Is employee experience just a new hype?
Get inspired by 5 companies that do it right.
Free breakfast, lunchtime yoga classes, afternoon massage breaks …employee experience seems to be a trending topic but is this what it is all about?
A decade ago, the happy employee equation used to be quite simple. Fair wage + interesting job + nice coworkers = happy employee. Today this equation seems to have gotten more complex. Instagramable offices, super flexible working hours, company offsites in Greece… the list goes on and on. These so called “perks” weigh more and more in candidates’ decision when they apply for a new job.
I am a firm believer that employee experience matters and that company culture is a key element to keep your employees engaged and motivated. After all, work is where we spend most of our time at. However, I believe many people and companies confuse employee experience with free (and often meaningless) office perks. An engaging and meaningful employee experience is not about table tennis in a dodgy cafeteria or about free diner at work that prevents you from spending time with your relatives.
Employee experience needs to be authentic and has to match your own company culture. Don’t try to blindly replicate what other companies do. Try and find rituals to bring your own company values alive.
Keeping this in mind, my colleague Louis and I started to put together a benchmark of cool (and actual meaningful) things companies do in the name of employee experience. We decided to structure our research around the 8 key moments that constitute employee experience:
- #Arrive 👋(get to know the company, onboarding, integration…)
- #Learn and be trained 🤓(participate in trainings, learn from your peers, share knowledge within the company)
- #Evolve and get feedback 🚀(give 360° feedback, start an internal mobility process, negotiate your salary…)
- #Work 💻(explore new ways of working, choose your projects…)
- #Get support and guidance 🍼(at key moments of your personal life for e.g. becoming a parent)
- #Thrive🕺🏻(enjoy a nice working environment, have flexible working hours…)
- #Live together 🏄♀(share common values, do team buildings…)
- #Leave 🤝(negotiate leaving terms, prepare for retirement…)
Here are 5 of the best examples we stumbled upon while browsing the internet and talking to our friends
1. Be an activist at Patagonia 🌱
#Live together #Thrive
It’s widely known that the American retailer Patagonia is an activist company. Since its creation in 1972, the protection of the environment is at the core of its DNA. That’s why the company offers paid holidays to its employees when they participate in peaceful environmental demonstrations. The company will even bail out any employee arrested for peaceful protesting.
Why do we think it’s a great example?
It’s a good translation of Patagonias’ values in concrete actions and helps employees bond over common values. Apparently, investing in employee experience seems to pay off at Patagonia as their turnover rate is only at 4%!
2. Work wherever you want at comet 👩💻
#Work
comet is a Parisian platform that enables companies to find the right IT freelancers in just a few hours. But at comet, remote work is not only for devs: it’s for everyone! Their employees live in Bordeaux, Biarritz and New Dehli and stop by the HQ only a couple of days a month to catch up with the rest of the team. Every now and then they also decide to go on so called “remote trips” together. They choose a destination they want to work from and enjoy the evenings and the weekends to explore together. They have already been to Berlin, Istanbul and Naples…(Are you jealous yet?). Remote work has even become a corner stone of their HR strategy. Their leadership team believes that in order to hire and to retain the best talents, remote is a “must-have”. A-talents will bring the best of themselves no matter where they are located anyway. It also increases employee’s quality of life and is incredibly empowering. But of course, it requires building a remote friendly culture: decentralized communication, agile dev sprints, an owl that enables you to connect anytime anywhere in the office… You just need to be a little creative. If you want to know more → this is the article you need to read.
Why do we think it’s a great example?
It is very common for people who work in tech to work remotely, but it doesn’t seem as natural for other types of jobs. This is a great example of a company that put everything in place to make the remote lifestyle work for the sake of employee wellbeing.
3. Nail your onboarding at Blablacar 🚗
#Arrive #Learn and be trained
The French car sharing platform BlablaCar regularly sets-up a classical integration week in their HQ in Paris to familiarize the newbies with the firm and to create a sense of belonging. But what really inspired us is their MOOC like platform called BlaBlaLearn. It’s a platform where employees can upload fun and informative videos to explain their jobs and share their knowledge. It helps new talents to understand the company more easily in just a few hours and avoids to go over the same presentation every time someone new joins the team.
Why do we think it’s a great example?
Onboarding is a tough nut and can be even more challenging for bigger companies. As BlaBlaCar has grown fast, combining a physical team building event and a scalable knowledge sharing platform is a smart and interactive way to manage onboarding as smoothly as possible. It also helps to create a transparent company culture.
4. No more (endless) meetings at Alan ⏱
#Work #Thrive
At Alan, a young French health insurance, you will never be stuck in an endless and boring meeting again. To avoid unproductive meetings that never start on time (Vive la France! 🥖) they simply decided to adopt a meeting free policy. Whenever there is something you would like to discuss with your team, dig deeper into a topic, raise a question etc. you just open an issue on Github. Just like a good old forum, all the concerned persons can post a reply. This system gives everybody the freedom to interact with the team whenever they want without being interrupted and without receiving a constant flow of notifications. It also enhances transparency within the company as all discussions and decisions can be traced back. Plus, all the meetings hours that are being saved can be allocated to team events or to more time with your friends and family.
Why do we think it’s a great example?
For most people, meetings and conference calls have always been a big part of their day, so they don’t even question whether it is the right way to spend their precious time at work. It is often so unproductive that they lack time to follow-up on their other tasks and end up working extra hours. Nobody wants that anymore (or do you?). We find it very inspiring that Alan is actively trying to adopt concrete solutions to help their employees focus on the tasks that really matter.
5. Reward your peers at Zappos 💗
#Thrive #Live together #Evolve and Get Feedback
The online shoes and clothes retailer Zappos has created a peer to peer employee reward program, enabling any employee of the company to give a special reward to a coworker that has done an outstanding job (helping another team member, WOWing a customer…) or is a great example of company culture. Employees can earn “Zappos Dollars” to spend in the company gift shop when they volunteer to help somebody out, be nominated to have a one week access to a coveted parking spot (the WOW parking) close to the building entrance, or be nominated for the prestigious Zappos HERO award that rewards employees who embody company values the most.
Why do we think it’s a great example?
It is yet another great illustration of a company that is driven by its culture. You could think that these types of programs are expensive, but in this case it actually resonates with one of Zappos’ core values : “Do more with Less”, which means their program is affordable and scalable. If you don’t already know it, go check out the Zappos Culture Book, where you will find out many more interesting things that make the Zappos culture so unique.
Want to know more about employee experience?
At the Experience Center in Paris we love experimenting with team rituals and are very dedicated to help our clients reflect about their own company culture and design an authentic employee experience.
If you want to find out more about our work, you can check out this article, reach out on Linkedin, or have a look at our website. We’d love to invite you over for some coffee in our garden :)
