Experience - Engagement Conundrum

I was reading the research paper from IBM on The Employee Experience Index: A new global measure of a human workplace and its impact (2017). There is an interesting model proposed in it (p.8) which was something which I did not agree with at all. My thoughts on this area of employee experience and engagement.

Experience and Engagement.

Experience is an event which leaves an impression. Engagement is a commitment to something. Hence experience are about shorter moments while engagement is about a longer- term involvement. The objective behind focusing on both the E’s with the customer and employee is towards achieving loyalty (of customer) and discretionary effort (of employees).

Customer and Employees

The current talk on (employee) engagement has shifted to experiences. This shift in narrative has been influenced from the customer domain and the associated learnings from the same.

Have we understood the difference between the customer and employee perspective before deciding our strategies in the space of employee experience?

In the space of customers there are some anchors around which the experience is positioned. Companies look at experience of their customers to differentiate. However, underlying that is the longer-term association (engagement) of the customer with the sustained and unique value of the product (or service).

Experience-engagement matrix

Hence taking the learnings from the customer domain, what should be the sustained and unique value to be delivered to the employees? Having delivered the same, what should our approach to employee experience be? A comparison of the matrix from the 2 world-views of customer and employee would be as below:

1. Wouldn't you be willing to wait for the right Product or Solution even if the call centre puts you on hold?
2. Having a wonderful value (product or service), wouldn't you proudly express the pains associated with maybe even upgrading or servicing it? (totally worth it!)

Customer “loyalty”

My personal experience about the customer experience surveys are indicating a change in the direction, the companies are taking in this space.

• After a car service you receive a call about your experience. I also got mine from my company. It had questions about how the pick-up guy spoke to you, was he there on time, did he ensure proper documentation etc. Unfortunately, the issue of the window glass being stuck was bungled that I had water enter my car inspite of the windows being up and therefore they had to take it a second time to dry and repair it! To my amazement there was no question related to whether my problem had been resolved to my satisfaction.
• The moment you finish your flight, you get a message to give your feedback about your experience. When I went to the survey, after the initial query on whether I would recommend the airline (to which I replied 3 / 10); it went on to the areas which had items like boarding, food choices, check-in process and that was it! The reality was that the flight was delayed by almost 2 hours, because of which I had to cancel couple of my meetings and the trip was not productive. I had to put the fact that the flight was delayed in the other comments section!
• The washing machine service rep corrected the problem, but missed attaching a plug because of which water flowed out on to the floor. Unfortunately the survey administered had no question on whether he had done what he was supposed to do. There was even an innocuous question about did he tell you take a trial.

The foundation of loyalty based on engagement with the customers is the way ahead. Companies which continue to focus on the areas above will lose out on the race to excellence. Inspite of much talk about experience, there are very few companies that stand out as champions of the customer because engagement is a lot more involved and difficult.

Employee discretionary effort (not loyalty)

We seem to be obsessing about experience in the employee space as well, shifting our attention from engagement. Gallup says, in the latest 'State of the Global Workplace' report, 85% of employees are not engaged or actively disengaged at work. Have we conveniently chosen to ignore the elephant in the room?

As per Daniel Pink, driving employee engagement is about opportunities for mastery, autonomy and purpose within the organization. Induction in my view is not about the onboarding app as it is about the awareness of the new environment, feeling of affiliation and sense of achievement a new joinee gets in those initial 6 months.

For each HR process and employee expectation, there is an engagement element and an experience element. Our inability to articulate and influence the areas around engagement, makes us start defining our roles in terms of the experience parameters which are the touch-points of an individual’s life in an organization. If I were to look at the experience- engagement model and its impact on employees, the below emotions would sum it up.

Understanding the employee sentiments can give an insight as to where your organization is. However, it is imperative for organisations to understand that the right side of the model requires a longer term and a more involved approach and it is not about the latest trending app!

References

• IBM, The Employee Experience Index: A new global measure of a human workplace and its impact (2017)
• Daniel H. Pink; Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, 2009
• Gallup, State of the Global Workplace, www.hrexchangenetwork.com/employee-engagement/articles/