Enabling Ongoing Workforce Transformation at Scale: Ideas from Al Adamsen

Listening to, learning from, and enabling all employees is no longer a nice-to-have; it's a business imperative. This is how positive, planned change happens: when employees are seen, heard, and empowered. When we invest in the employee experience.

In today's volatile business world consciously creating positive organisational culture is paramount for success. Easy to say. Hard to do. Experienced leaders are often set in their ways, with a mindset full of assumptions based on years of leading teams or, quite the opposite, they’re new leaders trying to do what they believe is expected of them. Whatever a leader’s experience level, all leaders must continuously seek to listen to, and understand the dynamic complexities of their employees' experience. This means investing in the means of learning and appropriate action taking — “appropriate” being what’s timely, relevant, and actionable given the specific needs of an individual or team at that point in time.

To understand how organisations can take the perspectives and ideas of employees to make purposeful, lasting change, I sat down with Al Adamsen , Perceptyx SVP of Leadership & Workforce Transformation and Founder of People Analytics & Future of Work (PAFOW). Al brings over 30 years of experience in leadership, coaching, analytics, and business transformation to Perceptyx, and in this discussion, as is repeatedly the case with Al, he shows an uncommonly deep understanding of how to humanise the work experience, enable organisational excellence, and use people data for good.

Q: Al, to start, what enticed you to join Perceptyx?

I joined Perceptyx because I believe in the people, the leadership team, the technology, and the mission, to help People and Organisations to Thrive. We’re solving a critical problem: bridging the gap between people insights and business impact. That gap is filled by taking appropriate action at the right time, at the right level, and in the right way, and doing this at scale. In all large enterprises, there’s a massive amount of people-related data being generated every day, yet most often the data’s not being translated into meaningful insights and, in turn, inspiring lasting change. This is what Perceptyx does. It helps organisations generate timely, relevant, actionable insights that, in turn, enables everyone in an organisation — literally everyone — to focus on the things that’ll produce the most positive, intended outcomes (psychological safety, inclusion, growth mindset, engagement, etc.). When done in a concerted, systemic way, leaders at all levels can contribute to the maintenance or improvement of culture in their specific spheres of influence. When placed together over time, such actions reduce friction, contribute to organisational excellence, and drive lasting impact.

Q: Well, we’re glad you’re here! Employee Experience has now moved beyond a “hot topic” and is now the way most leaders think about creating organisational culture.? Given this, how can leaders and others in an organisation effectively use EX data to create positive change?

The key lies in identifying the appropriate data, turning it into appropriate insights and, in turn, taking appropriate action at scale. Appropriate data are identified by asking appropriate questions of leaders up front: What’s their vision? What experiences do they want to create?? What are the risks they want to mitigate? Such questions inform the listening strategy: item design, the number of surveys, the types of surveys, the frequency of surveys, to whom the surveys will go, etc. Now, to be clear, I’m using the term “appropriate” intentionally. Given the goals of leaders and the realities of the people and systems for which they’re responsible at a given point in time, a planful employee listening strategy, all the way down to item design, will be required.?

With a planful listening strategy — and really a planful listening, learning, and action-taking strategy — the insights that emerge can be considered and prioritised. They can then be iterated with employees. Employees can be part of the solution process. This heightens involvement and builds trust, thus increasing the likelihood that the resulting changes are anticipated, adopted, and actually enable the desired change. In other words, the decisions can no longer just come down from on high. Employees need to be involved — to be given agency — so they can take ownership of decisions and the outcomes those decisions are striving to achieve.

Q: What are the biggest barriers individual managers face when trying to implement these changes?

For managers, common challenges include an overwhelming workload and a lack of understanding of how to respond appropriately.? Managers often juggle numerous projects and responsibilities making it difficult to prioritise change initiatives, particularly when those change initiatives might involve their own behaviour change. Additionally, a lack of training in self-awareness, empathy, communications, change management, and leadership can hinder their ability to effectively adopt or lead change efforts. Overcoming the inertia of historical norms and fear of failure may also be significant hurdles.?

Given this, executive leaders need to create the space for managers to learn and improve.? In other words, there needs to be an investment in managers from the start, from the time they’re hired or promoted.? Thoughtful onboarding programs can set the table for effective team leadership and process management, yet their ongoing experience must emphasise the learnings and behaviours from those programs.?To emphasise, many organisations have good onboarding programs and learning experiences. Where things often fall down is emphasising the desired learning and behaviours over time. Again, consistency is key.?

Q: And what about the organisational barriers?

From an organisational perspective, there can be numerous barriers.? This is why a systemic approach is so important.? A systematic approach considers the role of leaders, managers, key change agents like HR business partners, learning professionals, IT, and others, as well as individual employees themselves.? When hearing this many leaders simply throw up their arms at the complexity.? The role of EX leaders – and really, executive leadership as well – is to embrace this complexity and deal with it in a thoughtful way.???

For example, leaders often struggle sustaining an appropriate response to insights and ideas from the workforce.? It’s one thing to put out a response in the wake of a survey or listening event.? It’s another thing to consistently address the improvement opportunities over time.?Positive, planned change happens through persistent, focused, systemic action.? It’s not a fleeting endeavour.??

Q: This all sounds complex, yet doable.?You also mentioned the role of the individual employee in creating positive change. Will you please share more about that?

Historically, individual employees have been left out of the change process.? They’ve been dictated to instead of involved.? As a consequence, individual employees and teams have often been a source of resistance.? To remove such resistance and, even better, inspire individuals and teams to be enablers of change, involve them in processes that 1) further clarify issues or problems, and 2) that explore how to improve.? When this occurs – when workers are involved in problem clarification and idea generation – then good things happen. They feel seen, heard, and empowered. They’re respected.? This has shown, unsurprisingly, to elevate engagement and increase the probability that change efforts reap the desired return.??

Involvement, though, is just one key part. Another other key part is to give them “agency” -– give individuals the power to make their own decisions on matters that affect themselves and others within their spheres of influence.?This means providing them with guidance – frameworks, ideas, guiding principles, non-negotiables, etc. – that clarifies expectations and how to meet those expectations.? The ultimate decisions to achieve these expectations, however, resides with the individuals themselves.??

The last key part is to do all this over time.? “It’s not what you teach. It’s what you emphasise.”? This is a quote from the late, great basketball coach, John Wooden, yet it certainly applies here.? I’ve seen it a couple/few times now: Consistency is key.?

Q: Fantastic. You’re now talking about empowering individuals which, of course, speaks to how we at Perceptyx help People and Organisations to Thrive. Can you speak to the role of Perceptyx Intelligent Nudges in all this?

Of course. Perfect segway. Again, it’s one thing to have great insight. It’s another thing to know how to respond to that insight. It’s yet another thing to respond effectively at speed, at scale, and in sustainable ways – ways that are not fleeting, but that are enduring.? This is where Intelligent Nudges come in.??

Briefly: Intelligent Nudges are surfaced based on insights from a leaders/managers most recent listening event.? They can also be surfaced by executives – what they want everyone in the organisation to focus on (e.g., inclusion, growth mindset).? Lastly, the nudge content can be informed by individual’s themselves.? Again, this is giving them agency.? They are taking some ownership of what is surfaced to them, within the flow of work, on an ongoing, recurring basis.?This is unprecendently powerful.? As stated before, a missing link in culture change – and really the sustaining a desired culture if it’s already healthy – is involving individuals and teams.? Now, with the ability to do this in play, organisations can get better value out of their learning, communications, and change investments.? They can line up an onboarding or leadership development, or manager effectiveness program with the insights and nudges stemming from their listening events.? Yet again, this is what I mean by a systemic approach.

And, by the way, I haven’t even involved the role of Ai-assisted Action Planning and Ai-assisted Development Plans and how they align with Intelligent Nudges.? We can talk about those next time.??

Thank you, Al.??

Key take-aways:

Creating and sustaining positive, planned culture change requires a thoughtful, systematic approach. Culture change is the sum of both many macro and micro changes happening over time, and it’s best when all these changes are aligned. Change efforts must involve and empower everyone in an organisation, leaders, managers, and change agents alike. Consistency is key, and measuring, monitoring, and taking action on the insights and ideas of employees is also key. Never stop learning, and never stop emphasising what’s important.

Perceptyx offers a comprehensive employee experience platform designed to help organisations transform employee feedback into action. With features like intelligent nudges, action planning, and advanced analytics, Perceptyx empowers leaders to create positive and lasting change. By understanding employee sentiment and driving targeted initiatives, organisations can enhance employee engagement, boost retention, and ultimately drive business success.?

It’d be great to hear your direct experience with using employee feedback to drive change in the comments? We love hearing what's working, what's not!

#employeeexperience #leadership #changemanagement #HR #feedback #peopleanalytics