Читать книгу Experience, Inc. - Jill Popelka - Страница 18

People are at the heart of everything. This isn't news. Our experience colors everything, in life and at work. Yet it feels a little strange to talk about fulfilling experience in the same breath as “work.” For so long, the vast majority of business enterprises and their leaders made no real attempt to transform work and all that comes with it into something enjoyable and inspirational. For consumers, yes; partners, sure; shareholders, you bet; executives, absolutely.

Employees? Not so much. It's taken far too long for the worker to be properly valued, much less considered the linchpin to success. Who in business leadership or management considered their employees' work-life balance before, say, a generation ago?

At our core, we believe that human beings need engagement. We believe we deserve dignity and respect. We deserve opportunity and a path to betterment. We don't always achieve the ideal of having a superior human experience, but we at least chase it, for ourselves and those we care about. We aim to achieve it at home and in school, in our relationships, in our socializing. We try to enhance experience for our spouses and partners, children, parents, students, colleagues. Experience can hardly be teased out from what we do; in many ways it is what we do. It's all we do.

But let's be honest: It's often not, especially not in our work life. For far too many people and far too many companies, there's work … and then there's life. There's work … and then there's whatever isn't work. Where a gap exists between the two – where work feels like something apart from and less nourishing than life – how do we shrink it?

A requirement for building an employee-first culture is a belief in people. I know this from firsthand experience. All of us have skills, a unique set. But if people are put in defined, limited situations where they can't or don't thrive, they may just stay there, frustrated, joyless, far less productive than they could be, enduring a bad experience themselves and ill-equipped to provide positive ones for customers and/or fellow employees.

When I first landed in Singapore to take a new leadership position within SAP, a woman named Sarah, a part-time contract worker, gave me my badge and the keys to the office. Sarah had been hired as an office assistant, in charge of keeping my calendar and filing expenses. But I could right away see her superpower. She made me instantly comfortable in a foreign country. I was by myself – my husband and our two kids wouldn't arrive for another six months – and Sarah quickly became so much more than an executive assistant. She created a great experience for me.

One day, I told Sarah, “You know what? You're really good at creating a great experience for people. Why don't you plan our next quarterly meeting? That way, you're in charge of giving others what you've given me.”

“But my job is to put things on your calendar,” she said.

“I know that. But I'm asking you to challenge yourself. I can see you're good at a lot more than calendars.”

I was not at all surprised that the rich agenda and experience Sarah prepared for our entire, diverse Asia Pacific and Japan team was extraordinary. Sarah quickly grew beyond the limited role she was hired for. She became a full-time employee and continued to deliver great experiences. Sarah found her purpose and joy at work.

I understand why, when highly paid consultants come in to evaluate a flailing company, they start with strategy. We know that strategy is key to growth. But here's the thing: While there are surely strategic shortcomings to address and correct, the focus probably should be on the talent already in the building, yet to be unleashed.

Looking internally at talent and how to unleash people's full potential is often far more valuable than creating an entirely new strategy. Many companies focus too much on creating strategies that tell employees what things to do instead of creating environments where employees are inspired and enabled to do what needs to get done.

It can be hard to see people as the best solution. In business, we're taught that everything that matters can be measured. And a focus on people sometimes seems difficult to measure.

That's not true – not anymore. Those of us in the business of measuring such things have proof that people are more than capital or assets. Employees who enjoy a positive, memorable experience help drive a company's vision. They drive positive business outcomes. They bring out the best in other employees (who are then also, presumably, having positive experiences). They connect their own passion to their company's purpose – which creates an experience that is authentic. Metrics consistently show that a fulfilling employee experience correlates with better health and well-being, higher engagement, and more willingness to take risks.¹⁸ It also correlates to business success. The Thrive XM Index, built in partnership with Thrive Global, Qualtrics, and SAP SuccessFactors, takes a holistic view of employee well-being to examine the root causes of issues that affect employees and business. They found that the 20 companies that ranked highest with experience grew on average by 16 percent year over year.¹⁹

I believe in people. I believe in the individuals who come to work every day and strive to bring their best self. Sometimes they're not sure they're good enough. Or that they contribute adequate value. Or that what they have to offer is the right thing at the right time. I try to see in people what value they can bring, then maximize that, knowing that if I succeed, it's a force multiplier for the business. Sometimes you fit the job to the person, not the other way around. It's magic, but it's not. The “trick” is to engage employees in a world focused on independence and self-orientation; to promote the tackling of challenges with a sense of adventure; and to encourage employees to reinvent themselves, constantly. New skill sets better prepare them for the future, their future, no matter whom they're working for.