major consulting firms dedicating significant investment and resources into supporting this growing enthusiasm for EX from their corporate clients’ intent on epic transformation to regain, retain and maximize existing client relationships.
It is highly evident that companies are approaching their work with people in a very different manner. In fact, they are actively changing the very nature of their teams to ensure design principles are inbuilt and come as standard with great HR work. As an exam- ple, I met with colleagues at Aurecon, an engineering consulting firm in Australia; one of the first appointments to a new people team was an industrial designer. This is not your standard HR business partner role being structured in. This is committing to high-quality design principles on the inside to effect results on the outside.
does a technology solution take centre stage and the people must work around it rather than have it working for them? When thinking about this element it is vital to consider how the technology will help deliver the core truth. How will a solution or application help bring the values to life and help deliver on the company’s mission and purpose?
Technology is only one element of a positive EX and it should be sub- ordinated to serve the whole.
For instance, Away, a travel start-up, has never had internal emails at the company. Instead, they have opted to use the app Slack exclu- sively for internal communication. This is a solid example of install- ing the truth into the EX – one of the values at Away is accessibility so this practice makes complete sense. The company’s co-founder Steph Korey wanted to make all conversations transparent and acces- sible for learning, input and contribution, which is a part of their approach to building an inclusive community. They are using tech- nology to facilitate a sense of belonging where anyone can take part and make an impact on conversations (Fairchild, 2018). Similarly, technology is bringing performance management, onboarding, L&D, benefits and many more areas of EX into the 21st century and em- ployees are enjoying smoother and more convenient experiences be- cause of it, but the key is to be selective around what works within each unique context and what is most impactful when it comes to the purpose, mission and values of the business. Everything connects and has the potential to amplify the truth of a business.
To get the job done, employees need the right tools and equipment.
In the knowledge economy, it is relatively straightforward to focus on the tech, the apps, the computers and everything else that helps peo- ple achieve their objectives in the office, but other environments are already feeling the benefits of enhanced technology that make jobs easier, safer and healthier for people.
Ford, the US car company, has already implemented 75 new ‘ exosuits’
to aid human employees in their physically demanding duties working on car bodies. The suits place a lot of the heavy lifting in the hands of robots and deliver a better, healthier workplace experience for humans.
The company has already achieved the lowest injury incident rates on record and is also looking for further outcomes around productivity and job satisfaction (BBC, 2018a).
This type of technology and human collaboration will be more commonplace in the future, and the HEX lens recognizes this as the human and technology elements are mirror images. As humans ad- vance so too does the technology we create, invent and utilize within the economy, but we need to be careful around how we integrate new technology into EX and where we position AI and robotics within our organizations. Kai-Fu Lee, in his 2018 book AI Superpowers, says that, ‘within the next fifteen years or so, AI will be able to do virtually all of our routine tasks, or nearly half of our total workload. AI will beat us at doing all kinds of repetitive tasks. But these tasks are not what makes us human. What makes us human is love’ (Lee, 2018).
As technology becomes even more influential in work, companies will seek balance in their approach by ensuring humans remain at the centre of thinking and doing. Technology is a great enabler to im- prove the experiences of customers and employees, but our creativity, our ability to feel, and to develop strong emotional connections to things and people will continue to differentiate us, and differentiate our EX. However, in this new world, innovation in EX technology is remarkable and cannot be ignored – it can certainly tip the balance when all things have been considered. Even pulse surveys are feeling a bit dated, and annual surveys are well and truly relics designed for another age. What is replacing them is incredibly exciting for any col- leagues working to advance EX. At the leading edge of technology and experience is Humu, a start-up with a mission to ‘make work better for everyone, everywhere’ (Bock, 2018). This well-funded ven- ture is leveraging the impressive Nobel prize-winning work on nudge theory within behavioural economics by Richard Thaler. The com- pany’s nudge engine technology uses machine learning to pinpoint a company’s unique drivers that deliver business outcomes, to deter- mine where exactly to apply ‘nudges’ – small improvements at scale to enhance the EX through personalized and actionable steps. This is hugely disruptive, and there will be more sophisticated and intelli- gent ways to approach incremental and epic change within compa- nies coming down the line. If companies can clearly see the impact of tangible actions that they are now seeing with EX, and you can, through technology, multiply and scale this impact globally or across an entire business, how valuable would that be?