How Taylor Swift’s Concert Is Like a Great HCM Employee Experience

In a meeting with some like-minded Human Capital Management leaders a couple of weeks ago, I confessed my thoughts in watching the Taylor Swift Reputation Stadium Tour on Netflix. Our daughters were there – don’t judge.

While I’m confident SHE was not thinking, ‘this tour is going to be like a great HCM,’ as an HR geek, the relatedness between the two was evident and needed to be shared. With my daughters. With my peers. And now you. Are you curious?

The association? A sophisticated and expertly executed combination of high-tech and high-touch. Technology built and expertly configured to empower and connect people. Technology that’s potentially unseen or astonishing. Technology created intentionally by people for people. And time invested in positive, energizing, engaging human contact.

Like a good evangelist, I have three points.

ONE: Consider a design thinking approach.

Design thinking is a neat, albeit not unique, process getting significant attention right now. It includes five steps. The first is empathizing – developing personas to understand what your audience or users want, need, are looking for.

You can be sure, the concert is about more than music! It’s about creating a feeling. A connection. It’s about the total experience.

The best HCM approach too might start with empathy considering personas of those affected by it – five generations of employees, candidates, managers, leaders, finance professionals, and auditors. What are they looking to get out of it? What might their experience be?

A feeling of confidence in the information, access to it, security, and its usefulness in making connections. Connecting ‘the pieces.’ Connecting people with each other. Connecting people with opportunities. Connecting business objectives with outcomes.

And if you are up for it, look for ways to blow their minds.

TWO: High-Tech. It matters more and more each day.

Taylor’s ‘Reputation’ tour concerts includes plenty of it. She is quoted in an April 28, 2018 People Magazine article saying, “. . . this stage . . . it’s got a video screen wall that’s pretty seamless, and that continues down onto the floor, so everything we’re walking on onstage is a screen,” Swift added. “It’s so cool from like the upper sections of the stadiums.”

But wait, there’s more. Truckloads more! The Industry Observer shared the that show boasts “52 semi-trucks of staging, and 30 more of steel, the production requires 4 (yes FOUR) whole cranes to put everything together and make it the monumental show it is.” Now THAT’S heavy lifting. What an investment.

I wonder if the 30-foot tall cobra snake and the audience’s synchronized bracelets get their own truck.

What got me about the bracelets was how she explained them. In a break between songs, she shared that this was her first ‘all stadium tour’ and that she was concerned about the size of the venue. She said that the bracelets allowed her "to see every single one of you. . . the top, top deck, the last row . . . and I can hear [you].”

Using technology to connect people is FAR from a new idea but to have it called out and explained as a motivator when I just thought they looked cool, spoke to me.

So it goes in human resources and in business. Human resource initiatives for human resources’ sake do not do much for anyone. Consider the current perception of performance management. It’s out of date. Out of touch with driving business results.

Checking boxes, redundant or unused data entry, or worse yet, redundant AND unused data entry are examples of technology damaging people’s experience and negatively affecting results. When building, customizing and configuring systems, begin with the end in mind. Consider, empathize and get feedback from folks in YOUR audience (stakeholders).

And when you can, give them more than they expect!

THREE: We All Need the Human Touch

I got kind of choked-up hearing Taylor assuring the people in the top back row – I SEE YOU. I got choked up again as I relayed the story. As awe-inspiring as a seamless and purpose-filled tech can be, the human touch is exceptionally powerful.

Taylor knows that so she took time between songs to move through a portion of the crowd with hands out-stretched touching people. The intensity was palpable, even on Netflix, even by a dad half-paying-attention. Like fans fainting at the touch of the Beetles and Elvis.

She did not have to do that, but she knew that it mattered. It mattered enough to take the time to do it and as much as she gave to the concert goers at that moment, I suspect she got back 10-fold. The intensity, the positive energy. The LOVE!

At work too, well thought out and purpose-filled tech can create a great experience. To make an experience that really matters though, you’ve got to connect people. I’m thinking of managers planning to connect with people as part of their overscheduled and conflicted days and the positive energy that results from doing so.

People want to know that they matter. To be recognized. To grow. Technology can help. It can facilitate even impressively. If you really want to blow their minds, have a culture in which performance, potential, and humanity are recognized with regular live feedback. Where their feedback is solicited and acted on.

Don’t leave your people’s career discussions to recruiters outside your organization.

When you do it well - invest in technology and implement it in a way that seamlessly offers more than necessary. Integrate technologies to effectively communicate information, connect people, and reinforce what’s going on in your organization. And show you care - reinforce the importance of the individual. Reassure them that they are seen. Show them that they matter. It will come back to you 10-fold. There is a reason employee experience is a hot topic right now.

Enabled by technology. Fulfilled by people. Maybe you can fill stadiums too! And they will be singing about YOUR reputation.