How do you define employee experience? We all know what we mean by the word ‘employee’, but the conversation gets interesting when we consider the ‘experience’ element. Experiences are really all about emotions.
You can think of an experience as something that happens to you that impacts how you feel:
“working for that company is an experience I’ll never forget!’
An experiences can also refer to the way that something happens to you and how that then made you feel:
“my employer goes out of their way to make sure I have a great experience at work”
Unsurprisingly there are numerous ways that individuals and organisations define ‘employee experience’:
“Employee experience is about creating a great work environment for people. It involves understanding the role that trust plays in the employment relationship and making sure people are listened to and have a voice in issues that impact”.
CIPD
“The intersection of employee needs and wants, and the organisational design of those expectations needs and wants”.
Jacob Morgan
“It’s the sum total of all the touchpoints an employee has with his or her employer, from the time of being a candidate (active or passive) to becoming an alumnus or alumna”.
Josh Bersin
“Employee experience is the “user experience” of your company – it’s the intersection of employees’ expectations, their environment and the events that shape their journey within an organization”.
Mercer, 2019
“The employee experience is the journey an employee takes with your organization. It includes all the interactions an employee has with your organization before, during and after their tenure”.
Gallup
“EX is the intentional design, and engineering of a high-value, integrated, end-to-end experience. From pre-hire to rehire, using the holistic employee experience as a lens, we can maximize all the interactions an individual has with an employer over the long term, to create a deep sense of belonging and co-create high performance and stronger business outcomes”.
Ben Whitter
The bottom line is that experiences make you feel something. It must be an inclusive practice; however you chose to define it, or whatever you want it to mean within your own organization. It can be tempting to over-think definitions though, which is why I really love this definition from a company we work with:
“EX is all about enabling our people to have more good days at work”
Kennedy Fitch, in 2018, conducted a survey of 250+ companies which revealed that only 15% of respondents had an EX-definition, and no two definitions were exactly alike. There were however, some themes that were consistent across the different definitions they found. For example most definitions involved “scaling design of the organization around the employee to ensure the best possible experience”. Interestingly there was a strength-based theme which emerged focusing on enabling the ‘best work possible’.
The purpose of considering your definition of EX within your organization is to ensure alignment; that you, and others responsible for the intended EX are on the same page. Engaging in a discussion about your organization’s definition, and approach to EX, is a great place to start your journey with EX.
However we choose to define EX though, we cannot simply re-brand the HR function and services. This approach is fundamentally flawed given it is still top down, and ‘done to’ your people rather than designing experiences which start by understanding their needs. Adopting our EX-Design approach ensures you can avoid this. We argue that delivering a compelling EX requires much more than what HR can do alone. EX involves a big shift, covering engagement, productivity, L&D, wellbeing, safety, security, technology, facilities, employee trust and more.
Talking about what you mean by EX in your organisation is a great place to start. Here is a quick and easy activity which can help you to do this:
What do we mean by EX in our organisation?
Having a conversation about the nature of EX and what it means for your organisation is a great place to start your EX-design and journey. The following activity will help you to do this. We recommend using these questions in a workshop setting with a diverse range of stakeholders to gather views which are representative across the entire organisation.
- Ask people to take a few minutes to individually capture some examples of their own experiences at work – the good and the not so good
- Then ask everyone to share the examples they have come up with.
- Ask the group to cluster the different words into themes
- Consider the different examples which emerge, for example do the themes represent everyday experience e.g. the people are really friendly here or the ‘conceptualized experience’ i.e. that which the organization deliberately designs and intends e.g. the on-boarding experience
- Consider and talk-through the themes emerging: are they from the perception of the employee or the organization.
- Use these outputs to generate a discussion on what EX could mean to your organization and what you mean when you talk about EX.
- A good question to ask is what EX is and what it isn’t.
- This discussion could form the basis of a definition for your organization.
How do you define and talk about EX? Let us know, we’d love to hear from you.
