Employee Experience: When Moments Matter

Having spent some creative time with Dr Nick Udall yesterday de-constructing the essentials of Employee Experience, I would like to share with you some thoughts…

I often hear the term “moments that matter”, especially in my area of specialism – Employee Experience (EX) strategy.

While leading the EX Team at BP, our research highlighted 16 “Moments that Matter”. Other companies say there are 12 moments that matter, or 23, or 8  – any number really. There isn’t a single standard available, and it goes without saying that most consulting companies are developing their own standards – all no doubt with good intent.

What is interesting is that these lists of “Moments that Matter” always have something in common: they focus on the employees on one side, and the leaders on the other side – overlooking the critical relationship between the two

Of course, there are lots of moments that matter, but in our conversation today we drilled down to two that really, really matter… 

1. Do I love my work? And does my work allow me and challenge me to work at my creative edge, so I can push myself and surprise myself with what I can achieve?
2. And, am I inspired by my leader(s) or not? Do they call forward the best of me, help me do things I never thought I could do, and help me do things they never thought I could do?

Both of these moments should be happening every day – if not many times a day. Moreover, they are also the keys to step-change performance, breakthrough innovation, happiness, fulfilment, community and belonging. The nearest analogy I can think of is that of an peak-performing orchestra, where everyone is in flow, whether that’s the conductor holding the space for their story or interpretation to be told, or the musicians pushing themselves and each other to their creative limits, or the audience being pulled into the experience and becoming part of the bigger story… it is, at the end of the day, about doing great work that take me to my edge, and having a leader that can take me and us there, and hold me and us there, long enough for us to all be transformed by the experience.

Research shows that the motivation and engagement of employees is directly related to the quality of their experience of their leader. Unfortunately, too many leaders see their people as assets to control, or resources to manage, as opposed to talents to express and energies to release.

Of course, there are key moments in an employee’s life and lifecycle – like becoming a parent, joining, leaving, becoming a line manager … and we should always aim for these threshold moments to be handled with generosity and care. But I am now coming to believe that these more stereotypical thresholds are actually mistaken “Moments that Matter”. Maybe we should call them “moments that show our true values in action”. 

The other trap I think we all fall into is the industry of activity and busyness that is generated around these long lists of so-called moments that matter (policies, processes, surveys, training courses, campaigns, committees…) and I wonder how much difference they really make to the EX? 

Most of these moments in today’s world should be table stakes, moments that bind us, deepen our sense of belonging and loyalty, make us feel valued and seen, invested in and developed … but do they help us do great work, take us to our edge, help us do something that we’ve never done before? I would say no!

So, be very wary of EX roadmaps with longs lists of change initiatives. While many of these activities will make a positive impact on and in the organisation; the real challenge is more subtle and less obvious. 

We need to slow down, pause and start to engage with the EX from a different angle – potentially from the paradigm of optimal experience, peak performance and flow – these are the real moments that change us and transform us, and that become the anchor memories that define us and the difference we made.

Conclusion – it is time to reflect on what really drives employees, be it a start-up or a very large global company. We spend the majority of our life at work, thinking about work, or getting to work. We need this work to be meaningful and purposeful, but moreover we need it to push us to our creative edge and to our performance edge – because this is where we ‘leap’, and this is how we can leap every day.

Moments that “show our true values in action” are those you must not get wrong as they are important for everyone. But they are not where the future lies for EX. The real moments that matter are those moments that unlock energy, possibility, potential, ideas, connection, surprise, …

Note: see this inspiring TEDx on orchestra and conductors.