Editorial
"Operational journeys" or "experience of work" don't exactly excite employee experience specialists (and for good reason).
While it's good to focus on HR-related touchpoints such as recruitment, onboarding, training and performance management (I earned a living for many years tuning these processes), after a certain point, the return on investing in these moments starts to drop.
At the same time, operational journeys are a real head-turner for CXOs, because they provide clear business benefits while also improving EX.
EX specialists shy away from addressing the experience of work for some good reasons, but these reasons can work in their favor.
1. EX Specialists Don't Think They're Skilled Enough to Address the Experience of Work
While EX specialists have identified roughly a dozen "moments that matter," experience of work is more complex, with hundreds of touchpoints, some of them involving highly business specific aspects.
The good news is we can simplify this approach.
An employee task always fits into one of the following buckets:
- They perform work within their operational team. Calculating salaries for an HR employee, verifying a loan request for a back-office employee in a bank, processing supplier invoices for somebody from accounting are all examples of such tasks. The team manager would ultimately be responsible for the experience the employee has while doing these kind of tasks.
- They perform work as part of a project, such as implementing new software, upgrading machinery on the shop floor or designing a new product. The project manager has the most influence on the experience of the employee in such scenarios.
- They consume internal services of other departments, including filing expense reimbursements, reporting a near miss safety issue or requesting a holiday. Each area is owned by an internal business service provider who delivers a service to their internal customer.
So rather than thinking in terms of hundreds of touchpoints, with this framework in mind, you first identify and then engage all three categories of experience drivers. Each will offer tangible results when the experience of their internal customers improve.
Training team leaders to be better managers is all in a day's work for HR people.
Providing project management training to project managers is a commodity in the market.
Helping internal business service providers to deliver services might sound complex, but I'll note that 1. most of the services delivered inside the org are rather simple ones (reimbursing an expense or submitting an overtime request), and 2. we are all experts at consuming services and that designing a decent service is not rocket science.
For all three scenarios you need all the technological support you can get. This is where suites like Microsoft 365 are most useful. Consistent adoption and experience across all three scenarios are key here.
You can read more about this approach in "Employee Experience Is So Much More Than the 'Moments That Matter.
2. Experience of Work Is Outside Employee Experience Specialists' Comfort Zone
Most EX-specialists have an HR background and feel more comfortable addressing topics such as training or performance management (for many years I felt the same way, too).
Yet if you are passionate about EX and are truly committed to improving the experience your peers are having at work, then each step in this direction will be rewarding. And each new step will get you more support from the executive team, because this is where to find the biggest untapped ROI for EX.
3. EX Specialists Are Blocked From Addressing the Experience of Work
This is a big challenge. I bet a lot of EX people got rejected when trying to address issues in other departments. Coming from HR (where EX typically sits) horizontally into Logistics, Sales or Operations and talking about their shortcomings might not make you very welcome.
Yet it's easier to overcome than it looks at first glance.
Start by pitching a model that is simple to understand (see point 1) to a sponsor. You can also apply it first in a friendlier department. HR might be a good place to start, as it is the largest internal service provider within the company and therefore encompasses all three categories of the experience of work.
All the work you did on the moments that matter are examples of experience of work; they are all services provided by an internal service provider. You can use this lens to further improve them.
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Employee experience is made up of so much more than a few moments that matter. The real opportunity in EX is in the experience of work. Tackling the experience of work might feel uncomfortable, complicated and challenging at times, but both employees and business leaders will be thankful for your efforts.
Editor's Note: Read more advice on improving the employee experience:
- Creating Exceptional Employee Experiences: Where HR, Comms and Technology Unite — Employee experiences cross departmental boundaries. So to create exceptional EX, multiple departments must work together – with internal comms in the lead.
- 5 Things You Can Do Today – for Free – to Improve Your Digital Employee Experience — As digital employee experience leaders, our focus should be on making big changes. But we shouldn't lose sight of the simple actions that can improve DEX.
- How Your CHRO Can Lead Digital Employee Experience — CHROs, with their focus on the human needs of every employee, are in the perfect position to drive changes in the digital employee experience. Here's how.
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