Time for HR to Shoot for the Stars
When I was a kid, I wanted to become an astronaut.
Most of my friends wanted to become police officers, doctors, teachers. It’s likely that these careers are appealing to children because, at a young age, you need to FEEL why you’re doing something. Although I’m grossly simplifying for the sake of argument, those are easy professions to understand : astronauts will discover, cops will protect, doctors will cure…
As we grow up, many of us start to take other factors into consideration:
What am I actually good at? What pays the most? What’s most realistic given my background?
There is tons of literature about what makes for a rewarding employee experience, but I can sum it all up here for you: it depends. Depending on the position you hold, your seniority, heck, on lots of different factors, you’ll value a particular feature more or less.
So in a time when many larger companies struggle to remain attractive, when it seems like a friend of yours quits their job every other day, when it’s no longer shocking that a good employee experience results in a better business, one thing seems strikingly clear:
Contextualized employee experience (EX) is the new frontier.
I work with HR professionals on a daily basis, and let me tell you this: they often take a lot of heat, both from employees (who see them as naysayers) and from top management (who provide tight, tight budgets compared to those in marketing, finance or sales).
But the thing is, in 20 years, having a good, contextualized EX will be as much of a competitive advantage as having a good client experience.
As I see it, HR pros are like adventurers going forward into this new frontier. Sure, they need better tools. The profession needs to evolve and learn new skills. And not everyone is as driven as I may like, obviously. But HR in 20 years will look nothing like HR today. The passionate ones are fighting a worthy battle.
As for me, my aspirations haven’t changed much. I wanted to be an astronaut for the sake of discovery — and now I’m working everyday to help bring this new frontier, contextualized EX, closer to us. The first step is understanding what people want — so what’s driving you?
Thibaud is co-founder and CEO at Jubiwee, your managers’ personal analyst on people decisions.
