Think back to the initial weeks at your first job out of school. You accepted the position with high expectations that it would be a springboard to an amazing career. You were excited to work hard, ask questions, learn from your peers, and make a valuable contribution to your organization. If you were lucky, that scenario came to fruition, and your career was set on an upward trajectory.
But if you were one of the six in ten employees who said that aspects of their job did not match the description they were given during the interview process, did you have the fortitude to speak up?
Jacob Morgan did. When the author, keynote speaker, and futurist faced this situation at his first job out of college, he made a life-changing choice that put him on a course he’d undoubtedly never expected when he joined the company. Disenchanted with a role that in no way resembled what he’d been promised, he quit after the CEO handed him $10 and asked Jacob to buy him a cup of coffee.
That decision led Morgan to write four best-selling business books (including his latest, The Future Leader), create two popular podcasts (“The Future of Work With Jacob Morgan” and “Be Your Own Boss”), and develop two online education and training platforms that offer courses on topics such as leadership, employee and customer experience, and entrepreneurship.
Jacob also speaks at more than 50 events a year, one of which will take place virtually on Thursday, August 26th at 2 pm ET when he’ll participate in a moderated Q&A hosted by the UKG Book Club focused on The Future of Work. You can register here now. He’ll also take questions from attendees during that webinar. To submit questions in advance, sign up for the complimentary HCM Online Academy, UKG’s virtual-learning site, and send them in. If you’re already a member of the HCM Online Academy, submit your questions here.
What Will Jacob Talk About, and Why Should You Care?
In his research, Jacob Morgan has interviewed 252 organizations and more than 140 CEOs. Based on those conversations, he believes strongly that companies should invest in the employee experience. This doesn’t just mean providing employees with mentoring programs or giving employees time off for doctors’ appointments. These are perks and benefits that many leaders already recognize as not only good for their business, but great for their people. It’s just the right thing to do. Rather, Jacob is in favor of employers creating an experiential organization where culture, technology, and physical space are all prioritized. At the moment, only 6% of the companies he studied do an amazing job at this. Admittedly, it’s an extremely low statistic, but also a huge window of opportunity. HR leaders willing to make the investment in time and resources will be rewarded with significant gains. Jacob says that those who do, crush their competition across every metric that he used to measure a return on investment. In fact, those companies realized more than four times the average profit and more than twice the average revenue as other companies — metrics that I’d think every CEO and CFO could get behind.
What Does the Employee Experience Really Mean to Employees and an Organization?
Jacob’s employee experience equation looks at changing the core workplace practices inside your organization that surround your people. He points to those three key areas that companies need to focus on — culture, technology, and physical space. Of those, technology (available computers, solutions, and applications) comprises 30% of the overall employee experience. Physical space, whether it’s in an office environment or employees’ home offices, comprises another 30%, leaving the remaining 40% for culture. Not surprisingly, he says that culture encompasses a feeling of being valued, treated fairly, having available coaches and mentors, and so on. Jacob used this employee experience equation to create an Employee Experience Index where he rated those 252 organizations around the world based on 17 variables. You can view the index here.
How Can Companies Put the Employee Experience Into Practice?
Jacob gives many cases of companies that are doing this well. As a sample, he recommends that businesses:
- invest in real-time employee feedback surveys
- design workspaces that accommodate employees’ different work styles and preferences
- increase diversity, belonging, and inclusion programs
- encourage employees to break down and then re-create their jobs to better reflect their day-to-day reality
- reinforce the company’s history as well as the significant impact employees have on its success
Morgan says that businesses should put less emphasis on engagement numbers and focus more on the experience their people have with the organization every day.
What Else Will You Discover During This Webinar?
In The Future Leader, Jacob divides the book into five parts. Each one details the leadership journey. He discusses the leader’s role, trends and challenges shaping future leaders, the mindset of different types of leaders, the skills they embody, and the important characteristics of future leaders. While the book is an easy read, it is chockful of novel ideas and suggestions that a caring manager can implement with his or her team. I hope you’ll register for the webinar on August 26th to hear Jacob speak directly to you, answer your most pressing questions, and help you solve some of your most-pressing workplace challenges.
