The traditional approach to thinking about the employee experience has and continues to evolve – it is all about the holistic people experience in award winning cultures.
And nowhere was this truer than when I was reviewing the Awards International submissions.
There was no single answer or recipe to the question ‘What does it take to create an employee-centric culture?’ - this is because the motivations, challenges, environment and approaches vary across companies. What was clear was that the best of the submissions went beyond employee-centricity heading towards people-centricity, viewing people as human, solving at a holistic level, and creating positive work environments for all.
As an award-winning company, we understand the value of people-centricity and the power of having a multi-dimensional perspective on culture. We don’t see culture as a one-sided Rubik’s cube, but an eco-system that shows up in the experiences of people, customers and communities.
So, what does it mean to be truly people-centric, and how does this show up in award-winning organisations? Here is some of what I have learned:
Be bold and innovate with and for your people. This could mean co-creating with your people your company and people vision, democratising culture – empower and enable your front line, or simply reimagining how you do things, because let’s face it, your employee-related practices might be out of date.
Never stop learning and evolve your listening methods. While engagement surveys have their place, and when used effectively (‘you said, we did’) can result in a marked improvement, on their own are never sufficient. Award-winning cultures continuously innovate and take a multi-pronged approach to learning, involving everyone and not just the privileged few.
Elevate the development of people so that they can thrive together. This means not leaving people behind – growth doesn’t always mean upward career progression. Growth means developing self-awareness, emotional intelligence, compassion, and empathy. Thriving together is also about providing people with the ability and capabilities to serve their customers efficiently and effectively.
To make an impact you must measure your improvements. Whether it is over a long period of time (for example, using financial performance indicators) or in the short and medium term, using the combination of eNPS and NPS scores and culture attributes. But also remember, making an impact isn’t always about the resulting indicators, it is about making good decisions for your people and customers.
Award-winning cultures, when thinking about employee-centricity also pay attention to the customer experience. Our own Culture & Performance research study* shows that alignment is key to unlocking high-performing cultures – alignment specifically between Brand, Customer and Employee.
*Dragonfish Culture & Performance Research Study with over 6,000 organisations from 27 sectors exploring how culture drives performance.
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