Strategic Conversations on Employee Experience — Part 2: Seeking Diverse Outlooks
Today’s blog continues the exploration of employee experience design using the strategic conversation framework. Part 1 was all about “preparing the topic”, and today’s post will examine the approach to “seeking diverse outlooks” to uncover solutions suited to your organisation.
In Part 1, we zoomed in on the exam question “how do we provide learning opportunities to upskill our employees?” as an initiative to improve an organisation’s employee experience, and we defined the outcome as finding “10 ways learning can be improved in our organisation.”
But where do we find these ideas?
Strategic conversations are based on creative collaboration, so it is important to gather dissimilar people and perspectives when unearthing solutions fit for the organisation.
Diverse viewpoints come from diverse people, and diversity comes in many flavours. The non-exhaustive list above highlights a subset of diversity types. Which diversity type should be considered will depend on the topic for discussions. In our learning example, if the exam question is focused on learning solutions for business analysts, then having part- and full- time representation may be more important than if we are addressing learning needs across the business, in which case level of seniority would have a higher significance.
Often times, those who are experiencing the challenges are the very same people who know what the solutions could be, but they are unaware of the right forum to surface their viewpoints. Another valuable source of knowledge comes from those in ‘adjacent groups’; for example, business analysts wishing for a knowledge repository may not realise the programming team has already implemented something addressing the same need.
External viewpoints will also bring fresh ideas. Industry peers could provide inspiration. For example, if the exam question is asked by a fast-moving consumer goods company, what could this organisation learn from speaking with the learning lead of an online retailer or a fintech company? Finally, technology and services partners with employee experience solutions can provide insights into how other companies are leveraging technologies to solve similar challenges.
Before the invite list for our strategic conversation balloons to include sponsors, experts who can contribute to the topic, doers who are motivated to act, and a cross-section of employees with diverse viewpoints, take a step back and trim the attendee list to about 12 people for every full-day session. Too few people and creative collaboration won’t take place, but too many folks with too little time will result in more effort spent rounding up people than discussing the issue.
Bringing in perspectives does not necessarily require everyone to be in the room. Voices from a cross-section of employees can come from one-to-one interviews or surveys that happen before the strategic conversations, with their viewpoints brought to life through stories, quotes and personas.
Now you know who should be in the room, look out for my next blog post on how to utilise framing to enhance strategic conversations.
