employee experience

I originally wrote today’s post for Momentive.ai. It appeared on their site on January 25, 2022.

Customer expectations were already changing before COVID-19, but the pandemic has amplified them and accelerated new expectations. 

I originally wrote today’s post for NICE inContact. It appeared on their site on July 1, 2021.

What is a brand? And what does it mean to ride for the brand?

A critical component of a great employee experience is feedback – both from peers and from management. The iterative, continuous improvement that happens as a result of that feedback is important to an employee’s development, productivity, and engagement. But does that improvement really happen? Or is providing/receiving feedback more of a demoralizing exercise?

I’ve had a lot of conversations in recent weeks about how the employee experience drives the customer experience, but the part that stands out from these conversations is the common thread: that the customer experience only happens via, or is only shaped by, the frontline employees.

That is just not true.

When I’ve addressed this latter point, I’m always asked, “Well, then how do I connect the dots for the backoffice folks?” I love to answer this question.

Back in late 2015, I wrote an article titled Work Harder or Smarter? in which I offered up some ways to help employees work more efficiently – ultimately, to work smarter. The last item on the list was automation. Fast forward five plus years, and automation is likely at the top of the list now for a lot of companies! But for many, the term “automation” brings chills, with visions of job losses and customer frustration.

I’ve written about inside out thinking and behavior a few times, but today’s focus on inside out is a little different.

Do you consider the candidate experience to be part of the employee experience? If not, you should. The employee experience begins well before the employee gets her badge and goes through orientation. The employee experience lifecycle is a long one, running through similar stages as the customer experience lifecycle.

There’s the Golden Rule: treat others the way you want to be treated.

And there’s the other Golden Rule: he who holds the gold makes the rules. In other words, those with the money are in power, i.e., your customers.

I originally wrote today’s post for Shep Hyken’s blog. It appeared on his site on May 29, 2020.