Catalyst | On Topic
biggest drawbacks is if there is a gap between
the communications of an organisation and the
perceived reality,” she says. “Recently recruited
employees may feel this is not the ‘product’ that
they bought into. Employees may leave or ‘boycott’
the organisation if the so-called psychological
contract is violated.”
For example, in 2018, thousands of workers at
Google walked out in protest about its treatment
of women, demanding key changes in how sexual
misconduct allegations were dealt with at the firm;
some carried ‘Don’t Be Evil’ placards in an ironic
call-back to Google’s strapline.
Ironically, the more organisations try to
personalise the experience for everyone, the harder
it is to get it right for anyone. For example, colourful
break-out spaces might please the extroverts but can
leave the introverts feeling drained and depleted.
According to recent IPSOS research, employees
who work in an open-plan office lose 86 minutes a
day to distractions and 95% of employees would
rather work in enclosed private spaces. The trend
for open-plan offices may be leaving many workers
feeling overwhelmed, anxious and lacking in focus.
On this basis, at San Francisco tech company
Basecamp, ‘ library rules’ govern public
conversations, restricting them to a whisper so as
not to disturb colleagues. Basecamp also considers
employee incentives (free meals, creches on site) as
counterproductive ploys, keeping staff tied to their
desks. In a book about its company culture, It Doesn’t
Have To Be Crazy At Work, Basecamp’s founders,
Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, argue
the case for empowering staff to work whenever
and wherever they like; limiting employees to a
40-hour week (a four-day week in the summer);
and offering subsidised holidays, sabbaticals and
EX comprises three broad pillars
The physical
experience
Technological
experience
The cultural
experience
O
“The critical thing about employee
experience is identifying key moments”
monthly massages at spas. The logic is simple:
tired and distracted workers are not productive
or profitable.
Gaining buy-in
The fact that EX is a broad term makes decisions
around culture, technology and physical
environment harder to get right in a consistent and
holistic way. If a company wants to implement an
EX approach, says Naschberger, decision makers
must remember that HR professionals are not the
only ones who need to get involved, even if they are
leading the charge.
In addition, you cannot simply “create” employer
value proposition (EVP) from scratch; it’s something
that already exists within any organisation’s
corporate culture and employee stories. In line
with this, a key recommendation of Alexander
Mann Solutions’ whitepaper Decoding your value
proposition to deliver a meaningful employer brand
is to review what workers think of your organisation
before you begin to work on internal messaging.
For EX to be authentic as a strategy, it must “knit
very closely” with an organisation’s culture and
values, agrees Peter Padua, vice president of global
talent acquisition at CPA Global, an intellectual
property management and technology company.
Having gone through a year-long period of
transformation, CPA Global will be launching its
EVP over the next 18 months to uncover what’s
happened from a values-culture perspective.
“It’s not just about designing something,
launching it and that’s the end of it, it’s about
constant evolution as a company,” he says. “It’s
taking a temperature check as to how the company’s
developing, from its employee perspective.”
Naschberger concludes: “Other internal
stakeholders, such as top management, line
managers and employees, must be aware of their role
and what is expected of them. Employee experience
is a global approach that needs a global vision
and philosophy.”
Issue 3 - 2019
45