The Future of Modern Work: Understanding the Employee Experience with Melanie Roberson and Rich Wood

Melanie Roberson: Hi. My name is Melanie Roberson and I am the director of Organizational Strategy and Design at Launch Consulting. Today we're going to talk about employee experience, what it is, common myths about employee experience and why it's so important. Being a people strategist, this concept is one that's near and dear to my heart. So, I'm really excited to dive in here. I'm here today with Rich Wood. Rich, will you go ahead and introduce yourself.

Rich Wood: So thanks, Melanie. I really appreciate being here. I lead partner co sell business development and Alliance Management Advisory for 3Seven Consulting. We help services firms build better partner channels and go to markets. I’m a recent add to 3Seven, came over in January after leading a long and I guess decorated career as a Microsoft partner, including back-to-back US Partner of the Year awards for employee experience in 2022 and 2023.  

Used to lead practices in that space, did a lot of thought leadership for what we now call employee experience, what was then modern work, change management and transformation. So not just the technical. I was actually a lot more about the adoption soft skills important to make initiatives happen. So that's the angle I'm coming from.

Melanie Roberson: That's a great Rich. Thanks so much. And I'm so excited for this conversation. So, let's dive in. So, let's start with the basics. What is employee experience?

Rich Wood: I think it's important with employee experience or EX as we all abbreviate it, to consider everything. There is a tendency to overfocus on the digital. When we talk about EX, but one thing I learned from some very smart people is that when we talk about EX, we're really talking about the experience and everything that goes into it. So, it encompasses everything with your interactions as an individual employee in the organization of the physical work environment you're in. And that could be remote.  

It could be in an office; it could be some hybrid combination of the two. It is absolutely the digital tools and the platforms that you're using. It's also the culture of your company, the values that the company espouses within the workplace. It's development opportunities for your career and where you want it to go. And does the workplace support that. It's balancing work hours with hours outside of work and understanding, you know, the 12-hour workday is going to kill people, balance that out. And finally, the engagement with leadership, with management, visibility up and down the chain and how those conversations happen.  

So. What is my role in those things? It's an important point, I think, to look at all of that holistically and not forget it when you're talking about EX, because otherwise you run the risk of really not delivering what you think you're delivering.  

Melanie Roberson: Yes, Rich, I agree so much. I when I think about what employee experience is, I think about it as really a core set of competencies that organizations need to be good at in order for employees to feel like they're thriving, to really enhance their experience so that they can meet the remit of the organization.  

There are a set of core principles that I like to align to, and I think it's everything that you just said. But I think to say it another way, inspire and purpose is one of those principles. And I think that that really has to do with what is the purpose of the organization and are employees connected to it in terms of their goals and their alignment with their professional aspirations and the aspirations of the organization. So, inspiration and purpose are really key things like connection, building those nurturing working relationships so that everyone can build something great together, offering support which is really strong processes and resources that enable great performance, that culture that you talked about, fostering a community of learners and of professionals that depend on each other to do great things. And lastly, things like recognition and well-being, really promoting a healthy work life and balance and really celebrating the accomplishments of employees, help them help employees thrive in that work experience. And so, I think that everything that you said, along with these core elements, are really the key to a healthy employee experience.  

So now that we understand a little bit about what employee experience is, let's talk about some myths that I know you and I both have heard this as we've engaged with leaders in the organization. So what's the first myth that you've heard, Rich, about employee experience?

Rich Wood: Well, and I love this part when we talk about dispelling myths because there's a lot of them and we could probably go on longer than we actually will for any of these. But in the interests of brevity. EX is HR buzzword. It's a trend. It's going to go away. And I think what's interesting is how some of these trends that we talk about really just build on one another. And you can look at EX from a few years ago and say that was the big thing and now it's GenAI.  

And what's generative AI in the workplace but just another aspect to the employee experience. Right? And how do I use AI to be more productive, more efficient, get what I need to get done better, faster, easier. Right? So, first of all, it's not just a buzzword, it's something real. It is, you know, all the things that we said it was. And when you look at the research that's out there about it and organizations that invest in it, what you see is those organizations, by and large, do have greater productivity, greater happiness and a greater talent pipeline than those who do not on the control side of the experiment. Right? They tend to be the most innovative organizations, the ones who pop up on your “best places to work” Survey studies have found there's four times more profit for employee and three times higher revenue per employee. The numbers are kind of staggering. 40% less turnover than the average organization. Stock prices significantly outperform the major indexes for those that really pivot hard on employee experience. So, when you look at everything that's out there and all the data and you really do a deep dive, why would you not buy in is my only question.

Melanie Roberson: Yeah, I agree with you. I think that's a really interesting point about, you know, there are lots of trends that do come and go in organizations. But I think that this one is really not a buzzword in the sense that it is really about helping your employees have the experience that is powerful, that allows them to thrive. Because those things we know, based on the research that you've just cited, really help organizations thrive. And so, I love that myth. What's another one that we want to bust here?

Rich Wood: That EX is only about perks, salary and benefits. I love this one. You know, we've all especially those of us in tech, thinking back to the well-stocked pantry or the foosball table or the, you know, the sparkling water in the fridge or whatever. But the reality is, and there's a Deloitte report out there on this, that most employees prefer meaningful work and growth and career opportunities and the feeling of purpose to what they're doing over cash or physical perks. Right? Which includes the snacks in the fridge. EX is more than the bells and whistles. In fact, bells and whistles, that's the bread and circuses, you know, distract them with these simple things. The reality is it's just a distraction. If you have a culture that's cripplingly negative, if you don't have a good employee experience, all the perks in the world can't distract people forever - It's going to bring them down.

Melanie Roberson: Yeah, that's a really great point. And I think these days you do hear about the organizations that have the really fancy good water in the fridge, but I think that employees do see past that. And I think that, you know, as we discussed in the beginning, employee experience is really about a truly holistic experience and you can have good water in the fridge, but if you don't have things like support and good sense of purpose and employees feeling supported and acknowledged, then they really are left feeling empty, which will impact things like your bottom line, your productivity, your efficiency. So having good water in the fridge is not enough and it's not what employee experience is. So that's a really good one. What's, what's another one, Rich?

Rich Wood: You mean, I don't get to talk about water anymore?

Melanie Roberson: Ha ha ha. Well, we can we can continue to talk about fancy water. It’s good to have – we’re not saying we're anti-fancy water. Right.

Rich Wood: I could go on. But yeah, you know, another myth might be that, you know, a one size fits all approach to EX works. And that I think is one of the biggest problems is thinking that everybody's going to like the same thing and we're going to engage people the same way. You know, if you're putting a communication plan together and you lump people into an audience based on role or tenure or what have you, and assume that they're going to take the message the same way and act on it the same way. It's setting yourself up for failure.  

One of the great things about EX and particularly about the digital side of EX that now allows us to do this with data and personas and knowledge about each individual, is that personalized considerations of the diverse needs, of a diverse population, are actually really important. People understand from the experiences that they have in real life with these apps on their phones, just how personalized an experience can be. Right?

So, if I'm shopping for a new track coat on Adidas dot com. And Adidas knows who I am and where I live and what sport I like and what team and says, hey, here's a new tracksuit with Manchester United and Adidas can do that with the couple simple factors. My employer, who knows where I live and how much money I make and who is on my team and how I work and how I use my apps and how often I'm in Word versus PowerPoint versus Excel versus Outlook for Teams. That technology exists to see how I work and help me do my work more effectively.  

Melanie Roberson: Yeah. This one is another really great one because I think a core principle of the strategy work that I do is about knowing your audience. And I think more and more, we see that employees are having these experiences in other aspects of their lives that they are now demanding from their work life. And knowing your audience, knowing your employees really help leaders create an experience that works. And that employee experience will determine whether you keep good employees that are happy and thriving in your organization because you understand what they need and you understand kind of the things that they expect or not, right? So, I think this is a really important one that leaders need to pay attention to because as we, as technology aids our lives in so many powerful ways, we want that same convenience, that same opportunity to have a good experience in our work life.  

Rich Wood: And that's where the technology actually and the digital side of the experience can really separate now, because it used to be you brought in a services firm to customize and change and add on top of the technology to add all these bells and whistles and widgets to your intranet or whatever. A lot of that stuff is now in the package. It's default. There's things that people expect that are delivered from the platforms in the cloud. So, what are we fine tuning now? It's the data and how we use it, right? And that data exists for everybody. It's how you use it and make use of it as an organization that sets you apart. So, the opportunity for the services firm in many ways is much bigger. If you've got people who understand how to analyze and draw conclusions and then drive action out of that data.

Melanie Roberson: Yeah, that's a really good point because I think in the past, we've had maybe the data and we haven't known what to do with it or maybe we haven't felt like we've had the data. So, I think it's really important point Rich, to, to, to bring in the data element because that is the information. That's the kind of knowing piece that leaders need to take heed to in order to build the employee experience that they that their culture supports. So, what's our fourth myth?

Rich Wood: Yeah. Employee engagement is the same thing as employee experience, and this is an easy one to get caught in because you'll see both terms thrown around. But when you think about it, the experience as we defined it is, is everything that you touch. But engagement is your commitment to the job, to the company, to that experience. Right? It's how you hook into that experience. How does it hook you in, you know, in research by Jacob Morgan? And I should quote that because it's where I got some of my stats before, but that research shows that companies prioritizing X outperform those focused solely on engagement. And that makes sense, right? Because if you're engaged with a personalized, powerful experience, you're going to be more effective than if you're engaged with a rickety, not particularly compelling experience or with a broken culture or with a culture that doesn't offer opportunity for advancement, right? So, your level of engagement could be consistent across experiences, but the one with the better experience is just going to click better and things are going to work faster, more efficiently, more comfortably, more joy in it, frankly.

Melanie Roberson: Right? Yeah, that's another good one Rich, which I think how you engage your employees is really not the same as cultivating a healthy employee experience and, you know, one can't exist without the other, as you shared. But I think that the myth of that they're the same is really one that is important for us to pick apart. So finally, what's our fifth myth?

Rich Wood: Uh, my favorite. EX is too expensive. It's a nice to have - not a need to have. And, you know, it's fascinating because going back a few years, you always have to tie these kinds of projects to a business case, right? And I've seen many times people struggle to quantify the impact of EX. But when you think about the time and there's fancy equations out there, but it really comes down to, you know, how much does disengagement cost? So, for your employees who are already there, how much money are they costing you when they are not actively engaged with your work? One stat I'm finding is $3,400 for every $10,000 in annual salary. That's a third of that person's salary, again, that they're costing you in lost productivity. Right? Then think about the attrition and the cost to replace employees who leave in part because of their negative experience, or go somewhere with a more positive experience, or at least the implication of that, right? So, you've got your costs for just the employee should stay in place, so there's a tax and you've got the replacement tax of moving people in in place of those who went away. Right. And in all likelihood, you're probably going to spend more on a new hire than you are on the person who was previously there. So, the reality is, if you're not investing in employee experience, it can be far more costly than implementing it.  

And of course, this is the some of these numbers come from Microsoft's ‘Work Trends Index Report’, which is actually a really thoughtful and well-researched piece that I look at every year. So, I feel that's pretty solid numbers. What better justification to implement a more holistic approach to X than let's stop spending so much money and start putting that money back into driving profit?

Melanie Roberson: Yeah, this is such an important one because I think it's often difficult to make the case to leaders, but it really is one of those scenarios where you can invest now or pay more later. So, you have to pay either way, but invest now or pay more later. I think is one of those adages that we need to work with leaders to help explore. So, these are so great, Rich. Now let's recap. What are the myths and why are they the myths of employee experience?

Rich Wood: All right. So let's see if I can remember. Number one, EX is not just a trendy HR buzzword or the obviously the myth that it would be. And, you know, statistically, genAI use among info workers has doubled, which there's no doubt that that's not just a trend. And genAI is honestly just the next stage in the employee experience. So, no, this is not a myth. This is real. How are we going to accommodate it? I could go on this for a whole nother hour, but this is not a myth, folks. This is something we've got to deal with.

Rich Wood: Number two, the EX is not just perks, salary and benefits. It's not the cash that you're putting in somebodies’ hand or, you know, the juice box or whatever in the fridge. Ultimately, it’s meaningful work is growth opportunities are what keep people around. If the money's equal or even close to it.  

Third - One size fits all approach works. Well, that's a myth. No. 67% of employees want a personalized employee experience tailored to who they are and what they do. And they know that the data exists, and they know that the technology exists to give them that thanks to the little phones that get around their pockets, right?

Melanie Roberson: Yes. Yes.

Rich Wood: Number four, employee engagement equals employee experience myth. EX is the entire journey, and a good EX drives better engagement. You can take equal engagement across a good EX and a bad EX and the one with the good EX is always going to be more engaged. So that's, you know, that's definitely a myth.  

And then finally, the cost - EX is too expensive. That's a vanity project, we're not going to spend on that this year! We're going to put our money into more important things. While what is more important than spending less money? Out the window, throwing less money out the window. A disengaged employee, according to Microsoft and LinkedIn, costs almost a third again, what you think you're paying for them in time lost. Get them engaged and stop losing money. What could be a better spending that when you've got 10,000 employees or more drawing paychecks in your company? I don't know. Sounds pretty good to me.

Melanie Roberson: Really, really great Rich. So now that we have explored kind of what employee experience is and we've debunked the myths about kind of what people think it is out there. Let's switch gears a bit and talk about the “so what" of employee experience? Why is this concept so important, Rich? Can you share some of your key arguments for why this is such an important strategy that companies today really need to start paying better attention to?

Rich Wood: Yeah, you bet. So, let's talk about four key themes. Making money. Saving money. Speed and productivity and employee centricity. Driving customer centricity, which I absolutely love. I will save that for last okay?. Number one covered some of these stats before, but the positive employee experience leads to higher engagement. Higher engagement is what drives innovation, which drives creativity. That opens up not just new revenue streams, but the opportunity to improve existing ones. Companies with that higher level employee engagement, according to Tech Jury, 21% more profitable. And for Jacob Morgan, organizations that invest in EX have 4x more profit per employee. So, make money. Yes, please.  

Number two, saving money. We talked about this a lot before where your better EX actually saves the cost of the disengaged employee, right? On top of that. We talked about attrition. Did you know that organizations investing in EX have 40% less turnover than the average organization?  

Melanie Roberson: Wow. That's a great stat. That's an incredible stat, Rich.  

Rich Wood: Thank you. Thank you. It's a fantastic stat. Those in positive work environments, perhaps not shockingly, have lower absenteeism rates, which reduces the cost of replacement. Imagine that I'll filter my sarcasm slightly, but imagine that? People actually come into work more when they enjoy their jobs.  

And then, of course, the cost of recruiting and training replacements we talked about that attrition before is much less when you're not losing employees due to poor experiences. So saving money, absolutely a big thing.

Melanie Roberson: Really important.

Rich Wood: Yeah. Then you know, I think one that's been popular for a long time in modern work circles is speed and productivity. And this can get harder and harder to prove and may have seemed that way. GenAI has changed significantly. Everybody sees the benefits of having AI pre-populated spreadsheet or draw the table or put some talking points together so you can get started with a document. It absolutely has changed the game there. And now a lot of what, you know, the toughest critics of the EX would say about prove it. Well, the proof is in the pudding now. So that well-designed EX that leverage GenAI particularly can help remove friction from your processes, help people collaborate more effectively, which speeds up the time to actually complete a project and other work.  

Again, the stat that those that invest in the EX have three times higher revenue per employee and engaged employees. According to the Microsoft survey, the Work Trends Index, 12% more productive than not engaged employees. And that might seem like a small number, but measure that out over however many thousand employees over the course of, you know, 52 weeks minus vacation, 48 weeks, that's that 12% is a pretty big figure.

Melanie Roberson: We learned that lesson actually ourselves here at Launch when we initiated a comprehensive program on upskilling our employees on the use of some generative A.I. tools. And this really was a wildly successful program because folks are super engaged in the training and the learning and development programs we provided. And that really helped our employees feel a sense of accomplishment and a sense of professional development, increasing their speed and productivity. The last one for you, Rich.

Rich Wood: So, the last one is employee centricity. Fostering customer centricity. Right. So, you used to say a good XX drives a good CX. And this is true. When your employees have great experiences, they're more likely to create great customer experiences. They're more aligned with your company values, your mission, which translates to more authentic interactions. And if you think about it, the best place to consider this is on the retail floor. And I'm not going to call it any companies that do this really well - we all know them. But when the person on the shop floor that's helping you with the product knows the product, knows what they're doing, shows enthusiasm for it, helps to answer your questions, direct you to the next thing that you really need that makes a difference and it keeps you coming back. As a customer. We've all seen it.  

So, when you're talking about that, how do we keep that employee bought in and doing that kind of work for us? That's EX. That’s what we design purposefully and that's what we give them to keep them doing the best that they can for the customer. Good EX absolutely drives good CX.

Melanie Roberson: Yeah, that's a really good one. And, you know, I have, as we all have had that experience where we go into organizations, and we can just tell that it's a good place to work because the customer service is so great and that makes us want to come back and shop there or come back and support those products. And so that's a really powerful one from a people perspective.  

Okay. So now that we've convinced everyone of the importance of employee experience, how does one start, Rich? How do how do we get started with building our great employee experience programs?

Rich Wood: Yeah, that's a great question. So, I like to look at I'm a big user of Viva Insights for Microsoft. It's something that I still use in my new role, even

Melanie Roberson: I love Viva Insights!

Rich Wood: Thank you. Yeah. You guys do a great job with it, too. You know, I've used it in the company of thousands of people, and I use it now in a company of, you know, a dozen. And there's individual things about it that it helps me with as far as managing my time. But when you think about it from a manager’s perspective and from a department head’s perspective, Viva Insights becomes exponentially more powerful. And I say that because when you think about it, Melanie, what's the traditional way for H.R. to get a pulse on how employees are thinking, feeling about their workplace?

Melanie Roberson: Well, it's those 100 question sentiment surveys that we used to that we get to do every year. That has been the primary data point for organizations in the past.

Rich Wood: Absolutely. Great answer. And I don't know about you. I love filling out those surveys. That's always fun.

Melanie Roberson: Depends on what time of the year it is. They always seem to pick the busiest time. I love giving the data and giving the input, but they always seem to pick the busiest times. ‍

Rich Wood: Yeah. They should really pick the time right after bonuses are paid out.

Melanie Roberson: Ha ha ha

Rich Wood: I’ve yet to be in an HR department that thinks that way, but maybe somebody will figure that out. In any case. Those. Those are great. They're all qualitative data. Right.

And I'm all about qualitative data. I love it. I'm a guy that's about EQ. And how do you feel and what gets you up in the morning? But at the same time, this is a data driven world, and particularly when it comes to decisions that are made about millions of dollars, which these projects can go up to. Right? Any big project, any big transformation initiative can. Decisions are made on quantitative data. And this is the value of Viva Insights because it collects and analyzes and gives you the opportunity to analyze deeper the quantitative data about productivity, well-being and performance as an organization.  

So, we think about how can we be data driven about EX? Viva Insights is a tool that gives you that ability, and particularly now that Copilot for Microsoft 365 is out there to paired with Viva Insights. First of all, one of those little hidden nuggets in the Work Rrend Index is that a lot of workers, I would say it's about two thirds of enterprises don't have their own internal tools for AI. Their workers are out there using OpenAI, using ChatGPT, to figure out answers about documents that are not supposed to go out beyond the firewall. And they're feeding these things into ChatGPT because they don't have the ability to do it inside the company.  

So. You've got Copilot, on the one hand internally can help you keep that documentation and that data from leaving the walls of your of your company. You've also got Viva Insights to tell you how people are doing with that, how they feel about it, how they're working with it, how are they using their data and build a quantitative set of observations that compare with the qualitative feedback from that survey to finally give you a true 360-degree view of employee sentiment, employee engagement, and ultimately employee experience.  

So, what do we do to make that happen? I hear that you guys at Launch Consulting have a really great way to get engaged with Viva Insights and get to the bottom of starting an EX initiative.  

Melanie Roberson: Thanks, Rich. I really love this question because I love Viva Insights, because the idea of a data driven approach to employee experience and really providing those insights in both a qualitative and quantitative way is a really powerful start to taking a look at your employee experience.  

I think one of the best things about Viva insights is it gives you not only the data that you're looking for that will help you make better decisions about how to drive a healthy and thriving employee experience. But I think the frequency at which it gives you that data. And, you know, coupling it with copilot, the insights that are driven, I mean, it's really powerful data that helps you have better conversations and think differently about your employee experience today.  

I think, you know, what is the one of the evolutions of that yearly employee survey is the idea that you don't want to just check in on your employees experience once a year. But having this workshop or having these tools that help you understand your employee experience on a regular and consistent basis is really a powerful approach to getting started with employee experience. So, we at Launch have the ability to walk organizations through the use of this data, through these Viva Insights workshops that we manage.  

I think one of the really key things when we work with leaders on how to build and cultivate a thriving employee experience is around the data. Having a data driven approach to employee experience is really the place where we want leaders to start. What Viva Insights does is it gives you data that is not only qualitative but also quantitative. And, you know, kind of in in in comparison to getting a truckload of data once a year from your employee sentiment survey. What Viva Insights does is it gives you this data on a frequent and ongoing basis, and it really gives you a wide range of data at the leadership level, at the organization level, but also at the manager level. And so, these Viva Insight workshops that we do, we help leaders understand kind of where what does your data tell you about your employee experience?  

What does the current landscape look like? And then you can build a strategy that will help you better define some of the key things that are important to your culture. Because we know that not all, not it's not a one size fits all approach. So, these Viva Insights workshops that we do really are about enabling leaders to understand the data that will help them build a thriving and healthy employee experience and culture.

Rich Wood: I really think that the key thread running through all of this, we'll go back to it, is that Viva insights really capitalize on this data driven focus. We talked about the data. We talked about the fact that it exists. We talked about the fact that it's there to use. And when employers use that to make decisions for the good of the employee and the employee experience, viva insights can be the vector through which those decisions can happen faster. It's the old decision support tool, right? And that's really the value of the insights, why they call it insights. So, I'm a big fan of the work you guys do. I think it definitely is a great way to start.

Melanie Roberson: Great. Thanks, Rich. So, this has been a really fantastic conversation, and I want to thank you for coming on and having it with me. Are there any closing thoughts that you want to share about employee experience and make sure to tell folks where to reach out to you if they want to hear more about the great work, you're doing in employee experience.

Rich Wood: If you're not happy with your employee experience, you can change it. Whether you're a company that wants to do something about the experience your employees have every day, or you're an employee who is looking for a better way to work. The options are out there in both cases, and you just have to do something about it today. So, I love what insights can do. I love Gen AI and the Power of Copilot. There's so much more at our fingertips now than there ever used to be.  

As far as me, I am on LinkedIn. I think I'm the first result f you type Rich Wood and Microsoft in from there and I've got a lot of content that I share and always happy to connect with people.

Melanie Roberson: Thank you so much, Rich. It's been such a pleasure talking with you. Thanks for coming on the podcast. We look forward to having you back for more conversations on employee experience.

Rich Wood: Hey. Thanks, Melanie. I'm a big fan. Really enjoyed coming here, working with the launch team. Always a blast. So, thanks a lot and happy for the next one.