Employees worldwide, especially those with in-demand talent and skills, have played their role in redefining the workplace too. We are now in an age where employees can share more information about the quality of their employee experience than ever before. For good
and for bad. The Glassdoor effect has taken hold. Glassdoor, a plat- form that enables employees to share reviews about their company, is a treasure trove of information and data about the quality of the employee experience. Think about the last time you booked a trip.
Did you check TripAdvisor first to check out what others experi- enced directly? If you are like me, you probably did. The same atten- tion to experience has come to workplaces and CEOs, and companies are finding out the hard way that the voice of the employee just got a whole lot stronger. People expect to be treated fairly and with respect as a bare minimum. In an economy with high employment levels, employers are having to raise their game on the employee experience front. Employees simply expect more and want to see much more of a benefit coming to them from companies making substantial profits.
Is that a fair expectation?
I must admit that early in my career I was fascinated with the con- cept of a psychological contract. In my work developing organiza- tions, I have always maintained a healthy respect for this unspoken contract between people and employers. Cisco, and a whole host of other organizations, have made a point to connect everything they do within the employee experience to some form of deal. In Cisco’s case,
‘The People Deal’, which helps them position, market and tie together the EX for their global business. This is not revolutionary, but it makes it clear that there are expectations, implicit and explicit, on both sides of the relationship, and they must be clear. And honoured.
But here’s the thing. Expectations have changed and the EX needs to change with them. Internal EX research by the team at Facebook found some enlightening results about what employees really wanted from the Facebook EX. They identified three powerful motivators after studying hundreds of thousands of answers, which are cause, community and career (Goler et al, 2018):
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● ‘Cause is about purpose: feeling that you make a meaningful impact, identifying with the organization’s mission, and believing that it does some good in the world. It’s a source of pride.
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● Community is about people: feeling respected, cared about, and recognized by others. It drives our sense of connection and belongingness.
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● Career is about work: having a job that provides autonomy, allows you to use your strengths, and promotes your learning and development. It’s at the heart of intrinsic motivation.’
For companies, expectation management has become a real chal- lenge. Individual expectations have changed, are changing, and will continue to change. Our workplaces should be positioned to evolve and develop with these expectations to deliver an aligned and power- ful EX. There’s a lot of discussion about millennials and their quest for purpose and meaning in work, and I tested this theory when working with about 200 business students in China. I asked them where they wanted to work. Traditionally, the names of the top con- sulting firms would pop up rather quickly. Not now. The majority indicated their preferences for companies like Baidu, Tencent, Huawei and Alibaba. Why? Because these companies seem to have cornered the market in China for purpose. Trailblazing and history-making experiences where graduates cut their teeth at the leading edge of the human experience. How do you compete with that?
People are attracted to real experiences. We know this from the success of Silicon Valley. Companies starting their lives in garages, dorm rooms or apartments growing to become the most iconic enti- ties in the world. To say you have worked for one of these giants is CV gold, but it is often a short-lived experience as the tenure rates of two years in the Valley suggest.
But the experience of work is not the preserve of one context, com- pany or country. Every employee has an experience in work, good or bad. Designed or by accident. Several of these experiences create na- tional and international headlines with talking points about the qual- ity of the workplace. New generations coming into the workplace will inevitably impact companies worldwide. Millennials make up 30 per cent of the population and by 2025 will represent 75 per cent of the global workforce. Research by Deloitte has tracked a growing mismatch between what employers offer and what millennials expect from their organizations. The latter wanting businesses to be socially responsible, ethical, and committed to making a positive contribu- tion to society (Deloitte, 2018). To secure the best talent and create the conditions for successful outcomes to occur, a company’s EX
must deliver on these factors as well as the individual factors that mirror them. Individuals expect autonomy, meaningful work, a sense of connection and a supportive growth-focused community around them. While the newer generations entering the workforce may prompt significant change, these are certainly factors that apply across the generations.