Transform your Employee Experience

Recently, several companies have started to change HR positions with the titles, Director, VP, and Head of Employee Experience. Pandora was one of them.

I have worked in numerous industries where Senior Leadership Teams consisted of roles called: VP Patient Experience in the healthcare space and VP Client Experience in the software space. The focus on experience lies within improving the Disney factor at work! It only makes sense that we see a trend moving from using the term HR to a more customer centric designation like "People Experience or Employee Experience". In the last ten years, we even saw titles such as VP of Employee Engagement come and go!

Employee Experience is really about connecting and inspiring each individual so they are committed to the larger business goals and results. It’s about effectively communicating a company’s vision, values, rewards and policies. What's missing oftentimes? The focus on individual accountability must be paramount to enhance the employee experience. After working with hundreds of business and people leaders, I’ve learned that the traditional methods of communication: in-person seminars, classroom training classes, unopened employee manuals and long HR emails fail to connect with employees in today’s world. Online learning is taking the center stage for employees as they seek for a better employee experience.

Let's look at Pandora:

Culture in the workplace is an essential part of Pandora’s vision. The company hires based on it and invests heavily in nurturing and sustaining it. “Culture beats strategy every step of the way,” said Matthew Morgan, Vice President of Employee Experience and Development for Pandora; “and we’re dedicated to creating a thriving culture.”

Morgan explained that Pandora aims to be a premier destination for extraordinary talent. Once the company hires, the goal is to build humanistic, people-focused leaders. The belief is that if management spends time making sure teams are the best they can be, everybody is more successful.

As part of its focus on the employee experience, development is a focus. Pandora has a performance management program (which many companies term “performance improvement”) called “growth and development” that doesn’t include ratings. “Ratings are a culture killer,” said Morgan. The first step in this development program is to have everybody set goals, since goal setting is key to driving productivity and holding everyone accountable.

Employees are required to set both business goals that align with Pandora’s strategy as well as development goals that help the employee in their career. These goals become part of an ongoing conversation between the employee and their manager.

To ensure these conversations take place and continuously enhance leadership capability, Pandora has devised a 4-step model. Three times a year—in May, September, and January—employees sit down with their managers and talk about:

1. Hits—what the employee did well

2. Misses—what didn’t go so well

3. Tone and tempo—how the employee works with others, and how they perceive their environment

4. Lessons learned—how the employee changed as a result

Simple? It is clear, concise! Culture drives the employee experience.

Pandora’s process for performance management seeds its philosophy throughout the organization. The 3-step, sequential performance management process between the employee and manager involves:

1. Direct feedback—an employee is told what isn’t going well and what needs to be improved upon.

2. Performance improvement process—an employee is told what still isn’t going well, what the specific consequences are, and what they need to do to improve.

3. Last step—the manager states the perceived problems and the employee gives their perspective. The ideal outcome is for the employee and manager to co-create a performance improvement plan and work through it together.

Pandora has found that by the time most employees arrive at step 3, they say, “I’m out.” This is actually a win-win for employee and company, explained Morgan, because employees leave sooner and both the employee and the company can move on.

In summing up its corporate culture, Morgan stated, “We at Pandora focus on happiness and engagement, which we believe drives our productivity, achieves our purpose, and delivers profit to our shareholders.”

So what does this mean for you?

Skills and Leadership are the answer.

Due to e-learning technology, and a higher demand for software engineers, employees are dramatically different than they were 10, 25 and 50 years ago in terms of skills and opportunities. Old school leadership does not cut it. For example, employee experience for today's millennial employee is around engaging work for innovative outputs, autonomy, and flexibility to be in or out of the office, The leader who cannot see how flexible work and work from home arrangements can be effective in building the experience, is not a leader for the current times. From employee, to manager, to CEO, I have seen firsthand how employees should feel empowered and have access to the knowledge and tools to take greater control of their careers.

Early in my career I remember people were just happy to have a job, and strived for job security. But today’s employees want meaningful work, highlighted by opportunities to collaborate, take risks, learn and thrive. They want to enjoy coming to work. My goal a an employee experience professional is to maximize their experience while at work.

In conclusion, since the title of their Head of Employee Experience position sends the right message, Pandora has realized the impact of creating a meaningful, personalized and relevant relationship with their employees – in the same way they’ve done with their customers. The early feedback and results from these efforts have been increases in employee satisfaction, productivity and retention.