Last week I was speaking at the brilliant Unworking Conference hosted by the lovely folks from Worktech. It was a different crowd to the usual conferences I go to, made up of ‘workplace experience’ specialists and I came away full of inspiration and buzzing with ideas. My session shared the secrets of creating an irresistible employee experience and among others things I talked about the big shift to put people at the front and centre of the approach, involving a mindset shift to view employees as ‘consumers of the workplace’.
This idea really resonated with the audience. It seems the world of workplace experience has undergone something of a revolution. Gone are the days of focusing solely on the operational elements of the workplace, replaced by more of a ‘hospitality’ mindset, genuinely viewing employees more like customers. It seems our colleagues in workplace experience are leading the way! And while there were conversations which focused on the hygiene factors, such as tools to do the job, tech, the office environment, food, coffee and such like, there was a call throughout the day to work more closely with the ‘people’ functions, to take a truly people centred approach and create amazing workplace experiences.
It was also interesting to hear how different approaches were being used to understand more about employees and the way they interact with the workplace (whatever and wherever that might be). For example sensers in offices to understand how people use the space, user-observations to test assumptions about what might work, involving employees from the outset of projects to ensure solutions will land, using prototype and testing to avoid expensive mistakes. Many of the approaches, tools and techniques we champion as part of our employee experience design approach are already embedded and used as standard in this world.
Of course taking a more holistic approach to employee experience and engagement isn’t new. The likes of Air BnB, Google and Salesforce are great examples of companies leading the way. And of course we have talked about the need consider the ‘hygiene’ experience in our Employee Experience Landscape model:
If you would like to find out more about this model, or any aspect of our employee experience design approach such as journey mapping, prototyping, testing or more then make join The EX Space today – our essentials level membership is totally free and there is no catch!! So sign up today and join our growing community, we’d love to see you there.
