EXJournal

The reason I’m so bullish about the concept of employee experience design is that EX is proactively actionable, whereas traditional employee engagement practices are largely reactive. Organizations can intentionally design the employee experience to improve engagement and performance.

I was curious when approached to contribute to EX Journal as usually I am banging on about Diversity and Inclusion. Yes, remember that? Or was that “soooo last year”?  Certainly I detect that it’s a lot more fun hanging with the cheery folk chatting about EX. It feels, well, a tad more millennial.

We can talk all day about employer branding – and we often do.

I’d been trying to flesh out a collab story on employee experience (EX) with Laurie Ruettimann for weeks. This is as far as we got:

There is this widely held belief by a great number of HR pros that to have true employee engagement, your employees must feel like they have meaningful work. I don’t necessarily disagree with that thought process.

A strong set of shared company and personal values is important to millennials.

Over the last five years Humankind has worked with over 400 businesses and learnt a lot about what it takes to grow. We know the ability to attract and retain the best talent underpins success.

Employee experience is by definition experiential: it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Without someone to process it, it’s not a thing. If a tree falls in a forest, etc etc. More than that, we don’t all experience the same thing the same way. Our personalities, preferences and past experiences all play a role in how we interpret and react to the situations we find ourselves in.

Over the past year or so, the phrase “employee experience” has barged its way into conversations about human resources and employee engagement. The more you see the phrase, the easier it is to dismiss as simply a new buzzword; repackaging the same old HR stuff under a new label. Don’t make that mistake.

Welcome to the first article on millennial employee experience from finder.com.au Head of Talent Jamie Finnegan: part two coming soon!