#CX 75: Designing Your Employee Experience w/ Gil Cohen

WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:10.990 Why our behavior is important because they determine the bottom line. They determined business 2 00:00:10.990 --> 00:00:18.109 outcome, and so your people's behavior are impacting your bottom line in your outcome. 3 00:00:18.149 --> 00:00:23.539 If you've been listening to the CX series here on B tob growth or 4 00:00:23.579 --> 00:00:28.179 you've been listening to the customer experience podcast, it will come as no surprise 5 00:00:28.300 --> 00:00:35.659 that you cannot create and deliver an exceptional customer experience without first creating and delivering 6 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:42.329 an exceptional employee experience. And it's not just the domain of HR. This 7 00:00:42.570 --> 00:00:48.049 is an fundamental, critical, evolving, dynamic field in and of itself, 8 00:00:48.090 --> 00:00:52.880 as is CX. What you've got in this episode is the founder of employee 9 00:00:53.039 --> 00:00:57.679 experience design. His name is Gil Cohen. He's got some great insights into 10 00:00:58.119 --> 00:01:03.679 the relationship between customer experience and employee experience, how to design for the eight 11 00:01:03.840 --> 00:01:08.829 aspects of employee wellness, why an investment in x will provide a significant Roi 12 00:01:10.269 --> 00:01:14.390 and specifically where in your organization. I was careful to ask him this question. 13 00:01:15.109 --> 00:01:18.700 If someone has no ex initiative going on, where's the best place to 14 00:01:18.739 --> 00:01:22.739 start, and he gives a very specific answer. My name is Ethan Butte. 15 00:01:22.939 --> 00:01:26.459 I host the CX series here on B Tob Growth. I also host 16 00:01:26.540 --> 00:01:32.060 the customer experience podcast cast and I'm coauthor of Rehumanize Your Business. How personal 17 00:01:32.140 --> 00:01:37.049 videos accelerate sales and improve customer experience. And, by the way, videos 18 00:01:37.049 --> 00:01:41.810 are a great way to improve your employees experience. I hope you enjoy this 19 00:01:41.930 --> 00:01:46.969 conversation with Gil Cohen, including his caution on focusing too much on culture. 20 00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:53.079 Here we go, making the world a better place to work through co creating 21 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:59.159 great experiences. That's the linkedin headline of today's guest, and who doesn't want 22 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:01.030 the world to be a better place to work? To get there, though, 23 00:02:01.310 --> 00:02:07.590 we must focus on a great employee experience as a necessary precursor to a 24 00:02:07.709 --> 00:02:12.430 great customer experience. For more than fifteen years, our guest has consulted businesses 25 00:02:12.509 --> 00:02:16.060 on vision, values, behavioral interviewing, Succession Planning and more. He also 26 00:02:16.139 --> 00:02:23.099 spent two years inside and it company focused exclusively on employee experience full time. 27 00:02:23.620 --> 00:02:28.580 That motivated him to found employee experience design. Gil Cohen, welcome to the 28 00:02:28.659 --> 00:02:31.210 customer experience podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be here. 29 00:02:31.810 --> 00:02:37.129 Yeah, I'm really excited about this conversation. I'm so glad we connected 30 00:02:37.289 --> 00:02:40.090 on this through a mutual friend and former podcast guest here on the show, 31 00:02:40.569 --> 00:02:46.120 and this conversation about employee experience has kind of been a background conversation through multiple 32 00:02:46.120 --> 00:02:49.960 episodes that we kind of like drive by a little bit. It's been part 33 00:02:49.960 --> 00:02:54.159 of my developing understanding of how to create and deliver better experiences by focusing more 34 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:59.030 on internal service quality. So I'm really excited to talk to you who spent 35 00:02:59.550 --> 00:03:04.509 years focus so specifically on the employee experience. But before we get going, 36 00:03:04.990 --> 00:03:07.430 you know we're recording this in like early mid May, two thousand and twenty. 37 00:03:07.590 --> 00:03:10.949 You're in Toronto. kind of what's going on up your way with regard 38 00:03:12.030 --> 00:03:15.699 to the pandemic? How's it going? How's it affecting you or your family 39 00:03:15.740 --> 00:03:19.900 or your customers or businesses in the area? What observations do you have about 40 00:03:19.900 --> 00:03:24.099 it right now? So I would say overall, right now in Ontario and 41 00:03:24.460 --> 00:03:30.169 Canada it's being managed reasonably well. We're just past the top of the curve 42 00:03:30.610 --> 00:03:36.210 when it comes to cases, but it's still not going down completely. So 43 00:03:36.289 --> 00:03:42.039 I think we still have a few weeks of social distancing at minimum, if 44 00:03:42.120 --> 00:03:46.240 not a few months. Certainly it'll be a while before they really open up 45 00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:51.479 a lot of the restrictions. They just opened up garden stores on Monday, 46 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:53.800 which was nice, which you know, it's great for people to be out 47 00:03:54.120 --> 00:03:59.110 and in the garden, something very therapeutic, very positive to be able to 48 00:03:59.229 --> 00:04:03.110 do, and they're obviously taking very careful precautions as they do that. How 49 00:04:03.150 --> 00:04:10.419 has it impacted me? It completely adjusted the strategy that I thought I had 50 00:04:10.900 --> 00:04:14.259 at the beginning of the year when starting employee experience design, because a lot 51 00:04:14.340 --> 00:04:18.779 of the realities that it was based on in terms of my strategy, the 52 00:04:18.899 --> 00:04:21.740 world isn't the same now, and so I've had to adjust that, which 53 00:04:21.740 --> 00:04:26.089 is also exciting because it gives me not comtunity to innovate and see what the 54 00:04:26.129 --> 00:04:30.689 market is looking for and find a way to really add value in a different 55 00:04:30.730 --> 00:04:33.490 way, but still in an alignment with my vision, which is to make 56 00:04:33.529 --> 00:04:38.329 a world better place to it awesome. I appreciate your vision, I appreciate 57 00:04:38.370 --> 00:04:42.839 you sharing that to and I think your positivity and flexibility are something that a 58 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:45.839 lot more people in a lot more teams and a lot more organizations are going 59 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:48.759 to need as we continue to figure out you know what what tomorrow and what 60 00:04:48.879 --> 00:04:51.870 next month. Look like for our for our lives and for our businesses. 61 00:04:51.949 --> 00:04:57.629 So so let's get into a properly guilt customer experience. When I say customer 62 00:04:57.709 --> 00:04:59.910 experience, what comes to mind? What does that mean to you? To 63 00:05:00.750 --> 00:05:04.350 me it's the sum of all the interactions, all the touch points that a 64 00:05:04.750 --> 00:05:11.060 person has with a company that they purchased from. So that would be everything 65 00:05:11.139 --> 00:05:16.939 from the initial hearing about your organization touch points through the consideration and sales process 66 00:05:17.019 --> 00:05:23.329 and then, as I'm a customer, my overall experience by perceptions of it. 67 00:05:23.930 --> 00:05:29.089 And I would also say that one thing that has been sort of increased 68 00:05:29.129 --> 00:05:34.170 during this pandemic is would also be my customer experiences, my perception of the 69 00:05:34.250 --> 00:05:41.160 organization and how they're treating their employees. I've seen a lot more concerns from 70 00:05:41.279 --> 00:05:46.240 people of how are they responding to the pandemic in that impacting the perceptions of 71 00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:50.470 the brand, perceptions of an organization. I love that you offered that. 72 00:05:50.550 --> 00:05:54.310 I just looked at a piece of research that a friend of mine and another 73 00:05:54.709 --> 00:05:59.709 customer experience podcast guest from early on, Kurt Bartolich, shared with me. 74 00:05:59.870 --> 00:06:02.310 He'd he conducted it recently with a small team and that was one of the 75 00:06:02.829 --> 00:06:09.220 key takeaways is that, especially in the negative comments, it was they don't 76 00:06:09.220 --> 00:06:12.100 care about me, they only care about profit, or they don't care about 77 00:06:12.100 --> 00:06:15.579 their employees, they only care about profit. And so I think you're I 78 00:06:15.660 --> 00:06:17.610 think you're right on there. So I guess I haven't asked this, I 79 00:06:17.649 --> 00:06:19.810 don't think, to any of my guests before, but I'll ask you the 80 00:06:19.889 --> 00:06:25.089 same question with employee experience. When I say employee experience, what are your 81 00:06:25.129 --> 00:06:28.970 thoughts? What's the definition? How do you think about that? It's the 82 00:06:29.209 --> 00:06:32.519 flip side of the coin of customer experience. In reality, it is the 83 00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:36.680 sum of all the interactions, all the touch points that you have with your 84 00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:43.240 employer organization. But because of the impact, because of the reality of how 85 00:06:43.279 --> 00:06:47.310 much our work lives impact our lives as a whole. I mean eight hours 86 00:06:47.350 --> 00:06:51.110 a day, if we're lucky, adds up to about a hundred thousand hours 87 00:06:51.189 --> 00:06:57.829 in our lifetime that we spend out work, and so those kind of interactions 88 00:06:57.910 --> 00:07:02.459 and those kind of touch points make it that much more complex because it impacts 89 00:07:02.779 --> 00:07:08.540 on so many aspects of our lives and aspects of our wellness. And so 90 00:07:08.980 --> 00:07:14.259 it's customer experience in all of those touch points, but taken to a greater 91 00:07:14.379 --> 00:07:18.569 extreme because you're living it at least eight hours a day, five days a 92 00:07:18.689 --> 00:07:24.329 week for most of us, for your whole adult light. That's so interesting. 93 00:07:24.370 --> 00:07:26.529 There a couple places I want to go there. I guess I'll start 94 00:07:26.529 --> 00:07:30.240 with this one, this idea of how many more touch points there are. 95 00:07:30.279 --> 00:07:32.839 So touch points is common language when we talk about customer experience and, of 96 00:07:32.920 --> 00:07:36.839 course, now employee experience. So when I think about companies that I deal 97 00:07:36.959 --> 00:07:41.480 with a lot, I might visit their website a couple times a day or 98 00:07:41.519 --> 00:07:44.509 a couple times a week. I might place in order or, like Amazon, 99 00:07:44.550 --> 00:07:46.470 I'm probably ordering something. These days anyway, I'd probably ordering something, 100 00:07:46.870 --> 00:07:48.709 you know, maybe twice a week, and so I have. I have 101 00:07:48.870 --> 00:07:54.110 regular interaction with some of these. But now, as employees, to your 102 00:07:54.189 --> 00:07:58.699 point, we essentially are living in this environment. We're constantly, even when 103 00:07:58.699 --> 00:08:03.699 we're all working remotely, we're constantly in touch through email, slack, video 104 00:08:03.779 --> 00:08:09.819 messaging, zoom calls, shared documents, etc. We're getting, you know, 105 00:08:09.860 --> 00:08:13.569 a bombamb our. President, one of our two cofounders, is consistently, 106 00:08:13.649 --> 00:08:16.490 usually twice a week, sending videos to the entire company like what's going 107 00:08:16.569 --> 00:08:20.089 on from a business standpoint. shoutouts to employees that are kind of going above 108 00:08:20.129 --> 00:08:24.370 and beyond or, you know, working through challenges. So I offer all 109 00:08:24.370 --> 00:08:26.279 those to say they're all so many more touch points. What do you think 110 00:08:26.319 --> 00:08:31.319 about that dynamic and what are the implications of that for anyone who is thinking 111 00:08:31.839 --> 00:08:37.240 consciously, your intentionally about employee experience? The complicating factor is that, like 112 00:08:37.440 --> 00:08:41.789 you said, for any organization that we're a customer of or any company that 113 00:08:41.990 --> 00:08:46.269 you know, we buy their services, we interact with them only so much, 114 00:08:48.269 --> 00:08:52.389 where as our organization we're having touch points all day and sometimes outside of 115 00:08:52.509 --> 00:08:56.340 work hours. For me, the what I've seen is that the single most 116 00:08:56.379 --> 00:09:01.779 profound touchpoint to any of us have with our organization is our manager. There's 117 00:09:01.779 --> 00:09:05.100 a common expression people don't leave companies, they leave managers. Well, that's 118 00:09:05.179 --> 00:09:09.899 not true a hundred percent of the time, it is often true and likely 119 00:09:09.049 --> 00:09:15.490 at minimum the majority of the cases. That's what happens, and the manager 120 00:09:15.809 --> 00:09:20.330 is just one type point. Every email you receive, every call you receive, 121 00:09:20.690 --> 00:09:26.440 every research you put together, every line of code that you write, 122 00:09:26.559 --> 00:09:33.360 the environment within your which you're working is part of your employee experience, and 123 00:09:33.679 --> 00:09:37.399 so because of that you have to look at all of the different aspects of 124 00:09:39.509 --> 00:09:43.269 how the organization is designed, because you hit on a really, really important 125 00:09:43.269 --> 00:09:48.389 word earlier, which was about intentionality. Because if you don't design it intentionally, 126 00:09:50.350 --> 00:09:56.500 it's still happening and if you're not creating it intentionally, it might not 127 00:09:56.899 --> 00:10:01.500 necessarily go where you want it to go. There's the famous philosopher Yogi Vera, 128 00:10:01.980 --> 00:10:05.899 was quoted as saying if you don't know where you're going, you might 129 00:10:05.940 --> 00:10:13.450 not get there. And that's a reality of employee experience that everybody's being impacted 130 00:10:13.929 --> 00:10:18.889 by it. Every day, every email to get the type of correspondence they 131 00:10:18.009 --> 00:10:24.840 have. Is it done through slag? What's being said in that correspondence? 132 00:10:24.960 --> 00:10:30.759 I read a survey recently that through the pandemic, forty percentage managers have not 133 00:10:31.240 --> 00:10:35.710 asked their employees just how are you doing? Through all of this? Forty 134 00:10:35.029 --> 00:10:41.950 percent of managers haven't even asked in seven or eight weeks. Hey, how 135 00:10:41.990 --> 00:10:46.590 are you doing? What kind of experience does that create for a person? 136 00:10:46.710 --> 00:10:50.940 What kind of message is that create for a person when you're living your life 137 00:10:52.100 --> 00:10:58.700 under these extreme conditions? We all have increased anxiety from what it was before 138 00:10:58.740 --> 00:11:03.700 we haven't generally increased concerns, whether it's for our selves or for our family 139 00:11:03.779 --> 00:11:09.450 members. And these managers, all they care about is work. What message 140 00:11:09.649 --> 00:11:15.409 does that say? What that manager cares about, what the organization cares about? 141 00:11:15.450 --> 00:11:18.919 It's treating you like a resource, not a human which is part of 142 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:24.039 the problem when you don't create it intentional. So interesting that. I mean 143 00:11:24.399 --> 00:11:28.559 couple things that occur to me as you offer that statistic. A, I'm 144 00:11:28.679 --> 00:11:31.559 of the mind that we should be doing one on one's with all of our 145 00:11:31.639 --> 00:11:37.470 team members and managers. Could Cannon should be doing skip levels to talk to 146 00:11:37.750 --> 00:11:43.870 directly to their managers, direct reports and so A. is that not happening 147 00:11:43.950 --> 00:11:46.779 in these organization? Patients and be what is the one on one about? 148 00:11:46.940 --> 00:11:50.299 Like, how do you even start a conversation with someone like hey, it's 149 00:11:50.299 --> 00:11:56.740 our biweekly or weekly or monthly conversation where we scarve thirty minutes or sixty minutes 150 00:11:58.179 --> 00:12:01.850 out of the day to catch up on what's going on, to provide feedback, 151 00:12:01.970 --> 00:12:05.370 to make sure everything's going all right, to, you know, just 152 00:12:05.490 --> 00:12:07.250 get a sense of you know, where is the culture? And I think 153 00:12:07.289 --> 00:12:11.490 you, I think you wrap that up very nicely, which is what is 154 00:12:11.570 --> 00:12:15.690 someone left to feel like but a number or a resource? And there's at 155 00:12:15.690 --> 00:12:18.600 least in terms of a customer experience, one of the most annoying things is 156 00:12:18.759 --> 00:12:22.759 for a customer to be left to feel like a number rather than as a 157 00:12:22.840 --> 00:12:26.440 person or as a customer. And so certainly here, as an employee, 158 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:30.750 I think this there's a can gosh, this is such a big and important 159 00:12:30.750 --> 00:12:35.710 topic. I guess I'll go to wellness. You used wellness earlier and I 160 00:12:35.789 --> 00:12:37.909 think it's related to what you were just talking about. There is is, 161 00:12:39.389 --> 00:12:41.590 you know, how am I left to feel? So talk a little bit 162 00:12:41.590 --> 00:12:46.379 about the importance of wellness and how maybe that can be designed into the experience 163 00:12:46.419 --> 00:12:50.899 in order to make sure that our team members are in reasonably good states of 164 00:12:52.019 --> 00:12:54.899 mind and feel good about the work that they're doing the people that they're doing 165 00:12:56.019 --> 00:12:58.970 with maybe have a sense of purpose. Like when I say, wellness is 166 00:12:58.049 --> 00:13:01.370 a big concept, but how do you think about wellness in general, and 167 00:13:01.409 --> 00:13:05.210 then how do you think about it specific to the employee experience and how we 168 00:13:05.289 --> 00:13:09.970 can maybe facilitated or cultivated? So wellness, for me, the way I 169 00:13:09.529 --> 00:13:13.159 conceptualize it, the way I've learned about it, is that there are eight 170 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:18.879 main aspects that contribute to our wellness or financial wellness. Are Environmental Wellness, 171 00:13:20.120 --> 00:13:28.629 physical, social, occupational, intellectual, spiritual and emotional, and those are 172 00:13:28.629 --> 00:13:33.909 all the aspects of wellness that play on our lives and impact our lives and 173 00:13:33.990 --> 00:13:41.110 ultimately it determines boats the quality of life that we lead and our behaviors, 174 00:13:41.149 --> 00:13:46.980 it determines how we want to act. So by being intentional about this, 175 00:13:46.179 --> 00:13:52.379 it means looking at each of those aspects of wellness in creating a greater understanding, 176 00:13:52.460 --> 00:13:56.809 for a shoal, of what your cohortive employees cares about, because the 177 00:13:56.970 --> 00:14:01.289 reality is is that every organization is different. Every organization has different values and 178 00:14:01.450 --> 00:14:07.289 is has hired different cohort and rewarded and punished according to their own values of 179 00:14:07.370 --> 00:14:11.639 the leaders. So it's really important to understand stand that, based on your 180 00:14:11.919 --> 00:14:18.879 cohort, you're going to get different wellness factors that are more important. So 181 00:14:18.399 --> 00:14:24.190 for me, I worked with an IT group where they, the deeply technical 182 00:14:24.309 --> 00:14:30.590 people, were very intent on constantly learning. If you don't learn, you're 183 00:14:30.870 --> 00:14:35.950 obsolete after six months, and so for them that was really a fact of 184 00:14:35.350 --> 00:14:41.220 the their occupational and their intellectual wellness. Because that's what they were driven by, 185 00:14:41.659 --> 00:14:45.460 that they needed to continue in their careers and they needed to continue to 186 00:14:45.620 --> 00:14:50.700 expand their mind, whereas net would take a group of nurses where that's not 187 00:14:50.980 --> 00:14:54.850 necessarily what's going to drive a group of nurses that will be more around the 188 00:14:54.929 --> 00:15:01.649 physical wellness, environmental wellness and spiritual wellness, with talks about a person's purpose 189 00:15:01.889 --> 00:15:05.929 and the purpose of the organization and alignment there in. And so it's really 190 00:15:05.970 --> 00:15:13.159 important to start their start by understanding your own group of people and then understand 191 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:20.120 how does your organization, how does your culture and experience impact each of those 192 00:15:20.279 --> 00:15:26.149 factors? What are you doing as a leader to create or dismiss a person's 193 00:15:26.190 --> 00:15:30.830 physical wellness? Are you making a person work twelve, fifteen hours a day 194 00:15:30.830 --> 00:15:33.990 where they don't get enough sleep, they are and I don't have an opportunity 195 00:15:33.029 --> 00:15:37.259 to exercise? What kind of spiritual illness are you providing for people? Are 196 00:15:37.299 --> 00:15:41.659 you just saying your purpose of your organization is to make money, or is 197 00:15:41.779 --> 00:15:46.740 there something greater, which is something that we've seen more recently that millennials are 198 00:15:48.379 --> 00:15:52.129 demanding it much greater than Gen x and baby boomers before them, because they 199 00:15:52.250 --> 00:15:56.850 recognize their own spiritual wellness and how it relates to the workplace. So it's 200 00:15:56.850 --> 00:16:06.200 important to recognize that each aspect of wellness is impacted significantly by our work experience 201 00:16:06.399 --> 00:16:10.399 in bye starting by being conscious of that. Knowing more people are care about, 202 00:16:10.480 --> 00:16:15.639 in understanding how your organization is impacting them will lead a person on an 203 00:16:15.639 --> 00:16:18.950 organization on a path to be able to create the right experience really good. 204 00:16:18.990 --> 00:16:23.909 I'm for folks who are listening. If you visit Bombombcom podcast, it's just 205 00:16:25.070 --> 00:16:30.350 bomb Bombcom podcast. We do really concise right ups, we do video clips, 206 00:16:30.549 --> 00:16:36.340 we do fully embedded audio and and I'll list out things like those eight 207 00:16:36.740 --> 00:16:40.779 characteristics of wellness. And so if you didn't write those down or you don't 208 00:16:40.779 --> 00:16:42.019 want to write them down, you're maybe listening on the move, you can 209 00:16:42.100 --> 00:16:47.059 just go to Ba momcom slash podcast and look for this episode with Gil and 210 00:16:47.169 --> 00:16:48.970 you can find them all there. And I want to go in one step 211 00:16:49.049 --> 00:16:55.129 deeper on that. For folks who are listening. Would you recommend that they 212 00:16:55.570 --> 00:16:57.730 take this list into their next one on one with some of their team members 213 00:16:57.809 --> 00:17:02.360 and and ask them, or would you recommend that they, you know, 214 00:17:02.600 --> 00:17:06.079 take an hour out of the day and just sit down and think about their 215 00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:08.400 group in general or think about some of the individuals and what they already know 216 00:17:08.519 --> 00:17:14.759 about them. How would someone maybe approach from a practical standpoint, thinking about 217 00:17:15.240 --> 00:17:18.509 what factors of wellness like? What are the two, three four that matter 218 00:17:18.630 --> 00:17:21.309 the most, and it's so that they can maybe start focusing on them. 219 00:17:21.349 --> 00:17:25.390 How do you take it one step deeper make it practical for folks asolutely great 220 00:17:25.430 --> 00:17:30.740 questions? So the first thing that is starts with an understanding of your team. 221 00:17:32.140 --> 00:17:34.900 One of the things I've noticed through the pandemic is that the people in 222 00:17:36.019 --> 00:17:38.619 the leaders who understand and their team better and who've already had that sense of 223 00:17:38.700 --> 00:17:44.769 empathy will have better answers of how to deal with this. Because I wouldn't 224 00:17:44.769 --> 00:17:48.569 necessarily suggest as being so blunt as to walk in with a question saying, 225 00:17:48.569 --> 00:17:52.410 okay, how's your emotional wellness? How's this, but sitting down, taking 226 00:17:52.450 --> 00:17:56.970 the time to reflect what you know about each of the individuals and how might 227 00:17:57.130 --> 00:18:03.319 you ask questions that elicit these answers? How might you ask a question that 228 00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:08.400 is appropriate to that individual that will get to the heart of it, because 229 00:18:08.400 --> 00:18:14.190 it's not going to be how's your physical wellness? It might be. You 230 00:18:14.309 --> 00:18:18.589 know something, if a person's you know generally a person who exercises a lot, 231 00:18:18.670 --> 00:18:19.829 that they go to the gym, ask them so be able to hit 232 00:18:19.869 --> 00:18:23.990 the gym these days? Obviously not. What are you doing otherwise? What 233 00:18:25.470 --> 00:18:27.859 are you doing and how are you taking care of yourself? But asking the 234 00:18:27.900 --> 00:18:36.099 questions also from a standpoint of curiosity and empathy and trying to understand what's really 235 00:18:36.579 --> 00:18:40.819 going on with them. But I wouldn't suggest being so blunt as to just 236 00:18:40.980 --> 00:18:44.130 hammer them over the head with these date questions. It takes a little bit 237 00:18:44.170 --> 00:18:48.130 of nuance and it takes understanding of the individual to know how to ask that 238 00:18:48.329 --> 00:18:55.130 question that you're going to get an honest answer, because I've also seen numerous 239 00:18:55.170 --> 00:19:00.680 articles where plenty of employees feel the pressure to just say fine right now because 240 00:19:00.839 --> 00:19:04.720 they don't want to tell their employer things are difficult, because people were worried 241 00:19:04.759 --> 00:19:08.440 about their jobs, which goes to financial wellness, which about which is about 242 00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:14.390 job stability. So if a people don't feel their job is stable right now, 243 00:19:14.509 --> 00:19:18.190 they're not as likely to share with their manager what's really going on, 244 00:19:18.390 --> 00:19:22.509 and so it will take a little bit of digging in, a little bit 245 00:19:22.670 --> 00:19:26.019 of genuine curiosity to get to the heart of that. Yeah, and actually 246 00:19:26.019 --> 00:19:30.059 caring about the other person. So it's like to listen to you talk. 247 00:19:30.140 --> 00:19:33.099 I just think like cash, it seems like just being a truly decent person 248 00:19:33.220 --> 00:19:37.900 would probably make you a pretty good manager and probably set up, you know, 249 00:19:37.980 --> 00:19:40.650 a good culture, at least within your part of the organization. I 250 00:19:41.609 --> 00:19:45.210 do want to be empathetic with managers that aren't doing this, to not, 251 00:19:45.450 --> 00:19:49.529 you know, dismiss them as not being good people, because oftentimes we behave 252 00:19:49.849 --> 00:19:55.160 based on what we expect the outcome to be or what we've learned. So 253 00:19:55.359 --> 00:19:59.960 the traditional form of leadership was I'll tell you how to do things and managers 254 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:04.240 need to know everything. Well, that's doesn't change over twenty five, fifty, 255 00:20:04.279 --> 00:20:08.869 seventy five years. It changes over very extended period of time. So 256 00:20:08.990 --> 00:20:12.869 if you look at how management was, and it wasn't even hr back then, 257 00:20:12.869 --> 00:20:17.589 it was just personnel back in the S and S, and how people 258 00:20:17.670 --> 00:20:19.470 were treated, you're lucky to have a job and they could treat you however 259 00:20:19.509 --> 00:20:23.380 they wanted and you were there for twenty five years, right. And now 260 00:20:23.579 --> 00:20:27.740 we know that that is no longer the reality of the society. That we 261 00:20:27.900 --> 00:20:33.140 live and so but I just going back to it, though. I don't 262 00:20:33.180 --> 00:20:37.329 want to dismiss managers that aren't doing these things. I want to help them 263 00:20:37.410 --> 00:20:42.450 understand that if they add this to their tools kit, they will be more 264 00:20:42.490 --> 00:20:47.410 effective and there people will be more effective. Yeah, thank you so much 265 00:20:47.450 --> 00:20:49.720 for that correction. There at least I'm on my bias. I've been working 266 00:20:49.720 --> 00:20:53.680 in a very healthy culture and healthy environment for the past eight and a half 267 00:20:53.720 --> 00:20:57.119 years where, you know, I feel like people see me for who I 268 00:20:57.200 --> 00:21:02.839 am as an individual. I get positive feedback, in corrective feedback on the 269 00:21:02.920 --> 00:21:06.309 work that I do. We have consistent meetings. It's so funny. That 270 00:21:06.670 --> 00:21:11.309 is a gosh when what a horrible bias for me to reveal in this conversation. 271 00:21:11.390 --> 00:21:15.430 Durable, I think it's a reality. I think, well, we 272 00:21:15.549 --> 00:21:19.660 all have biases and that's just a fundamental aspect of being human and the heuristics 273 00:21:19.740 --> 00:21:25.420 in our brain and and I understand that. But it's also a lutting biased 274 00:21:25.460 --> 00:21:29.500 to have because, look, it's because you've been living the right way for 275 00:21:29.619 --> 00:21:34.170 the last few years that you have people bringing you feedback that's not personal but 276 00:21:34.490 --> 00:21:41.130 performance space, but behavior based right that you have effective communication to way communication 277 00:21:41.250 --> 00:21:45.049 with people that sometimes we end up in our own little bubble of Oh yeah, 278 00:21:45.049 --> 00:21:49.519 I forget how horrible some managers are, and they're not trying to be 279 00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:55.440 horrible, they just think that's the right way to be a manager. That's 280 00:21:55.480 --> 00:21:57.920 how they were trained, that's how they're successful. Boss did it and so 281 00:21:59.039 --> 00:22:02.829 therefore they're going to do it as well. It's really interesting, I guess. 282 00:22:02.829 --> 00:22:06.349 Let's let's go into that a little bit. So if some to your 283 00:22:06.430 --> 00:22:10.029 point much earlier, and I say the same thing about customer experience. When 284 00:22:10.029 --> 00:22:11.390 I talk about it, it's always happening. It's happening whether you know it 285 00:22:11.470 --> 00:22:15.150 or not. It's happening whether you think about it or not. And so 286 00:22:15.140 --> 00:22:18.940 I guess answer this in two as. One, how important is it for 287 00:22:18.019 --> 00:22:23.819 an organization to start getting intentional about employee experience? And then second layer, 288 00:22:25.339 --> 00:22:27.259 what are some places people would start if they just been kind of you know, 289 00:22:27.339 --> 00:22:30.730 we got our hr department and everything seems to be going okay and we're, 290 00:22:30.809 --> 00:22:33.450 you know, the business seems to be doing okay despite some of the 291 00:22:34.089 --> 00:22:38.369 you know, economic hardships, of the climate whatever. Why should leaders in 292 00:22:38.490 --> 00:22:44.130 that organization care about employee experience in what are some of the initial steps? 293 00:22:44.210 --> 00:22:47.039 Maybe if you were, you know, going in on a consultative basis, 294 00:22:47.079 --> 00:22:51.720 where would you start thinking about and starting to move the organization toward a more 295 00:22:51.839 --> 00:22:56.240 intentional employee experience? So the why people, why you should care, is 296 00:22:56.880 --> 00:23:03.470 really about the bottomline. Why you should care is it if you take you 297 00:23:03.589 --> 00:23:07.829 through the the whole five wise exercise of why is employee experience important? Because 298 00:23:07.829 --> 00:23:12.059 it drives human experience. Why is human experience important? Because it drives human 299 00:23:12.140 --> 00:23:17.099 wellness. Why is human wellness important? Well, there's two answers to that 300 00:23:17.180 --> 00:23:21.700 that you depending on your values, that you'll value one way or the other. 301 00:23:21.779 --> 00:23:26.660 Either you mean wellness is important because it impacts our quality of life, 302 00:23:26.660 --> 00:23:30.970 or the other side of it is. Why is even wellness important? Because 303 00:23:30.970 --> 00:23:36.569 it impacts our behaviors. Why our behaviors important? Because they determine the bottom 304 00:23:36.569 --> 00:23:42.480 line, they determine business outcomes, and so your people's behavior are impacting your 305 00:23:42.599 --> 00:23:48.759 bottom line in your outcomes. If you intentionally design those behaviors and work toward 306 00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:52.759 an effective creation of an environment that facilitates those behaviors, you will be more 307 00:23:52.799 --> 00:23:59.269 effective at achieving your outcomes as well as creating a better quality of life for 308 00:23:59.430 --> 00:24:03.029 your people. So, depending on which one you value, either of those 309 00:24:03.150 --> 00:24:07.029 would be a good, good reason to do it. Then you ask me 310 00:24:07.269 --> 00:24:12.579 on the how to start. So my belief, I feel very strongly that 311 00:24:12.940 --> 00:24:19.220 employee experience is an evolution, not a revolution, because a lot of leaders 312 00:24:19.259 --> 00:24:22.980 are used to thinking a different way and it's not so easy as to just 313 00:24:23.140 --> 00:24:26.410 tell people you know, yes, you've been successful to this point, but 314 00:24:26.490 --> 00:24:32.170 you can be much more successful if you change X Y and said it doesn't 315 00:24:32.210 --> 00:24:34.650 come so easily. You're a leader. You know that right. However, 316 00:24:34.930 --> 00:24:41.640 if you demonstrate the value in small pieces by finding pilot projects where you're able 317 00:24:41.720 --> 00:24:45.920 to find a group, empathize with them, find one of their problems in 318 00:24:45.160 --> 00:24:51.240 design and experience, design their experience to improve upon that, that's going to 319 00:24:51.319 --> 00:24:56.390 be different for every organization of where their pain points are. You know, 320 00:24:56.069 --> 00:25:00.269 before the pandemic, I would say a lot of organizations would have been wise 321 00:25:00.349 --> 00:25:03.589 to do that with their candidate experience and they might want to still consider that 322 00:25:04.109 --> 00:25:08.380 before they're going to be ramping up hiring again, because candidate experience is so 323 00:25:08.500 --> 00:25:15.420 keyed on boarding people in effectively welcoming people and inviting people into the organization, 324 00:25:15.420 --> 00:25:22.410 but it depends on the organization. One Area I often recommend for people is 325 00:25:22.490 --> 00:25:29.049 through the sales organization, because one often the sales organization is broken. That's 326 00:25:29.049 --> 00:25:33.769 just the reality that it isn't taking into account employee experience. It's taking into 327 00:25:33.809 --> 00:25:40.319 account outcomes always, and what you want people to accomplish in not the experience 328 00:25:40.519 --> 00:25:45.039 of that you're creating to get people to accomplish those outcomes as well. The 329 00:25:45.200 --> 00:25:49.000 one great thing about a sales team is that you can demonstrate the impact. 330 00:25:49.630 --> 00:25:56.109 There are clear and tangible outcomes for certain certain changes in experience. I'll give 331 00:25:56.109 --> 00:26:00.190 you a great example. I was talking to a sales leader a couple of 332 00:26:00.309 --> 00:26:04.460 weeks ago where one thing that he did to improve his employees experience was when 333 00:26:04.500 --> 00:26:08.460 they were on boarding, they previously had a quota, a full quote of 334 00:26:08.859 --> 00:26:11.940 K, but for their first month they gave him a quote of K. 335 00:26:12.220 --> 00:26:15.539 second quote of the second month they give him a quote of Twenty K and 336 00:26:15.700 --> 00:26:19.769 then, ramping up, he said forget the quota for months one and two, 337 00:26:21.890 --> 00:26:26.329 and then all of a sudden their sales reps went from making about ten 338 00:26:26.329 --> 00:26:29.450 K in their first month to making two thousand and thirty K in the first 339 00:26:29.490 --> 00:26:33.440 month because they were freed from this quota, from having to think about the 340 00:26:33.519 --> 00:26:42.839 quota. So a simple little aspect of experience of that number had such a 341 00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:47.950 profound impact on people that it was actually limiting them. And that is a 342 00:26:48.029 --> 00:26:52.990 key point about designing intentionally. For those leaders who question why we should design 343 00:26:52.069 --> 00:26:57.470 intentionally, that's a great example of it, because if you don't, you're 344 00:26:57.589 --> 00:27:04.660 putting your thumb down on the entire organization and you're limiting everyone's capability. And 345 00:27:04.819 --> 00:27:08.579 really it's such a function of expectation. That was the thing that I that 346 00:27:08.700 --> 00:27:14.619 I thought in liberating someone from this this I guess essentially like a price anchor. 347 00:27:14.660 --> 00:27:18.970 It's ten, I got to hit ten, and so we'll pace ourselves 348 00:27:18.049 --> 00:27:21.450 to ten or something, and so you just like you open it up and 349 00:27:21.529 --> 00:27:25.529 support people and just see how how far they can go, what they can 350 00:27:25.569 --> 00:27:27.849 do, et Cetera. I love you recommendation and consider that kind of due 351 00:27:27.890 --> 00:27:32.519 layer reasons to start in the sales organization. I think it makes a lot 352 00:27:32.559 --> 00:27:34.960 of sense. But you also drove by something that's very interesting as well that 353 00:27:36.039 --> 00:27:37.680 I think it's really worth talking about, at least for a couple minutes, 354 00:27:37.720 --> 00:27:45.309 which is the customer experience starts when the you know customer. There's so many 355 00:27:45.349 --> 00:27:48.470 different places or different ways for it to start, but essentially starts with some 356 00:27:48.589 --> 00:27:52.710 layer of I come across you, a friend mentions you, I wind up 357 00:27:52.869 --> 00:27:56.829 on your website or you know, some of these like early investigative pieces and 358 00:27:56.869 --> 00:28:03.660 they start to affect the way we were starting to put together expectations about what 359 00:28:03.859 --> 00:28:06.940 this company is like. What are they about? How might their products or 360 00:28:07.019 --> 00:28:11.019 services be for me, etcetera, etcetera, and I start developing these expectations. 361 00:28:11.460 --> 00:28:15.930 This all starts, for the employee with the hiring process. So maybe 362 00:28:17.009 --> 00:28:21.890 share a couple ideas about the impact of, you know, the initial touch 363 00:28:22.009 --> 00:28:26.210 points and again in the hiring scenario. Only one of the candidates, you 364 00:28:26.289 --> 00:28:30.119 know, let's just assume you do like second, third interviews with five candidates, 365 00:28:30.160 --> 00:28:33.359 let's say. But it started with fifty or a hundred. So most 366 00:28:33.359 --> 00:28:37.480 of them aren't going to get hired in so how do we think about all 367 00:28:37.519 --> 00:28:41.200 those people that don't get hired that are still potential hires and are going to 368 00:28:41.400 --> 00:28:45.230 carry into their through word of mouth, into their communities, what we are 369 00:28:45.349 --> 00:28:48.549 like to potentially work with and work for? Talk about some of those dynamics 370 00:28:48.589 --> 00:28:53.910 around recruiting, hiring. You know all the precursors to be onboarding experience. 371 00:28:55.349 --> 00:28:59.940 Absolutely. So first thing I will say is that the employee experience actually starts 372 00:28:59.980 --> 00:29:03.740 before the hiring process. It starts with employer branding, it starts with what 373 00:29:03.940 --> 00:29:07.940 are our perceptions is. It's very similar to the customer experience. Of I 374 00:29:08.140 --> 00:29:12.329 hear about these people either end up on their website somebody tells me about them, 375 00:29:12.730 --> 00:29:17.049 but not in the context of what it's like to buy from them, 376 00:29:17.130 --> 00:29:19.529 but what it's like to work for them. That's why, over the last 377 00:29:19.569 --> 00:29:26.839 five, ten years and play, your branding and organizations has grown significantly because 378 00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:33.519 people have recognized how important it is to sell what you're like internally to the 379 00:29:33.640 --> 00:29:37.559 candidate market. So that is actually in the employer brand is actually where they 380 00:29:37.589 --> 00:29:42.269 start the employee experience, because it even though it's passive, it does start 381 00:29:42.349 --> 00:29:45.470 there. So you ask a great point, because you're right. There will 382 00:29:45.470 --> 00:29:51.549 be fifty, a hundred people who start in a hiring process and it gets 383 00:29:51.589 --> 00:29:53.779 whittled down and only one eighty two of them are getting hired. But how 384 00:29:53.779 --> 00:30:00.099 do you consider the candidate experience for all of them and the first reality is 385 00:30:00.259 --> 00:30:06.339 just by thinking of by that about. That helps because by starting to think 386 00:30:06.380 --> 00:30:10.970 about the experience from the other person's point of view, you'll make decisions in 387 00:30:11.089 --> 00:30:15.170 alignment with their expectations. Because expectations, I'm so happy you hit that point. 388 00:30:15.970 --> 00:30:22.920 Expectations is a fundamental lens through which all experience is interpreted. So every 389 00:30:23.119 --> 00:30:29.279 piece of employee experience goes through that expectation Lens, which is why two people 390 00:30:29.680 --> 00:30:33.519 can have literally the exact same experience in one person can be miserable and one 391 00:30:33.559 --> 00:30:40.430 person could be relatedly happy because of that expectation Lens. So by starting with 392 00:30:40.470 --> 00:30:44.109 the candidate experience, with candidate experience is the first part of on boarding. 393 00:30:44.869 --> 00:30:52.059 It's the first time where the organization can really demonstrate its willingness to live up 394 00:30:52.099 --> 00:31:00.259 to those expectations and actively set realistic expectations. So that is such such an 395 00:31:00.299 --> 00:31:04.450 important part of just recognizing that. The other part of it is flipping your 396 00:31:04.529 --> 00:31:11.849 Lens when making decisions about the hiring process, because one of the difficulties that 397 00:31:11.970 --> 00:31:17.650 I found with many organizations to get to that candidate experience is everything goes through 398 00:31:17.690 --> 00:31:22.480 the Organizational Lens, even by just talking about it. Just as that count 399 00:31:22.599 --> 00:31:26.200 acposition or hiring process. Well, that's what the organization's thinking about it, 400 00:31:26.640 --> 00:31:30.799 but that candidate, they're looking for a job. That's what their part on 401 00:31:32.160 --> 00:31:36.750 that on that dimension is going is. They're just looking for a job. 402 00:31:37.230 --> 00:31:41.750 So how do we align our process with what that person is going through? 403 00:31:41.789 --> 00:31:48.059 So an example from when I was working in my it company that we realized 404 00:31:48.180 --> 00:31:52.819 was that when you bring somebody in for an interview, and I know it's 405 00:31:52.819 --> 00:31:56.099 not common now, but when you bring somebody in for an interview who's looking 406 00:31:56.099 --> 00:32:00.339 for a job, who already has a job, often they're under pressure to 407 00:32:00.460 --> 00:32:04.690 dress in a certain way because you're all expected to dress a certain way for 408 00:32:05.289 --> 00:32:10.170 our for an interview. But that might be different than what their culture dress 409 00:32:10.289 --> 00:32:15.289 is like at their current organization. So by asking them to dress in a 410 00:32:15.410 --> 00:32:19.039 suit or anything like that or dress up, you might be putting them at 411 00:32:19.079 --> 00:32:22.920 risk in their own organization. So when we recognize that, I was the 412 00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:25.759 one who was calling them and I said Hey, look, you've got a 413 00:32:25.799 --> 00:32:29.359 job right now. We don't want to put that at risk. We respect 414 00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:31.710 that because you may or may not be a fit for this role. Like 415 00:32:31.829 --> 00:32:37.269 you may have to continue working there. Dresses you normally would. And the 416 00:32:37.509 --> 00:32:45.220 feedback I got from that was amazing because people recognized, okay, we cared 417 00:32:45.220 --> 00:32:47.460 about what they were going through. Wasn't just what the organization was trying to 418 00:32:47.539 --> 00:32:52.619 get out of the experience. But there's two parties in by just by acknowledging 419 00:32:52.779 --> 00:32:59.130 the other party in what they care about, there's there's a newer word that 420 00:32:59.529 --> 00:33:01.730 I learned a few years back. It's become one of my favorite words, 421 00:33:01.769 --> 00:33:07.569 which which is Saunder, which is the idea that the recognition that every other 422 00:33:07.769 --> 00:33:15.880 person who we walk by has an inner working in an inner life that's as 423 00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:20.720 complex and dynamic as our own. They have their own hopes and dreams and 424 00:33:20.839 --> 00:33:23.440 that's true for every person we walk by, every time we drive, when 425 00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:27.430 there's a light on in the window, there's a story there. And so 426 00:33:27.589 --> 00:33:35.109 by the recognition that the organization isn't the protagonist of the story, but that 427 00:33:35.430 --> 00:33:39.829 everybody's the protagonist of their own story in by including that into your decision making 428 00:33:39.869 --> 00:33:45.019 Lens, you're able to create an experience that flows more effectively that, even 429 00:33:45.259 --> 00:33:51.539 when you're told know at the end you appreciate it. I've known people that 430 00:33:51.660 --> 00:33:58.490 have been raving fans of organizations that have been denied from working there because they 431 00:33:58.529 --> 00:34:01.450 appreciated the way they were treated and they understood why they didn't get a job 432 00:34:01.569 --> 00:34:07.769 there. So it's so powerful when you can have raving fans from the ones 433 00:34:07.809 --> 00:34:09.800 who didn't get it. But just caring, and it goes back again, 434 00:34:09.960 --> 00:34:15.360 by just caring, by caring about what the other person is going through and 435 00:34:15.480 --> 00:34:20.199 then making decisions accordingly so that there's overlap as opposed to just making decision. 436 00:34:20.440 --> 00:34:22.679 This is what the organization wants to we're going to put you through seven layers 437 00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:27.829 of interviews. Some of them will have ten people in an interview. We're 438 00:34:27.909 --> 00:34:30.989 going to ask you to do two weeks of free prospecting for us and then 439 00:34:31.030 --> 00:34:37.469 we're going to wonder why you have no interest in our hiring process. Right. 440 00:34:37.590 --> 00:34:42.460 I really appreciate this idea of recognizing each person as the hero of their 441 00:34:42.500 --> 00:34:50.260 own story and the organization in this in this scenario, coming alongside and operating 442 00:34:50.300 --> 00:34:53.250 a little bit in a spirit of service and empowerment, which reminds me a 443 00:34:53.289 --> 00:34:57.409 little bit of the way you talked about bringing this into a sales organization, 444 00:34:58.289 --> 00:35:02.650 but just that intentionality, setting expectations, being clear, taking mystery off the 445 00:35:02.849 --> 00:35:07.840 table anyway. There's so many really important themes. They're I't go really high 446 00:35:07.840 --> 00:35:13.719 level with you, Gil, at the paradigm of Organization as experience. What 447 00:35:13.840 --> 00:35:15.639 got you turned on to that in the first place? How you wound up, 448 00:35:15.920 --> 00:35:21.750 you know, down this road in general. So back in two thousand 449 00:35:21.750 --> 00:35:24.309 and sixteen, two thousand and seventeen, I had been working for a consultant 450 00:35:24.469 --> 00:35:29.869 more in the talent management and periphery, an employee experience for years, just 451 00:35:29.949 --> 00:35:35.349 not calling it employee experience, but I had lost my passion for it over 452 00:35:35.469 --> 00:35:37.300 time. I've been doing it for a number of years. So I just 453 00:35:37.380 --> 00:35:42.260 had lost my passion. But I reinvigorated my passion by learning about the employee 454 00:35:42.260 --> 00:35:50.329 experienced lens and by adding the employees perspective to the leadership decision making process. 455 00:35:50.769 --> 00:35:53.489 People have been doing it for years there in some forms. It's just not 456 00:35:54.409 --> 00:35:59.929 common enough, it's not popular enough and it's not recognized in its value enough. 457 00:36:00.650 --> 00:36:04.840 And the thing that really kind of set me back in my chair, 458 00:36:04.960 --> 00:36:07.880 so to speak, was in two thousand and seventeen I watched on linked in 459 00:36:08.079 --> 00:36:15.079 there was a video of a UX designer speaking at an event talking about how, 460 00:36:15.159 --> 00:36:20.389 essentially everything in life is user experience. And the example he started talking 461 00:36:20.389 --> 00:36:22.429 about the chair, about different chairs depending on how they're designed. What's it 462 00:36:22.510 --> 00:36:25.429 like standing up from it? What's the comfort level while you're in it? 463 00:36:25.869 --> 00:36:30.349 Is it going to encourage sleep? Isn't going to encourage productivity? Different aspects 464 00:36:30.389 --> 00:36:35.539 of just a chair that you know everybody's sitting in. For me, it 465 00:36:35.659 --> 00:36:38.579 been dawned on me. It's like, okay, so if everything in life 466 00:36:38.659 --> 00:36:45.900 is user experience, there's no more single a found user experience on our lives 467 00:36:45.340 --> 00:36:50.530 that our work. As I said before, if we're spending a hundred thousand 468 00:36:50.570 --> 00:36:58.730 hours of our lives conservatively at work, well that is a very impactful experience 469 00:36:58.929 --> 00:37:04.000 in a way that no experience that were a customer of hold a candle to. 470 00:37:04.599 --> 00:37:08.320 So for me I started just make the connection between the experience people have 471 00:37:08.440 --> 00:37:14.440 at work the lives they lead, because if you're having to work twelve hour 472 00:37:14.519 --> 00:37:17.349 days or if you're working eight hours a day but you're miserable and you don't 473 00:37:17.349 --> 00:37:21.030 want to talk to anybody at the end of the day, or you're too 474 00:37:21.110 --> 00:37:22.670 stressed to feel that you want to exercise at the end of the day, 475 00:37:22.670 --> 00:37:28.150 or you're losing sleep at night as a result of this, or you're having 476 00:37:28.190 --> 00:37:30.820 so called Mondays, which is that feeling at two, three o'clock on Sunday 477 00:37:30.820 --> 00:37:37.739 afternoon when you're so stressed about the week coming up that you just you lose 478 00:37:37.780 --> 00:37:40.900 the rest of your Sunday. And these are the kind of things that drive 479 00:37:42.019 --> 00:37:45.570 me that need change because if we're able to change these things in our in 480 00:37:45.650 --> 00:37:50.769 our work lives, they impact are our overall wives and it impacts the business, 481 00:37:50.849 --> 00:37:53.449 like I said, if not just you know the the Cliche of happy 482 00:37:53.449 --> 00:38:00.280 people are productive, but if we serve their wellness, it will elicit behaviors 483 00:38:00.840 --> 00:38:06.000 that serve the organization as well. If I'm worried about my job, my 484 00:38:06.199 --> 00:38:12.239 occupational wellness, I'm going to hoard information because, hey, if nobody else 485 00:38:12.320 --> 00:38:15.550 knows it, they can't fire me. But if the organization rewards me for 486 00:38:15.789 --> 00:38:21.750 sharing that information, then I'm going to share that information and they're going to 487 00:38:21.909 --> 00:38:27.699 provide me feedback and positive outcomes because I share that information. Well, that's 488 00:38:27.699 --> 00:38:31.059 what's going to happen in leaders all over the place complain that they're people don't 489 00:38:31.099 --> 00:38:35.820 share information and they're not hearing everything. The Iceberg of ignorance is real, 490 00:38:37.179 --> 00:38:39.980 but they're the ones that have created it. Their behaviors, the experience that 491 00:38:40.139 --> 00:38:45.730 created for their people have led to the outcomes that their experience. I love 492 00:38:45.809 --> 00:38:50.090 it. It's a noble mission I got. I have like fifty more questions, 493 00:38:50.170 --> 00:38:53.010 but I guess I'm going to have to save them for another conversation. 494 00:38:53.250 --> 00:38:58.199 This has been fantastic and if you're listening along here and you've enjoyed this so 495 00:38:58.320 --> 00:39:00.039 far, I've got a couple other episodes that are in a similar vein. 496 00:39:00.119 --> 00:39:06.440 Pretty recently, episode seventy three with Chris Wallace of the interview group, marketing 497 00:39:06.559 --> 00:39:10.510 to your employees, not just your customers. So it's internal marketing. He 498 00:39:10.590 --> 00:39:14.230 thinks about it a little bit differently than we, than we kind of brushed 499 00:39:14.309 --> 00:39:16.869 by here in this conversation with that's episode seventy three. And then back on 500 00:39:16.989 --> 00:39:22.389 episode thirty nine with Lance Lance risser and LEA by Iris from Dutch Bros Coffee 501 00:39:22.989 --> 00:39:27.820 Company that serves a whole bunch of the western United States and it has just 502 00:39:27.940 --> 00:39:32.300 this raving fan base and so many of your employee started as raving customers, 503 00:39:32.420 --> 00:39:37.179 raving fans. That episode is called company culture as your competitive edge, and 504 00:39:37.300 --> 00:39:42.210 again that's episode thirty nine. I guess last question before I ask you a 505 00:39:42.329 --> 00:39:45.809 couple of my favorite questions of the of the conversation. What do you think 506 00:39:45.849 --> 00:39:50.369 about the relationship between culture and employee experience? In my mind, as you 507 00:39:50.409 --> 00:39:52.599 were talking, I was thinking a little bit about you know, culture is 508 00:39:52.599 --> 00:39:55.320 kind of how we do it around here. What are the norms? What 509 00:39:55.360 --> 00:40:00.159 are the expectations? You know, we at bomb bomb do an annual culture 510 00:40:00.159 --> 00:40:05.280 survey and wind up producing like an employee, and ps too kind of keep 511 00:40:05.320 --> 00:40:07.269 a litmus of you know, how are we doing overall? And we look 512 00:40:07.309 --> 00:40:12.389 at that overall and aggregate and by department and, you know, have follow 513 00:40:12.389 --> 00:40:15.269 up conversations with the managers of some of those teams and with each of the 514 00:40:15.309 --> 00:40:20.110 individual employees. Not about their survey feedback. It's all anonymous, but you 515 00:40:20.190 --> 00:40:22.340 know what we heard and what we want to do in that kind of thing. 516 00:40:22.900 --> 00:40:25.340 So we've use language around this. So I think we're doing some things 517 00:40:25.539 --> 00:40:29.380 well. To you, how do you know you're doing it well? And 518 00:40:29.460 --> 00:40:34.139 what's the relationship between culture and employee experience? So culture is one factor within 519 00:40:34.260 --> 00:40:38.570 employee experience. There's different ways people they have the employees other conversation good. 520 00:40:38.610 --> 00:40:43.769 I'm sorry. Sorry. There's different there's different ways people kind employee experience. 521 00:40:43.769 --> 00:40:49.849 A very popular way is environment, technology and culture. Those are the three 522 00:40:49.969 --> 00:40:52.400 main ways. I look at the nuance a little bit differently than that, 523 00:40:52.519 --> 00:40:58.840 but it but generally the culture is an aspect of the experience the way things 524 00:40:58.920 --> 00:41:02.760 are done around here. I'm always weary with culture because it means different things 525 00:41:02.800 --> 00:41:08.269 to different people and very often, in orderanizations that I've worked with, leadership 526 00:41:08.349 --> 00:41:13.190 teams use culture as a reason to not do things but to pass it off 527 00:41:13.269 --> 00:41:15.949 to the talent leader, of the HR leader, and so the leaders of 528 00:41:16.030 --> 00:41:20.539 the market being in the finance groups, in the operations groups, don't think 529 00:41:20.539 --> 00:41:25.219 that culture is actually their responsibility when they are UN believably important when it comes 530 00:41:25.219 --> 00:41:30.500 to creating, building sustaining the right culture for your organization. And so culture, 531 00:41:30.539 --> 00:41:36.889 it's kind of a fuzzy area, but it is and it is a 532 00:41:36.969 --> 00:41:40.690 fundamental aspect because if you wanted to find it hazily as the way we do 533 00:41:40.889 --> 00:41:45.730 things around here, well, you can start to break that down into very 534 00:41:46.130 --> 00:41:52.280 real aspect of employee experience, of how it impacts people with the way we 535 00:41:52.360 --> 00:41:55.519 do things around here. Just are you talking about? Decision Making is everything? 536 00:41:55.599 --> 00:42:00.360 Consensus is everything? Just to the highest paid person in the room makes 537 00:42:00.400 --> 00:42:04.190 every decision. What do you mean by how we do things around here? 538 00:42:04.230 --> 00:42:07.150 Do we welcome feedback? Right, you work in a culture where your people 539 00:42:07.150 --> 00:42:12.230 are open to feedback, people give constructive feedback. But in an organization where 540 00:42:12.269 --> 00:42:15.420 leaders aren't open to it and don't welcome it, especially the founders, then 541 00:42:15.619 --> 00:42:19.619 it's not going to be a culture of feedback. It's not going to create 542 00:42:19.739 --> 00:42:25.139 that. But culture is something that I shy away from the lens often because 543 00:42:25.820 --> 00:42:30.449 everybody applies their own values, in their own judgment, to it, and 544 00:42:30.530 --> 00:42:35.650 I try to talk about aspect of culture that are more or tangible, so 545 00:42:35.929 --> 00:42:38.570 everybody is talking on the same page, talking about behavior, talking about decision 546 00:42:38.650 --> 00:42:43.730 making process, talking about reward, talking about rituals, language, those kind 547 00:42:43.769 --> 00:42:46.440 of things, by making it more real, as opposed to talking about culture 548 00:42:46.480 --> 00:42:51.039 than everybody just applies whatever they want to their let. So good that. 549 00:42:51.280 --> 00:42:54.239 Consider that. If you're listening, consider that a preview of my next conversation 550 00:42:54.440 --> 00:42:59.309 with Gil here on the customer experience podcast. We got a wigne this one 551 00:42:59.389 --> 00:43:02.349 down and and in doing so I love to give you the opportunity to to 552 00:43:02.510 --> 00:43:06.869 think or mention someone who's had a positive impact on your life or your career 553 00:43:07.429 --> 00:43:10.550 and to give a shoutout or a nod to a company that you respect for 554 00:43:10.590 --> 00:43:15.940 the way they deliver for you is as a customer. So for in terms 555 00:43:15.940 --> 00:43:20.739 of the customer experience, that it's one that I customer experience that I've appreciated 556 00:43:20.820 --> 00:43:22.420 more recently. I'm not a customer, but my wife is. There's a 557 00:43:22.500 --> 00:43:30.010 company here in Canada called Zoomer, which their target market is anybody forty five 558 00:43:30.050 --> 00:43:34.889 and older and they're targeting with cell phone plans, among other things. So 559 00:43:35.130 --> 00:43:39.369 my wife and my motherinlaw I recently joined their cell phone plans because they're targeting 560 00:43:39.409 --> 00:43:45.199 people who aren't looking for complexity, aren't looking for the latest and greatest. 561 00:43:45.639 --> 00:43:52.440 So the simplicity of their plans, the relatively low price, the honesty of 562 00:43:52.639 --> 00:43:58.349 their people. That so these plans come with a phone that, when I 563 00:43:58.469 --> 00:44:01.550 forget who was called them and said, okay, but I don't necessarily need 564 00:44:01.590 --> 00:44:06.230 the phone, the person's like, okay, most people sell it on Kijiji 565 00:44:06.309 --> 00:44:09.300 anyway. So it just they were honest with like this is, this is 566 00:44:09.380 --> 00:44:13.579 how it is. This is who we are. So I appreciated that. 567 00:44:14.340 --> 00:44:15.860 But, much more importantly, the person who I would want to give a 568 00:44:15.860 --> 00:44:20.780 shout out or thank is really my father. I work for him as a 569 00:44:20.860 --> 00:44:23.929 consultant for the first, you know, sixteen, seventeen years of my career 570 00:44:24.130 --> 00:44:29.769 I was learning from him before that. Without Him I wouldn't know a hundredth 571 00:44:29.809 --> 00:44:32.289 of what I know, I wouldn't have a hundredth of the experience that I 572 00:44:32.449 --> 00:44:37.329 have. I'm so grateful that he took the time to coach me, teach 573 00:44:37.369 --> 00:44:43.800 me, saw something in me that I never saw in myself, and so 574 00:44:44.119 --> 00:44:47.519 he's definitely the one person who I am very, very grateful for and he's 575 00:44:47.519 --> 00:44:52.599 the one person who deserves to be mentioned in this kid awesome. He sounds 576 00:44:52.639 --> 00:44:55.630 like a very good human gil. This has been an absolute pleasure. I 577 00:44:55.789 --> 00:45:00.789 really appreciate the work that you're doing and I completely buy your premise that if 578 00:45:00.829 --> 00:45:07.139 we can create better experiences for employees in more places, that will just have 579 00:45:07.340 --> 00:45:13.179 healthier people walking around among us, working with us, befriending us, serving 580 00:45:13.300 --> 00:45:15.739 US, etc. So thanks for what you do. If people want to 581 00:45:15.780 --> 00:45:19.860 follow up on this, what are some ways that people can connect with you 582 00:45:19.940 --> 00:45:24.929 or with employee experience design. So there's two main ways. One is I'm 583 00:45:25.050 --> 00:45:30.250 on Linkedin, search field co and there's only so many of us out there, 584 00:45:30.489 --> 00:45:37.119 and the other way is through my website, wwwdogomployee experienced DOCI. Awesome, 585 00:45:37.440 --> 00:45:39.599 Gil, thank you so much for your time things, for the work 586 00:45:39.639 --> 00:45:44.079 that you do and to you. Thank you so much for listening to the 587 00:45:44.159 --> 00:45:49.000 customer experience podcast. Hey, I'm not sure if you picked it up in 588 00:45:49.039 --> 00:45:53.269 there, but the words Saunder sonder great word. I encourage you to Google 589 00:45:53.309 --> 00:45:58.510 it at the next opportunity. It is actually a newer word in our language, 590 00:45:58.550 --> 00:46:00.590 which is pretty interesting. I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Gil. 591 00:46:00.829 --> 00:46:09.059 If you want more conversations like these, visit bombombcom podcast. That's bomb Bombcom 592 00:46:09.780 --> 00:46:15.460 podcast, or you can search the customer experience podcast in your preferred player. 593 00:46:15.500 --> 00:46:21.130 Again, my name is Ethan viewed. I welcome direct communication about these episodes 594 00:46:21.610 --> 00:46:25.449 from you. Email me, Ethan etch an at Bombobcom or hit me up 595 00:46:25.449 --> 00:46:30.090 on Linkedin. Ethan, but last name is spelled beute. I thank you 596 00:46:30.210 --> 00:46:35.239 for listening and I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the CX series on BB 597 00:46:35.360 --> 00:46:42.679 growth is your buyer a BB marketer? If so, you should think about 598 00:46:42.679 --> 00:46:46.230 sponsoring this podcast. BB growth gets downloaded over a hundred and thirty thousand times 599 00:46:46.269 --> 00:46:51.389 each month, and our listeners are marketing decision makers. If it sounds interesting, 600 00:46:51.429 --> 00:46:53.750 Sin Logan and email logan at sweet fish Mediacom