over again in order to make profit for someone else. But the “punch the card at 9, repeat what you did the day before, punch the card again at 5, leave, and repeat tomorrow” approach is dead. It is dead because any organization’s competitive advantage isn’t anymore how efficient they are in running the processes that once make them profitable and sustainable. Such approach is easily disruptable, otherwise we wouldn't see a decreasing organizational shelf life and most of the Fortune 500 companies losing their podium stand to newer organizations.

Instead, an organization’s edge is all about how innovative, ahead of the curve and customer/people centered they are. And to do that, they need people who are committed, engaged and fully productive.

To achieve such level of personal engagement from the employees, those organizations must be able to unleash their people’s full spectrum of personal and professional talents and capabilities. They must provide the opportunities for meaningful work that caters not only to the longevity and profitability of the organization, but also to what makes people tick, their real passions and dreams. It will be impossible for anyone to fully commit themselves to an organization if their job sucks, they hate what they do and, in addition, their experience in general is pathetic.

Employee Experience is meaningful work, belonging, alignment between the organization’s purpose and personal dreams and passions.  

Employees will devote themselves to that organization in which they are valued and treated with respect and where they can unleash their creative power. They will give themselves beyond expected when they feel that they belong and that the work they do is important for a reason other than making money for a handful of shareholders. If people are mistreated, they won’t give a damn about anything else other than doing the very basic they were hired to do, as long as they need the paycheck. This is, of course, unfair for the employee, because it kills their spirit to professionally grow, but also for the organization, because it doesn’t achieve its total capacities.

Employee Experience is an imperative. It is actually the opposite to a fad, it is a necessity if organizations want to attract and retain the hungry-for-meaning-fun-purpose-happiness-impact workforce.

As I mentioned at the beginning, if you get on diet just to say that you are on diet, but privately stuff yourself with candy and chocolate, then the diet will have become a fad for you. If you want to make transformative changes in life, you must take things seriously and be disciplined.

It is the same for your organization. If you really want to bring your organization to the next level, turning it into a powerhouse against which your competition has no stand, then you depend on people. That's your competitive edge. And if you really want to feed that competitive, you must give employees a real opportunity to unleash their potential at work, make sure that they feel that they belong and provide them with the most incredible work experience so that they won’t want to leave and (when, not if) they do, they become your front line, word-of-mouth best marketers.

Achieving all that depends on how disciplined you are and how seriously your organization takes Employee Experience.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you liked this article, please share with your network! And, please, comment below... I'd love to hear what you have to say. Thank you!

Do you want to read the rest of my articles? Click here!

About the Enrique Rubio:

Enrique is a speaker, futurist, HR and Tech expert, and founder of the global learning community Hacking HR. Enrique came to the United States from Venezuela as a Fulbright Scholar. Prior to coming to the US, Enrique was the CEO at Management Consultants, a firmed specialized in Human Resources and Corporate Social Responsibility in Venezuela. Before Management Consultants, Enrique worked in the telecommunications sector as a Senior Project Engineer for Telefonica. His last job post was as an advisor of the CHRO at the Inter-American Development Bank. Enrique is also the cofounder of Cotopaxi, an technology-based recruitment platform focused on Latin America and the Caribbean. Enrique is a guest author in several blogs about innovation, management and human resources. He has over twenty years of experience. Enrique holds an Electronic Engineering from Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela and an Executive Master’s in Public Administration from Maxwell School in Syracuse, New York. Enrique also holds a Design Thinking certification from Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, he is certified Scrum Master and PMP.