EX Newsletter April 2022

@nickl4

Here’s the latest version of my informal newsletter, containing a short selection of the very best EX articles I’ve come across over the last few months (so you don’t have to slog through LI or Twitter).

First up is a terrific HBR article by Diane Gherson and Lynda Gratton on how overwhelmed many managers are and what to do about it. In our data we’re seeing more and more evidence of manager burnout. It’s often a systemic problem that’s fixed by rethinking the role of people leader. There is some great advice in this piece: building people leadership skills, simplifying work, and job redesign. Related to this, I am working on a number of “Manager 180s” for clients at the moment that provide tailored developmental feedback to people leaders at all levels. It’s a great use of our listening platform (and often not part of a traditional “listening strategy”).

https://hbr.org/2022/03/managers-cant-do-it-all

I’m a long-time fan of Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore, the authors of The Experience Economy, one of my favourite books. I really like their latest article on transforming jobs to create more compelling employee experiences. Too much of the discussion about the Future of Work focuses on automation, cost-saving, and efficiency (the transactional side of work). It’s good to be reminded of the opportunity to invest in people, engagement, and trust (by transforming jobs).

This is an interesting article by Ayelet Fishbach on how moderate emotional discomfort can be a signal that you’re developing as a person. It often happens before you can actually detect the benefits of self-growth. In other words, short-term discomfort can be a sign you’re making progress towards long-term gains. Ayelet is author of the book “Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation”.

The final pair of articles are both reflections on what has happened over the last 2-3 years:

Here, Eric McNulty focuses on leadership. He sets out a simple process of “sensing-responding-adapting” in order to be agile enough to respond to uncertainty and shocks. I think it’s a very powerful (and simple) framework:

https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/The-best-way-to-lead-in-uncertain-times-may-be-to-throw-out-the-playbook

And here Gethin Nadin asks how you design employee experiences starting from the premise of needing “more conscious and compassionate workplaces”:

https://www.hrzone.com/engage/employees/employee-experience-and-the-rise-of-compassionate-capitalism

As always, let me know what you think!

Nick

EX Newsletter Summer 2021

Here is the Summer edition of my EX newsletter; a selection of the key EX articles I’ve come across over the last few months.

@nickl4

Why Trust Is the Future of the Employee Experience

So much has been written about EX and making hybrid working work! But I really like this short and optimistic article by Gethin Nadin. “One of the biggest lessons businesses learned from the pandemic was that employees can be trusted. As we begin to recover and prepare for new ways of working, it’s critical for employers to sustain this trust and build an employee experience founded on autonomy and choice.”

https://www.hrzone.com/engage/employees/why-trust-is-the-future-of-the-employee-experience

Should HR Adopt the “Noise Audit”?

Daniel Kahneman’s new book Noise (about the variability of human judgement) has been getting a lot of press. In this short LI piece, Anna Tavis asks “What does it mean for HR?” and concludes “We may consider adding the “noise audit” to our organizational tool kit and revisit our relationship with algorithms as partners on the people experience journey.”

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/should-hr-adopt-noise-audit-anna-a-tavis-ph-d/

The Pandemic Did Not Affect Mental Health the Way You Think

This was a really interesting article in The Atlantic. The pandemic has led to real struggles for many people and many companies (also see below), but at the same time there has been an astonishing degree of resilience, which in itself holds key lessons.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/covid-19-did-not-affect-mental-health-way-you-think/619354/

The Great EX Stress Test

We have been busy with new WTW research. We have just published the results of a major external survey of employee experience. The pandemic has put many organisations under stress and we have looked at those companies that have been able to respond the best, because they have a transformative approach to EX. I have put some of our slides here if you’d like to see them (hot off the press!)

https://www.linkedin.com/smart-links/AQGVP983fY2w3w

I have also written a couple of articles recently: The first is about how UK companies have responded to the FRC changes on board oversight of employee engagement. The second is on why co-creation and involvement are at the heart of EX activation.

https://exleadership.com/employee-engagement/

https://exleadership.com/co-creating-your-employee-experience-strategy/

Any questions or comments or feedback, drop me a note!

Take care,

Nick

Employee engagement trends during the pandemic

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been tracking the Employee Experience (EX). We just released an update, with over 500,000 employees surveyed. We see 3 key themes:

1. Employee levels of concern have improved but are still high:
• Around 50% are anxious and have financial worries
• Two-thirds report at least some ongoing distraction

2. Despite employees’ concerns, they give their organisations “high marks” for support:
• Communicating updates on the response
• Providing tools and resources to work effectively
• Trust in leaders

3. Views about office reopenings are mixed:
• 70% of employees have some concern about safety of commuting and working from company locations when offices reopen
• Almost 75% of employees prefer to remain working from home
• This is despite recognition of company efforts to ensure safety

If you’d like to learn more about what leading companies are doing to drive a better EX during this time, or to discuss our COVID-19 pulse surveys, just get in touch with me here.

This was first posted on LinkedIn on 19 August 2020

Tags: #EmployeeEngagement #COVID-19