A Wide Employee Experience

Following a long conversation recently with a fellow expat about the new employee experience, and after recently going through the onboarding process myself, I thought I would share some lessons.

Gone are the days when teams that work together needed to be in the same physical location. There are a multitude of ways to stay connected. But there is a difference between connected and cohesive. Being part of a team can be difficult in the best/easiest of circumstances but today’s increasingly dispersed (or so-called ‘wide’) working environment can make team building and cohesion tough.

When we think about a team at our workplace, we all have different expectations- some want backup for their ideas, some want sounding boards, and some want people to bond with over the “water cooler” (totally old-school, I know). But what everyone needs to have in a team are the same goals. Teams members with disparate goals are doomed to fail. This is where two important factors come into play- leadership and organisational culture.

Without a good leader, the team will not know where it should be going and will struggle with how to get there. And what underpins all of this is organisational culture. What kind of leadership is rewarded, what kind of influence will they have, are team members encouraged to take initiative or tow the line? And linked to all this is how important is employees satisfaction (since employees are internal customers, right)? The design of the employee experience is being increasingly recognized as a vital commitment to a successful company. Because happy employees lead to happy customers which leads to happy profit reports. And it will only become more important as companies continue to focus on differentiating themselves- as employers and as service providers. Some might even say that 'employee experience is the new customer experience'.

In the ‘new world’ of working you can see in many tech companies are sacrificing location for talent. In order to get the talent they want, they have to be willing to be flexible on the location of their employees- especially when the HQ is in less well-known location. So how do you build real teams that can be hundreds or thousands of kms from each other? You design them. Here are a few tips for onboarding dispersed teams:

1. There must be face time. Bringing the person to HQ for the first couple of weeks of work to bond with other members is vital. This means social time as well as work time. It is no good to bring them that far and then leave them alone in their hotel room each night.
2. Give the team a common identity. The team needs something that makes them part of the group. It is even better if you can manifest this into a physical object. Something that they can look at and remember. Studies have shown that belonging to a group improves your motivation, health and happiness and that for some feelings of not belonging can actual be felt physically. Who doesn’t want to work with people who are more motivated, happy or healthy?
3. Find common ground. Whether this is a hobby, an experience, or a context, commonalities are human glue. When you see yourself in other, you are more likely to want them to succeed.
4. Have an open feedback policy. In addition there also needs to be the opportunity for staff members to have confidential discussions when necessary. Approach them to see if there is anything they want to talk about- if you wait for them to come to you, it may have gone too far and be too late to fix. Staff members’ satisfaction is of prime importance to any company.

​There is a great video of a ball pit for strangers by SoulPancake. Finding common ground always to help develop a conversation and a shared mission. Humanity needs this, the workplace needs it…and those people who work from home far from their colleagues really need it. As we continue to be propelled forward by technology, new and diverse workplaces will be created but human nature rarely changes.
P.S. While trying to tag this post, I couldn't even get an "employee experience" tag- so I must be on the cutting edge, right?