EX 2020 Global Report HXT

EX LEADERS NETWORK
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Employee Experience 2020

Global Report & Case Studies
1
ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020 ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020
Table
of contents
About the HX Leaders
Network
The Human Experience (HX) Leaders
Network is a group of founding HX/EX-
Pioneers and EX Leaders from across
industries and geographies. Together
04
they promote and shape HX. The EX
Executive Summary Leaders Network is a HX Transforma
initiative.
For more information, visit:

www.hxleadersnetwork.com
08 Full Report
2.1. Organizational Personas: Stages of EX Implementation

[email protected]
2.2. Key Trends for 2020
2.3. Conclusion: Where EX is going from here
22 Case Studies
ABN AMRO - EX Roadmap to a Future-proof Bank
Facebook - Building Organizational Empathy About HXTransforma

ING - Agile and EX HX Transforma helps organizations
transform as they improve the Human
“EX is about discovering and InVision - A Seamless People Experience
KBC GROUP - EX Driving Innovation

Experience of Work. We help you build HX
capability based on
frameworks of Human-Centered Design,
open-sourced
designing around human emotion.”

Design Thinking, Service Design,
LinkedIn - Analytics & Culture Champions Analytics and Agile.
Walmart - Scaling EX at the ‘Fortune One’ For more information, visit:

www.hxtransforma.com
60 Appendix: An in-depth look at Survey Results

About the Authors
Elliott Nelson founded the HX
72
Leaders network and HXTransforma
He researches, speaks and coaches
More information
leaders and organizations in HX-
Centric Transformations and building
new Agile ways of working.
Maria Neicu is a partner in

KennedyFitch’s EX practice. Maria
is passionate about learning how to
create contexts where people can truly
be at their best - for their organizations
as well as for themselves.
2 3
Case Studies Executive Summary

Human-centered Design and the Human Experience (HX) are at the heart of significant organizational
transformations around the world. HX is about discovering and designing around human emotion and ‘What works
here’ in each organization, as a way to build competitive advantage. Often labeled as 'Employee Experience' (or
EX - for a Future-proof Bank Building Organizational Empathy
'EX' - we will use this term one last time in this report), HX has exploded from its first appearance in 50 or so
EX is a pillar of the business strategy and the Facebook created EX Pillars of Health, Family, companies in 2017 to finding a place today in most Global Fortune 500 organizations, and a significant number of
Netherlands team has written their own ‘EX Playbook’ Community, Convenience, Time Away & Finances to smaller companies as well.
as a blueprint for how they use Design Thinking, Agile show their people they care about them outside of the
teams and Analytics everywhere. workplace. This report contains the results of our 3rd annual Global EX Survey, where some 200 companies participated.
We’ve have included 7 in-depth case studies of leading EX companies – LinkedIn, Walmart, ABN AMRO,
Read the full case study on page 24 Read the full case study on page 30
Facebook, KBC Bank, InVision, and ING, each illustrating different ways of doing EX.
This is the longest running survey of EX trends in the market. Half of our respondents come from companies with
more than 10K employees, and one quarter from big organizations of 50K+ people. Another quarter comes from
smaller companies, below 500 employees, which brings a balance of perspective, and a different level of challenges
coming with the size of their organization. In terms of geographic location, 90% of the respondents came from
Agile and EX Seamless People Vision
Europe and North America, followed by APAC with 5% of respondents.
ING builds journeys and agile teams around Marie Kretlow mapped out the entire experience of
employee needs. Their PACE program uses Design a mostly remote workforce & created new journeys Most of what we do in HR today is built for the world of yesterday. EX is about moving us towards the future of
Thinking, Lean Start-up and Agile methods to create for Onboarding & all other areas that touch EX, along work and a more consumerized workplace, where employees have more choice about where they work and their
MVP’s which can be rapidly implemented. with digital tools. preferences frequently change, they seek out companies aligned with their values, are more likely to work as gig
workers, do shorter lifecycles as full-time employees, and own their data. A workplace becomes a “platform”
where workers learn, socialize, share ideas and move on.
Think of how many of our current systems, policies, processes, workforce strategies, physical facilities, digital
tools are misaligned with these megatrends.
EX is here to for the long term and is growing in all industries, geographies and in companies of all sizes. EX has
EX Driving Innovation Analytics & Culture Champions matured and evolved beyond what early EX Pioneers envisioned. What has changed the past 2 years and what's new
LinkedIn combined data sets to discover key ways to for 2020? Key trends include:
KBC Group built an Employee App that serves as a
‘Digital Butler’, to solve problems in 20 seconds, improve EX, and created 500 ‘Culture Champions’ who
helped them build a winning positive culture and great
developed by an Employee Journey team using
Scrum methodology. experiences at a local level. Top 3 Trends in EX for 2020
1. Creating Organizational Empathy – Led by the drive to make human connection, and supported by in-
sights from People Analytics, organizations want to discover the Moments that Matter and turn them into
“Wow Moments”. This is the most powerful place where Culture intersects with EX and creates value.
2. Building & Scaling New EX Capabilities – The good news is no matter how big or small you are, you can
adopt Agile ways of working and get broad, diverse skills and capabilities onto your EX team. EX teams
are starting to resemble Marketing and Digital teams with roles and skills that are completely new to HR.
Walmart: Scaling EX at the ‘Fortune One’
3. Agile Becomes the New Normal - Advanced EX companies use Agile frameworks and ways of working
Walmart moved (from other functions) or hired
to rapidly prototype, test and implement new EX “products”, with completely new ways of working that
Experience and Workspace Designers, Product
are more cross-functional, flatter and more business-driven.
Owners, Storytellers and others, with the ultimate goal
to win the future of retail.
Read more the full case study on page 52
4 5
Here are the most important success factors for EX that we’ve noted in
our research and consulting:
• Executive buy-in and support is essential - Business leaders must see EX as an

imperative, at the same level of urgency as CX. EX insights help you understand
‘what works here’ with key touchpoints, and where to invest or stop investing,
EX should help us drive “Connection” and Wow Moments unlike traditional HR metrics which focus on cost and compliance.
that Matter, which will in turn drive business results. • Building Organizational Empathy is a top goal of EX – we want to understand
what it feels like to work here. Identifying and understanding emotions is the
window into behavioral drivers and Moments that Matter. Organizations that have
Organizational Empathy live and breathe Diversity and Inclusion that translates
into how well they understand their diverse customers as well as employees.
Other significant things that are happening at the same time – either contributing to or resulting from the above
trends:
• Best way to approach Journeys – those that start with the goal to openly discover
how people actually experience work and build EX analytics data the way work
• EX is bringing in radical new kinds of roles and capabilities – many borrowed from UX, CX, Design Thinking, Marketing,
naturally occurs, rather going through than an HR life cycle lens, find better
DevOps, Service Design, etc. These are shaking up HR as many in traditional roles have to learn new ways of working
insights about what drives performance and effectiveness, and build far better
and how to collaborate in new kinds of Agile teams. The HR Business Partner role can help “distribute and democratize
EX. Examples include Deutsche Telekom, BP and Enel.
whatever Analysts (and others) are discovering”, in the words of Richard Rosenow (Workforce Analytics) at LinkedIn.
• Don’t forget to first empathize and understand - Great Design and People
• Benchmarking is dead – EX and Design Thinking are bottom-up processes vs. the top down approach we’ve been used
Analytics teams that work well together and feed Design Thinking insights are
to. Every company is finding its own EX definition and strategy, based on insights they are gathering about their people.
absolutely critical. It is tempting (and this is our habit) to jump into Ideation and
As Michael Arena of Amazon Web Services puts it, “We need to shed this idea of ‘Best Practices’ and base what we do
Prototyping without fully understanding the current way people experience work.
on evidence” within our own organizations. The idea of EX indices, models, industry comparisons or benchmarks just isn’t
Without solid data on the front end, what comes out of Ideation and Prototyping
relevant anymore. Instead of using 17 or 36 ‘standard touchpoints’ from 50 or 100 companies, get your own insights on
in Agile teams is no better than what you have now.
how your employees experience work and the company-specific needs and drivers of your own people, showing where
you can make an impact. • Everyone who touches EX vs. just HR - Get everyone involved who touches the
• HR is (finally) learning how to speak the language of business – in the past, many people coming from business
Employee Experience and build Agile teams, right from the start. Turn all your
processes and programs into products and follow Agile methodology. Break up
Organizations
roles into HR said they didn’t understand the way HR talked and their terminology. As organizations move CX and EX
closer together, they use language that is more about products, Product Owners and backlog, segmentation, customer
and put your CoE people in squads with Designers, Facilities, Communications, that have
etc. and have them “pitch” products to the business. Examples include ABN
satisfaction, end-user, NPS, etc.
AMRO, ANZ Bank, Vistaprint, and IBM. Organizational
• The CoE model is being replaced – according to EX leaders like Sjoerd Kueter, Director HR Digital & Service Delivery at
ABN AMRO, “Agile teams with people of diverse expertise, who get things done faster and with all of the people needed
• Borrow or buy EX capability – Move over or borrow any existing Product, Empathy
Marketing, Agile and Analytics people from other areas of the business to help you
to introduce ‘products’, are replacing CoE silos.” CoE’s are slow, isolated relics of top-down organizations. until you know what you’re doing. This way of working is not like anything we’ve live and breathe
Diversity and
done before in HR and too many HR organizations try to do things themselves.
• Measurement of everything – Analytics is one of the first new skills created and utilized to create “good EX”, as
There are probably UX or CX people, Designers, or Agile Coaches somewhere in
organizations want first to discover “what works” and do modeling around different activities. Shujaat Ahmad of LinkedIn
says, “My role was to make sure any decision-making around Talent is based on evidence as much as possible and to
your organization. If there aren’t, hire someone to teach you.
Inclusion.
minimize bias… starting with who we recruit, how we recruit, how we onboard and how we develop talent. It includes how • Where to learn - Don’t expect to gain the best theoretical or practical knowledge
we look at Diversity and Inclusion, at Belonging. How do we look at retention strategies? Is it backed up by data? Is there about what EX is or how it actually works in practice, by reading HR or Employee
strategic thinking leveraging data?” Experience books. The best books are from authors outside of HR who write about
Human-Centered Design, Design Thinking, Empathy, Organizational Psychology,
• EX and Engagement – As we first wrote 2 years ago, Engagement surveys come from 1920’s industrial design and are Service Design, Agile, Scrum, Analytics, etc.
basically asking how well you like something that has already been done for (or to) you. EX is enlisting you in the co-
creation of new experiences and then measuring how well those are delivered, with open text questions. Companies
buy Engagement surveys for benchmarking (see above) which has less relevance as we realize the futility of comparing
Listening, building Organizational Empathy and co-creating around “what works’ for employees is hard work and takes
things that are incomparable. For some, like ABN AMRO’s Head of People Analytics, Patrick Coolen, Engagement, for
sustained effort. As great as the shift has been to Employee Experience, Design Thinking and Agile, there will be far greater
now at least, sits side by side their NPS scores to measure things like clarity of the company’s strategy.
changes in how organizations work in the next 5-10 years and greater separation in terms of business success and happy
employees, between those that adopt these principles and those that do not.
6 7
Infographic
2017 2018 2019
6% + 46% 52% + 5% 56%
% that feel their organization has made significant progress on EX
Full Report
89% 18% 18%
reported that EX will increase already experience a new way of companies are at the building
in importance within their of working and move towards capability stage, while 12% have
organization in the next 1 -2 merging CX - EX already implemented new ways
years of working or have merged CX
with EX
25% 50%
of respondents say they have an of companies say they have set aside budget to
agreed internal definition execute their EX strategy in 2020.
Larger companies (over 50K Companies with 10.000-50.000

employees) all have begun employees are most advanced in
doing EX terms of merging CX and EX.
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2. Full Report
In early 2014, when Mark Levy brought together all the groups
at Airbnb touching Culture (Recruiting, Events, Facilities,
Real Estate, Design, etc.) to create an end-to-end journey
for employees, he coined the term “Employee Experience”,
adapting the term from Customer Experience.
Deutsche Telekom took a similar approach, interviewing And what we get in the end, is the implementation of a
In the years since then, EX has grown along with CX to become
and observing over 200 people and then using their Performance Management system that is probably 100%
a way of doing business for many organizations. Early “EX
insights to create over 20 Moments that Matter. complete – full of details and specifications and maybe
Pioneers’ like GE, IBM, ABN AMRO and others started using
even an operating manual (also something I did in the
People Analytics to study behavioral drivers, segment users
In this way, EX marks a clear departure from the old past – a 100 page ‘Performance Management Master
into personas and create journey maps and storyboards that
top-down way of working. In the “old way of working” Document’).
informed HR services and processes.
(e.g. Cascade or Waterfall), an HR organization typically
operates this way: Someone at the leadership level But it has never been tested in this environment. We
GE’s Head of EX, Paul Davies, said in 2017, that “We don’t go
receives a business mandate to create a new program and have no idea whatsoever whether it will work or of the
an hour without using one of these (journey maps). We ask
process e.g. Performance Management, a Management unintended consequences (sometimes disastrous as in
our employees, our people leaders and our candidates what
Development program or an Onboarding Program. the aforementioned Forced Rankings).
matters most to them, we listen to their stories, listening
especially for emotions.”
For our example, let’s say it’s a Performance Management With Employee Experience, we use Design Thinking.
program. In the traditional way things are done, we set We start with the people who will use Performance
Mark Levy said that Airbnb “borrowed the idea from Disney that
strategy and specifications for what we want in the end, at Management. But we don’t just focus narrowly on the
‘every frame matters’ in telling employee stories.” Cisco began
the top of the organization, often with little input from end Performance Management process or timeline alone.
using hackathons, originally designed for UX ideation to give
users. We often know what we want it to look like because We study the situations and context for how and when
employees a voice on crowdsourcing new People processes.
we’ve borrowed the approach (think of forced rankings or people need guidance, support and feedback, and ALL
5-point ratings scales) from outside, without any idea of the places where they get it, including from their manager.
Early on in our research, we noted that what separated the
whether it ‘works here’.
“leaders” was that they had developed and deployed Design
We measure ‘what matters’ to people and drives their
Thinking capabilities as a way to discover and define EX and
We give our strategy mandate for Performance performance. We do everything we can to ‘Empathize’
were very disciplined in how they gained insights – they
Management to a Talent CoE, someone with expertise in with how things work now – first – and define the problems
observed, interviewed, surveyed, combined data sets in their
performance management, who designs the way it will they’re trying to solve, before we think about a solution.
Analytics, they experimented with different ways of working,
work from A to Z, likely based on a benchmark – a ‘plug
using a variety of workspace arrangements and tools.
and play’ process from external sources. We give it to our Once we define their problems (and validate them), we
regions and business units and tell them how to use it, ideate and prototype and test new ideas with them, and
One of these, mentioned in our last report was Olivier
often with little variance for culture or business situation experiment on a few possible solutions. And we do those
Dubuisson, former head of EX at BP, who created a Voice
(at least, that’s the way I did it in my 25 years of HR). quickly and develop and manage them like “products”,
of the Customer group, comprised of 300 people across BP,
in Agile teams. Those teams produce “Minimum Viable
volunteering to share their insights. “We ‘shadowed’ people as
How do we measure success? Mostly by how well Products” (MVP’s) that are continually test and validate
they worked, conducted interviews and one-on-one meetings
people ‘comply’ with our instructions. We measure how our assumptions of ‘what works’ e.g. with control groups
to extract information. Out of that information, we created
many people are on the system, how many have set or and several parallel streams, if we want to be sure of
personas and 16 employee journeys.”
completed goals, etc. a successful outcome. We experiment with our new
10 11
Performance Management prototype in one part of the business before we “go big” everywhere with implementation.
2.1. Organizational Personas: Stages of EX Implementation
Then and only then do we decide on a Strategy for how Performance Management will be done in our organization, along
with the MVP’s for supporting processes, digital tools, communications, coaching and so on. Our metrics are based on what
our people have told us are their drivers. Not an industry or market standard of touchpoints and drivers. And our solution is
continually in beta, being tested and improved also after that point. Here is an illustration of how that looks.
In the end, with an EX approach, you get something (in our example, a new way of doing Performance Management), that you
have a high degree of confidence will actually WORK in your environment, because it was co-created with the end user and
tested rigorously.
EX Persona 1- “Talking EX” - These organizations have They have invested in new roles and capabilities, including
started using the term “Experience” to describe most of some Agile teams and a People Analytics function, whose
“Employee Experience requires a new way of Working” what they are doing in HR and may say things like “Our main purpose is to discover employee drivers and test and
goal is to create great experiences” or “We acknowledge validate the effectiveness of their HR-related programs.
what is important to our people”. These companies may In these companies, you often find a Head of EX, with an
have held HR-offsites where they worked on improving expanded team with non-traditional HR expertise e.g. CX,
The old way of working Co-creating with end users, like CX some HR processes and called it a “Design Thinking” UX, Design, Product Marketing, Branding, Storytelling, etc.
Problem: Defined at top Solution: prototype, tested session. These are often the companies who say they What are the challenges these companies need to
are “Researching” EX, who have not yet made any plan or overcome to move up? The main limitation of these
investment to create new capabilities of their own. companies is that may see EX as the “CX of HR”, primarily
HR sets strategy & requirements Continuously test & improve
a form of HR Service Design with Design Thinking, but the
They may borrow resources from elsewhere in the emphasis is still on HR rather than the majority of Moments
HR CoE designs how it will work, Build new strategy & ways of company e.g. Design Thinking or Agile Coaches. Frequently that Matter which usually have little to do with HR. As they
based on benchmarks working the person or role leading EX is also responsible for develop continuous listening tools and listen more openly
Engagement or EX is one of the responsibilities of the to their employees, they discover that key touchpoints
BU’s / regions implement as Develop & test prototypes CHRO or head of Talent. and drivers of EX NPS, rarely have anything to do with HR.
directed
What are the challenges these companies need to EX Persona 3- “EX-Transformed” – These companies
Co-create ‘what works’, ID
HR measures compliance overcome to move up? In many cases, their business and/ start with a more open approach to EX, preferring to first
experiences, pain/joy
or HR leaders have not been exposed to or experienced listen to, empathize with and understand the different
firsthand more transformative EX practices and have not journeys and Moments that Matter that people naturally
Original design is maintained, Study who, what, where, when &
seen the real business value of EX. Often an Analytics- have, including but not exclusive to HR processes. They
with minor tweaks why of behavior
based insight that challenges their conventional thinking look and operate more like CX and Marketing than HR
about what is really driving behavior can break the ice. and work almost entirely in Agile teams – squads or
Solution: complete, untested Problem: defined by those closest to the source
In our view, there are 3 distinct “Organizational Personas” that personify where companies are in their EX Implementation We find that when organizations first build a strong CX clusters. Their Analytics function integrates customer and
today: function, they are able to extrapolate the value to EX. employee insights. They’ve moved beyond HR processes
and programs with roles that focus on Organization
EX Persona 2- “HR-Centric” - This is where the vast Design, Physical & Digital workspace and changing the
majority of organizations are today who have made some business model. They have started to integrate customer
progress implementing EX. They have built personas and employee journeys and the EX leader is frequently
and journeys and critical EX capabilities including Agile head of both CX and EX.
teams. They are often well-organized and resourced, and
their focus is almost exclusively on Employee Lifecycle,
HR systems and processes e.g. Recruiting, Onboarding,
Performance Management, Learning & Development, and
Off-boarding (Leaving the company).
12 13
2.2. Key Trends for 2020

In our research and consulting this last year, we’ve noted • “Engagement: Culture as a competitive advantage”
Empathy is the portal into Design Thinking and EX
the 3 following areas of critical activity, where companies • “Defining and developing the optimal EX is crucial
are investing and growing new capabilities, leading to to our business success and, in particular, our High-
some exciting new results in EX: Performance Culture”
• “To build a better place to work”
• Creating Organizational Empathy • “We are not calling it EX - instead we call it a Culture
• Building & Scaling New EX Capabilities Journey”
• Agile Becomes the New Normal
77% of respondents also say that “Transforming the
Culture” is “very” or “extremely difficult”, and ranked rank it
Creating Organizational Empathy at the top of challenges to building EX.
“Employee Experience is often defined as “How it feels If creating a positive Culture is one of the most critical
to work here” and connects to the role “Culture” really characteristics relative to creating positive Employee
plays in organizations, creating a “feeling”, climate and Experience, how have successful EX companies have Ideally, the first five activities above should lead to the 2came up with ways to improve the Employee Experience”,
environment for success. done it? last one of creating personal connection, or they are of you should be extremely skeptical. This is just re-branding
little or no value. Personal connection is core to Empathy. what has always been done e.g. leaders assuming they
This is why EX is at the forefront of Culture Change in One of the most consistent findings in our research the Brené Brown talks about this connection in her masterful know what their people need.
companies around the world. past 3 years is that successful EX Pioneers have developed YouTube video on how Empathy drives Connection. Brown
both muscle and capability around “Organizational also cites research done by Theresa Wiseman, who did a Almost as ineffective is having HR people in a room talking
In our Global EX Survey, we see companies giving the Empathy”. This is seen in a variety of activities. A few “Concept Analysis of Empathy“, and came up with these 4 about and creating Employee Journeys when what they
following, actual culture-related reasons for “Why we do examples include: “Defining Attributes” of Empathy: are doing is focusing on and sometimes promoting their
EX”: own views for HR processes e.g. Employee Lifecycle.
• Creating Personas 1. Perspective Talking - The ability to see the world as
• “To create a working environment that allows people • Journey Mapping others see it What is happening in many organizations is they are getting
to realize their potential” • Analytics Insights 2. Being Non-judgmental – allowing that what others ahead of themselves into Solution Mode, forgetting the
• “To attract, engage and inspire employees to be their • Interviews – both structured and unstructured experience is their truth first steps in Design Thinking, the “First Diamond” of the
best in a safe, transparent and engaging environment” • Understanding Moments that Matter 3. Understanding another’s feelings Double Diamond model. Organizational Empathy is the
• Building “personal connection” 4. Communicating that understanding portal into Design Thinking and EX.
Brown says that, “In order to connect with you, I have to I had one HR leader insist to me that he could stand in for his
connect with something vulnerable within myself that customers in a Journey Mapping session because, it was
knows that feeling. And rarely can a response make “his business” to know everything his customers needed.
77%
something better. What makes it better is ‘Connection’.” Damon Deaner, Head of EX Design at IBM puts it this way
in a recent podcast: “Even as HR professionals, we’re not
We believe therefore, that creating Organizational our users. We’re not representative of how employees will
Empathy is far and away the most important thing to do use or consume our offerings. I think what’s exciting about
of respondents ranked to successfully transform the Culture to one that is EX- these practices and mental models and frameworks, like
Centric. If you want to be a bottom-up, Agile organization, Design Thinking is that they require us to look through the
Transforming the you need to know ‘What it feels like to work here.’ lens of the user, and the experiences that they have.”
Culture’ as the top We find it hard to believe that so many companies still talk
about how they are creating ‘Great EX’, when they fail to do
challenge to building EX’ the hard work of Empathizing. If you read an EX Story that
talks about how “Our management team got together and
14 15
In our current Global EX Survey, people shared the and persistent enough, then it will become an emotional working very closely together with the constituencies that they ‘nail’ how it feels coming into a new organization
following insights about “The most important things they moment and it will generate a Moment of Truth. People are ultimately going to be the end users and beneficiaries when you’re working remotely.
have learned” from doing EX: will remember it.” Sander says, “You always need to fix the of these programs. Because none of us in the team is an
pain points, because they may become moments of truth expert in every experience, we actually asked people They spent a lot of time collecting insights on the
• “It’s very difficult to constantly look at things through in the end.” (see the full case – ‘Agile & EX at ING’, later in who had gone through a transition whether they could be current Onboarding Experience, using NPS and a mix of
an Employee perspective” Case Studies). part of a steering to build the top Transgender Benefits quantitative questions as well as open text fields. Marie
• “The categories of human feelings and emotions and Facebook could offer” says: “The pilot solutions were tweaked with each iteration
how important this is” In our work with companies, we have learned the following after that, until we nailed down our program.” (see the full
• “Understanding what employees desire to experience lessons about Moments that Matter: Tudor continues, “When we started doing our project for case ‘A Seamless People Experience at InVision’, later in
directly from employees is more important than mothers, I knew nothing about pregnancy or lactation. Case Studies).
management strategies to improve EX” • Most had nothing to do with HR processes And we asked mothers to tell us about their experience,
• “The shift in mindset in HR to think about the • They focused on human interaction & emotional well- and what they thought the best experience would be. We LinkedIn is another company that works hard to create
employee as a true customer” being sat down and mapped out what they really wanted.” Organizational Empathy. Nawal Fakhoury is an EX Leader
• “Focus on the problem, not the solution” • Any digital tools enabled better human interaction and founder of the Culture Champions initiative, with 500
• “How little we know” • Wow MTM’s had the goal to support better, more Tudor says: “Don’t be afraid to ask people what they need, Culture Champions worldwide. Shujaat Ahmad is Senior
effective work fearing you cannot deliver. “95% of people we spoke Manager of People Analytics at LinkedIn and driver of
Focusing on Moments that Matter helps build • They are practical, low cost, simple, easy to implement with were very reasonable in their requests. They’re not People Analytics, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging,
Organizational Empathy because they almost always deal going to ask for something outrageous. But it was very among other key roles. (see the full case – Analytics &
with the personal connections we have at work. Moments Real Examples of Moments that Matter meaningful to them and in rolling out these programs Culture Champions at LinkedIn, later in Case Studies).
that Matter (MTM’s): are typically identified in journeys as afterwards, that the people who would be impacted and
particular moments of emotional impact and importance would benefit from these programs actually participated Shujaat and Nawal and their colleagues, have teamed
– both positive and negative. in building them. Giving ownership is empowering.” up to uncover and promote what drives great Culture
at LinkedIn by empathizing and listening to employees
A definition from Customer Experience for an MTM is: Lucien De Boeck, HR Digital Transformation Lead and using Analytics and their Culture Champions. Shujaat says
First week meeting internal
“A transformative point in time where someone does clients, who can help me Head of EX at KBC Group, talks about enlisting people that “What we do at LinkedIn is pretty unique because
something that makes a lasting emotional impression that start building relationships Preparing to return after who looking for re-assignment during a major re- LinkedIn’s business is also People Analytics. We are
with key stakeholders? Maternity leave, how to feel
changes how you feel about them and your relationship motivated about my job? structuring. Lucien says: “We had people coming to our ‘Customer Zero’”.
with them.” Alternatively described as a Moment of Truth internal job center where they look for new opportunities
(MOT). By extension, we associate how we feel about a In my first week,
Seeing my desk
First day alone
or temporary jobs, and we got them involved in our EX Shujaat works hard using Analytics to develop
for the 1st time,
how to make how do I create with the new
person with how we feel about the organization. a personal my workspace boss, how to fully work. We said: ‘Okay, go talk with employees. If you want Organizational Empathy - “What it feels like to work here”
connection and that makes me re-engage the
know I fit in the feel good and at team? to create a journey for employees, for example to support in the first weeks and months of joining the company. His
team? home?
Gaining a deeper understanding of MTM’s can tell us a leave or a sickness journey, pretend you are sick. Stay team works first to analyze disparate multiple data sets
someone’s perspective of: “How well did someone help at home and reflect on the experience of being sick try to e.g. compensation data, market data, engagement, open
me in a moment of critical need?” Focusing on MTM’s gather lots of information: What do you want to do? What’s text, and attrition data in the first months on the job and
or MOT’s allows you to concentrate your energy on most important to you?” (see the full case ‘EX Driving define inflection points and key moments and predictors
experiences that matter. The value of our EX offerings Innovation at KBC Group’, later in Case Studies). for when people where people are most engaged, and
should ideally be assessed by how well we address where they are likely to leave.
MTM’s. And our goal is to make MTM’s into positive or Marie Kretlow, Senior Experience Designer at InVision,
‘Wow’ MTM’s. Tudor Havriliuc is VP HR at Facebook and over the past says: “EX is about creating empathy for your people. They ask, “Are we losing people at a specific time, a time
5 years has been working on building and scaling the Defining the problem that they’re having and then moving that, if we zoomed in, we could highlight an onboarding
Sander de Bruijn, Head of Global Employee Experience at People Strategy and People Proposition. He talks about into ways to solve it—that framework is critical. Listening issue?” They use that data to define the problems people
ING, says people “Tend to focus on the things that really how Facebook “customizes our programs by first listening with empathy and letting go of your own assumptions are trying to solve. In the end they identify specific
matter which is the personal connection.” Sander and his to the communities that need these services. For example, about people’s needs is crucial for anyone who wants to hotspots and then address these.
team say that Moments of Truth or Moments that Matter Transgender Benefits or our nursing rooms and mothers’ embark on the EX journey.”
are what really sticks: “People forget the rest, but they will rooms.” (see the full case – Building Organizational LinkedIn’s Culture initiatives, came from a need that was
remember the personal connections”. Empathy at Facebook’ later in Case Studies). Marie’s work of building EX is all the more complicated identified from empathizing, listening to and understanding
because most of their 800 employees across the US are employees. And Nawal with her team and her network
ING also found out that “if a pain point is repetitive enough Tudor says, “We co-create and build these programs remote workers. It was especially critical, therefore, that of Culture Champions have operationalized these and
16 17
developed strong, professional delivery capabilities for To achieve success in these initiatives EX, is organizing these people into Agile teams. Agile is
how they test and implement these programs. in a company the size of Walmart, also something that can be implemented in any size of
Kristin has built and scaled her team organization, reducing layers of management and erasing
Shujaat describes the LinkedIn Culture in this way: “I of nearly 100 people—the number boundaries between silos. These teams respond in an EX
would say it’s a very humane culture. You will see with and makeup evolves and changes context to “problems to solve” and “Moments that Matter”
anyone going through a problem in their life, people to best support the business and in EX Journey Maps, co-creating with internal customers
actually jumping in without anyone asking! And leaders capitalize on economies of scale. new product portfolios. In the scheme of Design Thinking
jumping in, going there to make the most out of helping frameworks, Agile teams come into play ideally in the
the person and their family. Whether there’s something Kristin has come to highly value skills “Ideating”, “Prototyping” and “Testing” phases, after we
professional or personal. I worked at a lot of places where relating to Product Management, have “Empathized” and “Defined” employee needs.
I haven’t seen that! And I think that’s something that you Marketing and Agile, as well as UX.
can’t quantify.” She says, “We need tech partners and In companies we work with who are using Agile
UX designers to be immersed in our frameworks, they are organizing their people in “squads”
And the result? LinkedIn is consistently ranked in the Top work. I believe there will always be or “clusters” – teams of ideally 7 people, headed by a
5 Places where tech people want to work, in two recent the day-to-day strategic components Product Owner. These teams decide which processes or
polls. of HR, but the ability to build these programs they want to define as “Products” and create a
new capabilities and talent will be “Product Backlog”. They consist of a Product Owner and a
• What have you found effective in creating even more critical in the future. The rich mix of experts from different functions e.g. designers,
Organizational Empathy in your workplace? ability to invent, innovate, and solve storytellers, facilities, communications, digital, learning,
• What are the most important insights you’ve big problems in real-time requires etc. and an Agile Coach (or Scrum Master) who acts as
discovered about Moments that Matter? an agile product mindset. Bringing For this EX project, they brought in a Product Owner of both coach and the gatekeeper, helping them follow the
• For which EX programs do you want to develop more in some of these new skill sets, gathering new insights, the app, and organized a team with a Scrum Master, two Agile framework, and removing roadblocks.
empathic insights? building solutions, and operationalizing what you discover analysts and another person in charge of communication,
is the new wave of HR.” as well as developers. They also organized bottom-up an These teams will use Agile frameworks such as Scrum and
extended ‘virtual’ team involved in EX. Sprint, which each focus on rapid prototyping of minimum
Building & Scaling New EX Capabilities Kristin says, “The roles we hire for are not purely viable products (MVP’s) in a product portfolio (Sprint
HR focused—we have marketers, product owners, Lucien says: “We do not have a big budget behind this referring to time box iterations within Scrum). Design
Walmart (over 2 million employees) is the largest company storytellers, and workplace designers. We have shifted effort. We are a team of two people, but we have a real Sprints are a five or ten-day process for responding to
in the world – by far. How does a company of that size even parts of our HR organization and general thinking to a more community of people in our business.” Borrowing people critical business questions
think about creating Employee Experience? Kristin Reilly – product-focused approach, using Agile methodology to from inside the company in Marketing, UX Design, Product through design,
Head of People Experience, a global COE at Walmart (see create problem statements and build solutions through Management and Agile is a great way to make anyone’s prototyping, and testing
the full case - ‘Scaling EX at the Fortune One’ later in Case the development of MVPs and constant iteration based EX team scalable – for both boom and bust. You’re not ideas with customers.
Studies). on insights and learnings.” building in FTE’s dedicated to HR. That’s the best thing
about the model that Kristin has built at Walmart – anyone For example, Olivier
Kristin says “Our main challenge is typically scale: How “All of these capabilities were a mix of build and buy— can do it and it works for literally any size of company. Dubuisson at BP set
can we meet associates where they are in a global, many of these people were inside Walmart already,” Kristin up squads to design
matrixed organization with so much variety in roles and says. She also says that getting those people to work in • What are the roles in your company that you could prototypes and turn
experiences? Personalization is important, but it requires HR and build great experiences for Walmart People was make use of to scale your EX? problems into “Products”
us to think about how we create frameworks and guiding an easy sell. • How would you convince them to work on EX? and decide priority, etc.
principles for experiences that enable the business • How would you help them integrate with your HR They used the inputs they
leaders to have the flexibility to adapt to their needs.” She Lucien De Boeck, HR Digital Transformation Lead and Business Partners and other HR roles? gathered on “Moments
calls it “flexibility within a framework.” Head of EX at KBC Group, a 42,000 employee Bank that Matter” and drivers
insurer, headquartered in Brussels, only has himself and in the problem definition
The Walmart PX team focused on building three initiatives Sandra Mertens, Innovation and EX Manager, working full- Agile Becomes the New Normal stage to zero in on success
to scale: time on EX. So they found and organized others across drivers to be measured.
1. The Associate Value Proposition the organization to work in an Agile team to build their Going along with the idea of bringing in a wide variety An Agile “Onboarding
2. Measurement of EX and Employee App, which acts like a ‘Butler’ for employee of new skills e.g. marketing, UX, product owners, Team” at BP consisted of
3. Journey Mapping needs that solves any problem in 20 seconds. storytellers, and workplace designers, etc. to help create 7 people - from Facilities,
18 19
Communications, IT, Recruiting, and an Agile Coach. HX Playbook
Sander de Bruijn, Head of Global Employee Experience at From our 3 years of research and consulting, we have developed this ‘HX Playbook’ that takes you through 3
ING, which is known for being an Agile organization, talks main stages of HX/EX development. We start exploring very broadly to discover the natural ways people experience
about starting out from the beginning with that mindset, work and journeys and gradually refine these into touchpoints, Moments that Matter (MTM’s), and then design
as they analyzed and built journeys. new, improved journeys and turn MTM’s into Wow! Moments that deliver highest impact.
Sander says: “If you are just getting started with employee
experience management, then approach it Journey by
Journey, like onboarding or getting paid or leaving the
company, anything along the employee lifecycle. Then,
start designing the team from the journey, deductively.”
Sander says they organized Agile teams, in squads,
around each journey, where an EX expert lead works with
an Agile Coach to make sure everyone follows the same
methodology.”
Sander talks about integrating Agile with EX: “With

Agile-based methodology it is actually simple: you start
with exploration, identify a potential problem and then
you start digging out everything that is connected to
the problem. That really helps to validate the problem,
creating certainty. Then you go into a solution phase, and
afterwards go into a market phase and scale up.” around Agile in 2-week Sprints, and collectively driving
the new strategy in those new Agile infrastructures.”
As part of their goal to build a “Future-proof Bank”, ABN Frank says, “We are now actually busy creating an HR
AMRO incorporated EX into one of the pillars of their Business Partner pool to make HR business and HR
banking strategy with monthly and quarterly portfolio consultancy more Agile, unlike the dedicated “trusted
reviews. As part of their own Agile HR transformation, they advisor” role which we used to have in the Ulrich model.”
asked “What does Agile mean in our setting?” They did Read more about ABN AMRO’s Agile Transformation in our
extensive training across their HR organization on how to cases.”
run Design Sprints and built new roles and skills around
Agile, Digital and Service Design. (see the full case – EX What impresses me most in seeing how ABN AMRO
Roadmap for a FutureProof Bank, later in Case Studies). does Agile, is that it is through the interaction they have
with employees and business stakeholders that they set
Roughly 6,000 people at ABN AMRO now work in an Agile priorities and define value.
work environment. Beginning with all their IT-related HR
activities, ABN AMRO started back in 2017 working in an Agile helps HR talk and act like the rest of the business,
Agile set up - called the “HR grid”. Frank van den Brink, with the same kinds of success criteria and measurements
Chief EX Officer at ABN AMRO says, “Then we started to for success.
look at leveraging Agile towards non-traditional, non-IT
departments, within HR.” • What journeys have you identified where Agile teams
could best help you prototype new products?
“Our goal was to have a multidisciplinary grid of end-to- • Who could serve as your Product Owners Agile,
end teams, with backlog and definition of epics and user Coaches and your other team members?
stories like talent acquisition or learning programs. And • Which new Agile skills would you want to teach and
that’s when we transitioned people from CoE specialist scale in your HR organization?
roles, into Product Owners, with new ways of working
20 21
Employee Experience Leaders

2.3. Conclusion
Share Their Stories
Where EX is going EX Roadmap to a Future-proof Bank at ABN AMRO
from here
Frank van den Brink, Patrick Coolen, Luuk Sombezki and Sjoerd Kueter
Building Organizational Empathy at Facebook

It’s exciting to watch the kinds of insights and results that companies are getting by creating Tudor Havriliuc
Organizational Empathy (How does it feel to work here?), and pulling in new kinds of diverse
capabilities from across their organization (and from the outside), and adopting Agile methodologies
to rapidly co-create and prototype new customer-focused solutions. We must keep in mind that the Agile and EX at ING
purpose of all this is to drive “Connection” and Wow Moments that Matter between people, which
Sander de Bruijn
will in turn drive business results.
We’ve focused a lot still on HR-related solutions. Companies who are most evolved with EX
A Seamless People Experience at InVision
frameworks are turning their attention, as we said earlier, to transforming their business model, the
design of their organization (teams, workflow, structures, processes, etc.) as well as their physical Marie Kretlow
and digital workspace. The end goal is sustainability and competitive advantage via happy people
who feel more connected with their work, and the other people they interact with.
EX Driving Innovation at KBC Group
Many of the more advanced HR organizations we spoke with are using the learning from building Lucien De Boeck and Sandra Mertens
these new skills to think about which capabilities and ways of working will be needed to execute the
Future of Work. If EX roles are designed for now and the near future, what kinds of new capabilities
will we need as we build more consumerized organizations for the changing brand and personal Analytics & Culture Champions at LinkedIn
values and demographics of tomorrow’s workforce, many of whom will not be full-time employees,
Nawal Fakhoury and Shujaat Ahmad
and who will increasingly work with AI and robots.
Walmart: Scaling EX at the ‘Fortune One”

Kristin Reilly
22 23
CAS E STU DY
Tell us about the roadmap you have followed strategy – in 2018 we reinvented EX at ABN AMRO
these past 2 years and what you consider as and focused on the People side on how to build a
your proudest milestones? ‘Future-proof Bank’. And part of that approach was to
incorporate EX into our banking strategy with monthly
Frank: “The smartest thing that we did 2 years ago was to and quarterly portfolio reviews”.
place EX in the center of the broader transformation of our
HR services and operating model. We did that the same Frank: “Our last milestone is more recent: we just launched
time that CX was being positioned on the Marketing and our HR story and narrative for the future, laid out in three
business side as part of our company-wide restructuring chapters. The first chapter covers what is happening in
that was going on. So CX and EX both played a central role the future of banking, the second chapter is “What is our
in reshaping the business back then. That decision was an HR response?” This includes How do we build the future
important first milestone.” workforce? How do we build on critical skills for now and
in the future?” “How do we define the new ecosystem of
“There were several important things going on at the learning and do more skill-based learning? How do we do
same time. We said, if we believe in the principle of things smarter, faster and more fun? How do we attract
“Happy People = Happy Clients”, then we should create talent? How do we make leadership more contemporary
a platform to allow our people to be the best version of and inspiring? And how can we reinvent our EX platform?”
themselves while they are with us. Making things more
urgent was the fact that Financial Services was changing
fast, unpredictability was still high and people were
wondering what sense of belonging or purpose do I get
from working for a bank?
EX Roadmap to a “We followed that up with several key moves:
Future-proof Bank at ABN AMRO

• Changing our way of working – running employee
listening sessions, introducing personas and service
design and journey mapping in small groups, with
10 to 20 people initially, gathering a lot of data in
order to tell us how people are feeling, behaving and
We first profiled Frank van den Brink and his
experiencing ABN AMRO as an employer. That’s how
team at ABN AMRO as ‘EX Pioneers’ in our
it all started.
2017 Report. Frank is now Chief Employee
• Modifying the way we manage and lead HR - we
Experience Officer at ABN AMRO and has
asked HR services to merge everything into what we “The final chapter in our story is our own agile HR
helped lead the transformation to a more
now call the portfolio of HR Digital. We carved out the transformation. What does Agile mean in our setting?
Agile and integrated organization, working traditional CoE’s and put these roles in our portfolio What kind of skills do we need? How do we share and
with all functions touching People. and had them create projects that were part of our develop our services model? How do we invest in different
Frank van der Brink Patrick Coolen backlog and pitched these to the business. opportunities for HR colleagues for now and in the future?
Chief EX Officer Head of People Analytics
We interviewed Frank, plus Patrick Coolen, • Building new capability - we did extensive training
How do we collaborate and partner with all EX-related
departments in the organization e.g. IT, Communications,
Head of People Analytics, Sjoerd Kueter, on how to run Design Sprints and built new roles
Facility Management - to cover the full scope on EX and
Director HR Digital & Service Delivery and Luuk and skills around Agile, Digital and Service Design.
define the future of work.”
We changed what we expect from our future HR
Sombezki, Head of Employee Experience.
colleagues, including management team members.
“This puts in writing our roadmap towards building a
We restructured 50 percent of the management
Future-proof bank. We’ve launched it with the Executive
layers and launched a new organization in April 2017.
Committee and Executive Boards and within the HR teams
• We made EX one of the 3 main pillars of our business and we’re now translating that into an employee story for
Sjoerd Kueter Luuk Sombezki the bank, launching beginning of next year.”
Director HR Digital & Service Delivery Head of Employee Experience.
24 25
What did your roadmap look like for Analytics “To understand your employees there is not one single data implementations that they’re doing or start doing new How do you see the roles of EX and Engagement
and Digital? source that provides you with all the insights. You have to things.” surveys – will EX replace Engagement or will
combine different data sources they co-exist?
Patrick: “We have been doing People Analytics now for in a smart way like survey data, Sjoerd: “We’ve just mapped all of our methodologies
six years. And over the years we developed some more HR contact data, business data (e.g. how we use Service Design, Lean Start-Up and Patrick: “There are definitely similarities but also
products like Strategic Workforce Management and and HR transactional data. By Design Thinking) and the required capabilities into an differences. In our case the annual engagement survey is
Survey Management. Our main goal has always been to doing that you will be able to ‘EX Playbook’ which formalizes how we approach EX. directly asking feedback from our employees on topics
support decision-making in and outside HR on workforce identify groups of persona’s, This allows us to further spread this way of working more like their direct manager, leadership, sustainability, work-
topics and to create a more fact-based mind set. Because regions, business lines or deeply into the organization. “ life balance, efficiency etc. These are all very important
Employee Experience is at the heart of our corporate and processes that allows you to topics from the perspective of the organization. Our
HR strategy, we started within our Survey Management focus on specific problems or “We’ve created an ‘EX Circle’ consisting of people from Employee Experience survey does not dictate any topics
team to define and measure Employee Experience in opportunities. Because in the HR, Digital Workplace, Communications and Facilities upfront. We simply ask our employees what they like and
2019.” end it is all about using data to Management, the four areas that most regularly touch EX. don’t like about working for our organization. The results
drive the right actions!” In the Circle we look at the backlog for these four areas show that topics overlap but the EX survey also reveals
“Currently our HR Analytics team exists of ten people, and see what work we need to be doing to improve EX, for new topics and more detailed context because of the
pretty much equally divided over People Analytics, Luuk: “As Patrick mentions, there example how can we set up an EX service desk? Where open questions.”
Strategic Workforce Planning and Survey Management. is not a single data source which can someone go for help with a facilities issue, etc.”
Within People Analytics we look at questions like: ‘Are provides you with all the insights. If you look at onboarding “Another difference besides closed versus open questions
our learning interventions effective and if not what for instance, we collect data in several ways: “The last initiative we’re working on is our work as an is the full survey versus sample surveys. We conduct our
should we change? or ‘Does team size and composition Agile HR organization. We started working Agile in our HR engagement survey once a year in a full survey whereas
impact customer satisfaction or sales?’ or ‘What is 1. People joining ABN AMRO are asked to activate our Grid (HR Digital teams) and now we are around 60% fully the EX survey is done per month on a 10% sample of the
driving absenteeism and how can we minimize it as an onboarding app from Talmundo for the first three Agile all over HR. This was and still is quite a journey. But organization. Sampling is important to avoid survey fatigue
organization? or ‘What is blocking employees from using months. Within the app we ask questions about we see great opportunities in further developing our HR and is robust enough to draw conclusions on global and
their full potential? All examples of relevant questions that specific moments that matter, like “To what extent is organization in a more Agile way.” business line level.. So yes, there is overlap in content but
are driven by our curiosity to improve the careers of our it clear what is expected of you?” or “How was your the differences are organization drive versus employee
employees and the performance of our organization.” first week?”. Throughout their onboarding experience driven, full survey versus samples, closed questions
at ABN AMRO we continually ask feedback about versus open questions. We will evaluate in time if there
“As mentioned we are focusing on Employee Experience specific touch points when they happen. It gives are opportunities or a necessity to choose one of the two.”
in the last year. What are our employees telling us and us valuable insights in how people experience our
what can we learn from that and do about it? Another onboarding process.
term we use for this is continuous employee listening. Our 2. We use our EX methodology (based on Service
People Analytics and survey management practices work Design) to find the right problem and solve the
closely together to understand what our employees are problem right by co-creating with our employees.
telling us. In our survey, the main question is ‘Would you We do this with onboarding, but also with different Combining HR EX and Digital HR as key drivers
recommend ABN AMRO as an employer to your friends services we offer as HR.
and family?’” 3. We do our monthly EX survey that Patrick mentioned
– typically we have four open text questions and we
Patrick continues: “Then we have some open questions. put it through text mining to detect what topics were
‘What are you happy about and what should we mentioned most and correlate with other data.”
improve?’. Based on these simple questions we are doing
sophisticated text / topic analyses on our survey data. We Luuk continues: “If we want to deep dive about one
also are using this topics for modeling. Are specific topics single topic or touchpoint, we also use our employee
impacting customer satisfaction, performance or any community. It is an online community where, every other
other business goal? And where suitable and useful we week, we can post a specific topic and where employees
combine the survey data with data that is already available have a dialogue and provide valuable insights to us which
in, for example, our recruitment or learning systems.” helps us better understanding their needs.”
right actions. And of course we track if topics disappear
over time.” “All the data insights are shared with our product owners
so they can use that data to see if it’s useful to change
26 27
“Currently, we have 140- 150 people in HR working in an learned for us is ‘Keep it simple.’ If you want to do a super
Agile-supported environment, with capabilities like Agile intelligent framework - save it for later, and just start small.”
Coaching and Product Owners formalized in new roles.
That is out of 250-260 people. We’re 60 percent Agile
now.” What are the biggest challenges that you’ve
faced in all of this?
“We are now actually busy creating an HR Business
Partner pool to make HR business and HR consultancy Frank continues: “Our biggest challenge is the mindset
more Agile, unlike the dedicated ‘trusted advisor’ role in our Culture. To get all the people on the bus, we must
which we used to have in the Ulrich model.” create a growth mindset around the next steps we would
like to take in our HR transformation. We have to involve
“That’s a big change now, because it also changed our the business, as well, because it should be a business
operating model. The traditional model of HR becomes story. I believe that the best HR stories are people and
more of a flexible, Agile service model. You need to business stories, and we’re not there yet.”
have a backlog on business priorities and have all the
HR managers be in sync with that. We’re now discussing “If we can say: This is our business story and this is how
What are you most proud of with all this work? in constant flux of change. We set the scene for the future letting go the dedication of HR Business Partners below of we would like to treat people, how we help them feel
direction of where we think the organization should be what we call the “ExCo areas”. like they belong in our organization and this is how we
Frank: “I am proud that I can actually say something more going, and at the same time HR is trying to step up and differentiate in labor market and this is how we create
fact-based, on how people experience working here and show the good example to embrace that future. That’s great ambassadors and this is how we add value to their
the experiences we would like them to have. That’s always where we take a leading role in the discussion in the What are some of your key learnings? meaningful growth during a career with ABN AMRO,
the most difficult part. How do you know how people organization.” and this is how we unleash all talents and make sure
experience your organization? How do you know if we are Frank says, “First, Stakeholder management is key, but that everybody will be that best version of themselves.
capable of creating a sense of belonging and recognition? Frank says, “Roughly 6,000 people at ABN AMRO now work it can be like a swamp sometimes. You dive in and you Working on HR as a career platform. That’s something I
How do you know what the root causes are for not having in a what we call an Agile work environment. Beginning can’t get out because everybody wants to say something. would be extremely proud of. But I would like to see that
good engagement? How do you know the things that you with all our IT-related HR activities, we started back So, you need to stay practical. A very important lesson as a rallying cry coming out of business and not from HR.”
don’t know, when you start working on EX?.” in 2017 working in an Agile set up - we called it the ‘HR
grid’. Then we started to look at leveraging Agile towards
“To measure this, we developed the employee promoter non-traditional, non-IT departments, within HR. Our goal
score - EPS. It’s our approach to continuous listening, was to have a multidisciplinary grid of end-to-end teams,
where we ask our people about the different moments with backlog and definition of epics and user stories. For
that matter.. I’m quite proud of the results we’re seeing example, with talent acquisition or learning programs. And
that reflect our transformation of HR. This week, we got that’s when we transitioned people from CoE specialist
the results from our yearly Employee Engagement survey roles, into Product Owners, with new ways of working
and our overall engagement in HR went up to 87. Given around Agile in 2 week Sprints, and collectively driving the
the fact that we’re shaking up everything, people are still new strategy in those new Agile infrastructures.”
really engaged in our journey and that’s a good result as
well.” “We run a portfolio review every quarter. We invite business
and multiple stakeholders during the day. We discuss
“Another thing I’m proud of is that we are pioneering new priorities, talk about where we are with our strategy, and
roles in HR and changing the profession, thinking about we ask product owners to pitch what needs to change in
different service models or HR business model concepts their user stories. And we set priorities based on required
for the organization. This is something where we shape effort, added value and resources. And by the end of the
the future and that’s good fun.” day we connect and make decisions. And after that we
bring in other HR colleagues and we share the outcome.
“We also have a lot of fun - that is also important. It’s nice And that’s how we set priorities for not only the upcoming
to work on those topics, where HR can be difficult, with quarter but also take a bit of a structural approach from
very sensitive topics, and we are an organization which is how we follow up on strategy execution, in an Agile way.”
28 29
CAS E STU DY
What is one of the more surprising places in DevOps roles dispersed around the world. How do we
you’ve been able to use EX to change things? understand what they need and help those people to
work together and connect their purpose to ABN AMRO’s
Frank: “One of the chapters I just mentioned in our purpose?”
book, elaborates on the future work. And part of that is
how we redefined our competency and skill language. Frank: “I think EX Analytics will get a more prominent
We created a standardized approach of what we even place on the HR agenda going forward. Also what we
mean by “strategic workforce management” because it’s call now Employee Marketing - the whole marketing,
either very broad or has no relevance. So we said: ‘We product management and branding around employees.
need a playbook for how do we do Strategic Workforce For example, we have benefit statements that you can
Management.’ That’s now being finished. The important call a benefit snapshot or benefit product. But if you
thing we added was forecasting three to five years, and commercialize that statement, then it becomes employee
we’re starting to do this work for three big business lines. marketing and then you can say: All the policies behind
This is based on Service Design and Analytics insights.” that statement - you could consider those are as products.
But who is owning those products and how do we
commercialize to fully utilize the value of all those items
What are the most important things you’ve in that statement?”
learned?
“And do we actually track for utility and for impact and
Frank: “The most important thing I’ve learned is Agile for value, going forward? That’s not even happening. So I
mindset and Agile capabilities. The second one is really think the whole area of Employee Marketing will change.
practical skills. What is UX design, what is service design I think also technical or IT capabilities in HR are key, going
Creating Organizational
in practice? How do you apply design thinking to HR forward. Data capabilities as well, and we are not yet there,
services? What does it actually mean? The second to be quite honest.”
Empathy at Facebook
thing is how do you manage to get from a narrative and
a strategy towards execution in a proper way? And how “I think we still can learn a lot from the CX side. One of the
can you diminish the time in between. How to manage biggest things which we are proud of is that CX adopted
transformations is my biggest learning” some methodologies from our EX playbook. That is where
EX and CX really come together. That is a big compliment,
because two years before it was completely the other way
Tudor Havriliuc is Vice President, Human Resources,
Where do you see EX going from here? around and we were only copy-pasting from them and not
vice versa.”
and uses Employee Experience to help build and scale
Sjoerd: “For me the biggest question is creating new Facebook’s people strategy and people proposition to
capabilities for the Future of Work. All of the roles and “I believe the next step in blending CX and EX is how you support 10x headcount growth.
capabilities we’ve created so far are for now or maybe combine client journeys with employee journeys, because
in the near term. We want to use our journey maps to of course in a client journey you have touchpoints on
Facebook was rated as the Number 1 Place to Work by
identify future capabilities and do strategic workforce the employee side, and vice versa. So taking a blended
approach could be the next big thing.” Glassdoor in 2018.
planning around this. For example we have a lot of people
Tudor Havriliuc
VP of Human Resources
30 31
Why is Facebook doing EX? (What was the reason or business case?) How to get everyone on board and scale Don’t be afraid of asking people what they need, fear-
solutions? ing you cannot deliver. Tudor agrees: “95% of people we
Six years ago, Tudor Havriliuc came up with the concept of “Life@Facebook”, aimed spoke with were very reasonable in their requests. They’re
at creating more opportunities for action supporting the values that are important at You cannot pretend to be an expert about what your audi- not going to ask for something outrageous. But it was very
Facebook: collaboration, caring for one another and friendship with the aim of build- ence is going through or feels. We have to listen to them meaningful to them and in rolling out these programs af-
ing internal community. As he says: “the idea was to bring together all programs and and engage them in everything we are trying to build. terwards, that the people who would be impacted and
resources and tools and the language and marketing and brand associated with ‘care’ “We do a lot in the area of physical and mental health. We would benefit from these programs actually participated
and with that, bring an extraordinary amount of focus on caring for employees and the customize our programs by first listening to the commu- in building them. Giving ownership is empowering.”
people they care about.” nities that need these services. For example, Transgender
Benefits or our nursing rooms and mother’ rooms. We
As Tudor explains: “We did a lot of research trying to figure out ultimately: how do you co-create and build these programs working very closely What kinds of steps did you follow?
help people? How do people thrive in their lives? What does happiness really mean? together with the constituencies that are ultimately going
What are the high moments for people? We did a lot of research into different theories to be the end users and beneficiaries of these programs. As Tudor explains: “At first, we took the approach of a sur-
of happiness and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the correlation between various Because none of us in the team is an expert in every expe- vey, which is a pretty traditional approach to see what is
behaviors, contexts, external factors and people’s lives. That amounted to understand- rience, we actually asked people who had gone through wanted and needed. We also benchmarked a lot with our
ing what would ultimately be described as ‘the highest level of possible well-being’ a transition whether they could be part of a steering to peers, ran a lot of focus groups and then we reached out
that someone could have in their lives in general.” build the top Transgender Benefits Facebook could offer. again to the various constituencies that would be impact-
We learned a lot!” ed. For example, we were very small when we started
“At Facebook, it is important for our people to know that we care about them outside doing our project for mothers and I knew nothing about
of the workplace. Obviously, we care them for them deeply when they’re at work, too pregnancy or lactation. And we asked mothers to tell us
which is why our facilities and our physical setup is designed towards creating oppor- But… isn’t it expensive? about their experience, and what they thought the best
tunities for interaction and a community-feel.” experience would be. We sat down and mapped out what
No. Tudor confirms that EX doesn’t have to be a threat to they really wanted.”
“Our company has a very transparent approach to internal communications and feed- budget: “We ended up creating many solutions that were
back. We run Workplace internally, which is the Facebook platform for companies. We really meaningful but not extraordinarily expensive be-
get to know what people think, feel and experience directly from there, because we cause the population is small, but really meaningful to the
encourage people to speak up. They are empowered to tell us when something’s not people impacted. It was important to everybody else who
right or when they want something, or they need something.” felt like we were doing the right thing, to give the people
who are going through these transitions and afterwards
the best medical benefits.”
What steps did Facebook take, with its new People program?
Tudor describes that, “with Life@Facebook, we really wanted to expand far beyond the physical environment. We focused our
work on six pillars: (1) health, both physical and mental health; (2) family; (3) community; (4) convenience; (5) time away and
(6) finances.
What are some concrete examples of enhancing Employee Experience at Facebook?
“EX can mean small things like taking the load off the shoulders of your employees whenever we can.” As Tudor explains
further on pillar 4 mentioned above: “Convenience simply means taking care of the little things in your life that just accumulate
on your To Do list and give you stress. At Facebook, we want to give you resources to make the load easier for you. That has a
physical representation and also a virtual representation. So, we actually have on campus a place where you can physically go
to, it’s called the Life@Center, where you can go in with any question. It can be anything, from getting help on finding a doctor
or understanding a medical claim to asking for help making a reservation at a restaurant or putting together an itinerary for
an upcoming vacation. It’s sort of a comprehensive support/concierge type of service that allows you to speak to someone
in person or there is also an e-mail system that allows you to send these questions or request for someone to help you out
with what you need. Actually, I organized my birthday party with their support, booking caterers and a location. That is the
Concierge pillar for us.”
32 33
As time goes by, every bit of data gives a perspective of In many companies, Tudor describes, “thinking about ben-
how things evolved: “Now we’ve gone to a much more so- efits means imagining a cost center focused on personal
phisticated point with our programs, because we have a spending. The start-up culture in tech also overemphasiz-
lot of historical data and volume, because we are a much es perks at work, but, as Tudor highlights, “a lot of them
larger company than when we started.” were just for show or quite eccentric because people felt
like that would be a great differentiator in the market, that
What have you learned about how to do things would drive people to choose that company. But the truth
more in a sophisticated way? is, at the end of the day, if you don’t address the core parts
of someone’s life, in moments that matter the most, in a
Agile and
Tudor says: “we’ve invested a lot in data and analytics. We way that they feel incredibly well supported and cared for,
built a warehouse of data that allows us to incorporate a none of the other perks matter.”
Employee Experience at ING

lot of metrics and data points from both a demograph-
ic perspective and outcomes perspective, historical data Tudor also observes thoughtfully that “what I learned is
and qualitative data for example including satisfaction that there is a high deep emotional connection by touch-
and utilization of specific programs, and today we are also ing these specific areas of someone’s life. Especially the
measuring quality of care outcomes for some of our more validation that happens when you come back home and
unique programs such as our Fertility offering with Prog- your family says: ‘We were well taken care of at the doc-
ING is known for implementing Agile frameworks in many
yny. All of this to yield a strong indicator of the success tor’s office.’ Or if they couldn’t believe that this procedure
of a program or the need for its improvement or removal. was covered by the insurance we provided for them and
parts of the organization. Now Sander de Bruijn brings
We have also taken programs out e.g. when people were their families.” his Marketing and Customer Experience expertise to HR,
not really utilizing them or weren’t satisfied with them. And and has established Agile teams around their employee
that is completely fine.” Tudor emphasizes: “it is really critical to be intentional journeys, focusing on improving Moments of Truth.
about showing care for people. That plays in very close-ly
Facebook did not over-engineer the process of evaluating with motivating people to stay and work hard and be part
experiences and redesigning them. “Our culture is very of the team what made them feel like they have support
skeptical of too much process. Our approach is to have system when they come to work which is very strong and
very real and focused conversations about what we need humane.”
to do and why.”
“Our employees appreciate the fact that we are really try-
Sander de Bruijn
ing hard to minimize the stress and the distractions - big
Head of Global Employee Experience
What lessons did you learn? What would you or small, that just come with…living! If we can take part of
tell others? that burden, people can really focus on the things that still
go on, on recovering and on delivering and having impact
“The first thing is that all the ping-pong tables and free and, hopefully, doing the best work of their careers.”
sushi in the world cannot substitute that feeling of
genuinely being cared for and supported.”
34 35
Why is ING doing EX? organization in terms of needs and how to respond to
those needs. Just like you would do with your customers.”
Sander explains: “Through our digital transformation Sander’s personal goal is to integrate ING’s customer
that started a couple of years ago, ING has set the experience approach to the field of People Service
ambition to build the digital bank of tomorrow, offering Delivery within the broader field of Employee Experience.”
a differentiating customer experience that empowers
customers to stay a step ahead. Becoming a bank that How to build an EX team?
has its customers as a starting point, rather than anything
else, really turned things around, also in small things: the “Employee Experience in ING is not new. However, each
amount of ING employees wearing sneakers to work has country has had its own approach until now. In our effort to
grown immensely!” build an employee experience management practice on
a global scale, we approach it journey by journey, starting
“Within our strategy, we also re-focused on our HR with the journeys that are owned for the majority by HR,
purpose, aiming to maximize the engagement and like Onboarding or getting paid or leaving the company,
capabilities of people so they can deliver on ING’s strategy. anything along the employee lifecycle. We started with
We do this by focusing on creating greater leaders and looking at Onboarding in The Netherlands and designed
better managers and offering people services that create the team from the journey, deductively, consisting of
a differentiating employee experience” representatives from different departments, such as disciplines are represented, like a facility management customer satisfaction survey and the open text fields that
Facilities management, IT, People Services and People expert, someone in IT, and an HR business partner were attached to specific touchpoints such as ‘Getting my
Sander de Bruijn joined a department called People Analytics.” representing the management teams. It is important to contract’ or ‘Accepting my offer.’ This is still in an early stage,
Services in late 2018, to add an EX approach to the have a representation of employees who can really take but when we work according to this standard for journey
rollout of a global standardized People Services process, Sander describes ING’s Way of Working, which he intends ownership for different touchpoints in the journey, but you mapping and data collection, you can imagine how much
including technology. At the time of the interview, Sander to roll out globally, where continuous improvement teams also need people who can talk about feasibility and make valuable and actionable insights we will collect and how
has been in his role for only 9 months. He was hired for are organized in multi-disciplinary squads. In these squads improvements in systems, processes or communications. much better we will understand which improvements in
his excellent marketing background, and has already are Customer/Employee Journey Experts, working with And the sooner you tackle that, with everyone involved Employee Experience will impact employee engagement
brought fresh perspectives to HR. As Sander explains, Agile coaches to make sure everyone follows the same the sooner you can validate whether a possible solution is and ultimately bring value to the company.”
“the mindshift takes place when you stop limiting your methodology. also feasible, at a very early stage.”
thinking in terms of policies and processes, and you begin It is crucial to create touch point accountability, whether
to understand interactions between employees and their Sander continues saying: “It is important that relevant The journey from CX to EX it’s in an HR department or it’s a manager or it’s an IT
department. “You want to make accountability as specific
Sander says: “There is still a lot EX can incorporate from CX, as possible and only if you work towards that goal with an
in terms of strategy, approach and process management, Agile, multidisciplinary team end-to-end can you achieve
such as journey mapping and dashboards that can give that”, says Sander.
you a real-time overview of what is happening in certain
customer journey experiences. That gives us a 3D look at How do you integrate Agile methodologies with
things, If you start from the process, it will be difficult to EX?
really start designing from the employee’s perspective.
If you start with the employee, you will much sooner “To facilitate our digital transformation and respond faster
find where a process is inefficient or where you need to to changing customer needs we are introducing one
challenge certain policies or risk controls.” Agile Way of Working (WoW) across ING. This unites us in
multidisciplinary, cross-functional teams and empowers
By starting to use the same journey mapping tool as us to collaborate more easily across the organization. An
their CX department, the EX team at ING will be able to important part of this Way of Working and essential to
connect to HR, IT and Facility Management processes: creating a differentiating customer/ employee experience
“We have started feeding in the data that we get out of the is our PACE methodology.”
surveys on touchpoint level, so you can really see what
happens and who should take action to fix a touchpoint
that is broken. We will be able to open the ratings from the
36 37
“PACE is ING’s structured innovation process. PACE ask again for what they perceived as problematic, using onboarded, they tend to forget all the inefficiencies in the Lessons learned for getting started with EX
encourages rapid launch of new products and services the knowledge generated in the first phase to complete process and they tend to focus on the things that really
developed by small, autonomous, cross disciplinary their understanding. matter which is the personal connection.” For anyone who is just getting started with EX, Sander
teams. It combines Design Thinking, Lean Start-up and recommends to first start measuring by listening and
Agile methods into a process tailored to ING’s needs. Repeating this exercise, after interviewing 30 people, Sander Sander and his team knew that they needed to focus analyzing data as you go, to create a baseline. “Consider
PACE ensures that we follow a common process and came to the conclusion that “expectation management on Moments of Truth because that’s what really sticks: that the basics of everything you do is to start getting your
terminology throughout ING globally. If you have a great and clarity are the most important things in Onboarding in “People forget the rest, but they will remember that”. They insights, whether it’s measuring with surveys, whether it’s
idea for improvement, PACE will quickly take you through ING. People want to know where they are in the process also found out that “if a pain point is repetitive enough interviewing, simply start talking to people and let them
the process of assessing its potential and deciding if and and what they need to do. Secondly, how can you make and persistent enough, then it will become an emotional share with you their problems”.
how best to move forward.” sure that new joiners create personal connections that help moment and it will generate a new Moment of Truth.
them to engage faster with their new job and organization, People will remember it. You always need to fix the pain “It’s a tempting trap to assume what people struggle with
“PACE projects are split into 5 Phases: Explore, Problem so powerfully that they might forget everything else that points, because they may become Moments of Truth in the and what they would like to have instead, but Sander warns:
Fit, Solution Fit, Market Fit, and Scale. Completing a phase is negative? As a result of these “Problem fit” validations end.” “don’t think ‘this is a no brainer, let’s go do it’, because it’s
is a prerequisite for progressing to the next phase: you we decided to re-design the Onboarding journey in The always different than you thought. What you design for
start with exploration, then identify the problem you are Netherlands with a lot more focus on a warm welcome and At ING, good employee experience starts with a good one country does not necessarily have to be relevant for
solving and dig out everything that is connected to the on clear instructions, than we deemed necessary at first.” manager experience. Sander emphasizes “that managers another country. So make sure you listen and you validate
problem, validating with relevant user groups to create might be playing the most important role. Managers do every time. Wherever you go, the situation changes so it is
certainty. Then you go into a solution phase where you EX focus: Creating better managers and great not have the time to read through a long copy. They just crucial to have the target audience covered.”
experiment with prototypes of a solution before you go leaders need to know what they need to do next and that you will
into Market phase where you build and test a Minimum guide them through the process.” Secondly, Sander continues: “make sure you gather
Viable Product of your innovation / improvement and Sander says: “Choosing to develop our management together enthusiasts around you because they will get
when all lights are green you are ready to implement at capabilities within ING comes from the belief that How is the impact of EX actions measured at you started”. That includes tapping into other, existing
scale.” regardless of what you do in EX, if a manager relationship ING? global networks in Employer Branding, Corporate
with an employee is not good, if an employee doesn’t Communications and HR, Sander is now building his
“No matter how many experts are in the room, the have the feeling that he or she is adding value or they don’t “In The Netherlands we are now testing a system of global EX community from different teams who are really
assumptions they make do not always fit employee have the clarity all about their job or if they do not get the touchpoint measurements where Moments of Truth and enthusiastic and passionate about the topic and engages
perception.” From his experience, Sander witnessed appreciation from their manager then…they will leave. They effortless moments measured with an open question: them with every occasion. When people are passionate
that “people will go through their journeys in their own will leave for that, not because their laptop was not ready “How was your experience?” People can rate the and believe EX can actually make things better around
way and can take different routes. Dependent on their on day one.” The development of management capability experience from 1 to 5 which generates a Satisfaction or them, they are more than willing to spend extra time to
needs, they will find certain experiences cumbersome, is not the primary role of EX, but enabling peer-to-peer an Effort score and they have an open text field for making help.”
while other do not have any problems. And some and manager relationships and measuring if management comments. At the end of each journey we will also ask a
improvements are much less impactful than the design capability development programs are working out, are Journey NPS question.” “Lastly, there is no need to try to reinvent the wheel, just
team assumed, while others will have a huge impact. The areas where EX needs to play a role in partnership with learn from what customer experience specialists have
more reason to always validate.” HR.” For engagement, Sander describes “a continuous listening been doing for 15 years. It’s almost the same. When you
model where we, once every two years, do a pulse survey start thinking and designing from employee needs, you
As an example, Sander recently organized an Onboarding EX focus: How to create a differentiating every quarter and an all employee survey every year. will be more successful and have more engaged, higher
redesign workshop with some of the fresh joiners: employee experience: make it personal, smart We are really trying to build the connection between performing teams and ultimately create business value
“Together with journey experts, we divided them in and easy individual experiences and the drivers of engagement.” with EX management.”
four groups and every group had a part of the process,
like ‘Accepting the offer’ or ‘Day One readiness’ or Talking about their findings, Sander states: “What we Sander continues: “We are looking into technology
‘Induction Day’. They worked out the problems and their learned in this Onboarding process in The Netherlands and vendors to automate much more, such as having
prioritization. What is nice to have? What is a must have? is that candidates or new hires often experienced a automated surveys being triggered on the basis of certain
Only afterwards did they start designing and prototyping cumbersome pre-Onboarding experience in ING.” events. “Ultimately, it would be great to really go into
possible solutions.” an automated digital listening mode where we can also
Things did not always go smoothly and this could impact include external sources like employer review platforms
But the process did not stop there. After a month, with a engagement on Day 1. From Day 1 on, helpful colleagues or or system data from our HRIS or from our ticketing
new batch of recently onboarded people, they collected and the personal connection makes up for a lot of that. system or from any other tools that we use. But that’s the
survey responses and conducted in-depth interviews, to And if you interviewed them three months after they future and that’s what I dream of.”
38 39
CAS E STU DY
Why is InVision doing EX? (What was the reason What steps did they take?
or business case?)
Marie explains that “the first thing we did was... talk to
Marie Kretlow is a User Experience (UX) designer by trade, people. We went and figured out what was actually
so her thinking about EX has been inspired and influenced happening with onboarding as it was, auditing the
by UX. With her background in digital experience and current state. We mapped everything out, not only from
product, she wondered what it would be like to bring that a customer experience perspective, or from an employee
same design methodology and process to employees, experience perspective, but the full stack of what made
making it part of the foundation of their people strategy. that experience possible—what our team was doing, what
When she talks about the business “why” behind this the IT team was doing, what managers were doing, what
initiative, she reflects that: “Empathy and authenticity are systems and processes were in place.”
core to InVision’s culture. We invest in our employees as
‘whole people’ and support their work-life experiences “We made a blueprint of current-state Candidate to New
in the best ways we can. It is just the right thing to do. Hire experience. We gathered quantitative data—such as:
By focusing on this, we help to create an environment what is actually happening, how many people are going
where each employee feels motivated and empowered through these steps, what does that look like across the
to do what they need to do for their role, which positively organization—and paired that with qualitative data from
impacts what we can achieve together as a business.” talking to people one-to-one to bring in more context
and nuance. The exploration gave us clear insight into the
Marie says that at InVision, “when we think about employee opportunities and challenges that we were going to face
experience, we consider every touchpoint. From the tiny as we built the program.”
moments to the biggest milestones—from a person’s first
A Seamless
interaction with our employer brand as a candidate, all the She continues: “Once we had all of that input mapped and
way through the entire employee lifecycle, and up until established, we went far and wide to re-imagine what it
People Experience at InVision

their last day—hopefully we’ve made a positive impression could be. So, no holds barred, if we could do anything we
during that time and even beyond that.” wanted, what would we do for employee Onboarding?
We uncovered a lot through that creative process. We
defined design principles to guide the experience of the
How did InVision build Employee Experience? program, created a lightweight persona to define our
target audience, and ultimately zeroed in on our minimum
InVision is a software as a service company, building
Part of a team of two designers, Marie sits within viable product. Rather than focusing on everything that
tools for connecting the entire digital product design
InVision’s People Development group. She says that happens in someone’s first week, we wanted to focus on
workflow, and they have greatly increased in size over the “What is really wonderful is that our entire People Team the experience of belonging and engagement.”
last couple of years. We find this case compelling for how embraces designing for our users and starting from a
design thinking can be applied when kick-starting EX to place of empathy. That is baked into our DNA as a design As Marie describes: “To roll this program out, we started
company. Our People Team has the right mindset—now small. My colleague came from the Sales Department and
support a mostly remote workforce of designers and their
we are building those practices and instilling them across used this connection to work with the Sales team on our
teams.
our work.” first pilot of the program. We were transparent that it was a
beta and asked them for candid feedback by challenging
When she joined the company two years ago, the primary them to share: ‘You’re not going to hurt our feelings, we
focus was to build out a company-wide employee truly want to make this better for every InVisioner. What
Marie Kretlow onboarding program, where there was none. Marie did you think? How did the week go for you?’ We didn’t
Senior People Experience Designer explains: “Every team was doing their own thing. But when just ask our immediate customers, but we asked their
you’re doubling in size, and with every employee working managers as well. To collect feedback, we used NPS and
remotely, it is critical to have a unified program. Once a mix of quantitative questions as well as open text fields.
we designed the experience for onboarding, we took on The pilots were tweaked with each iteration after that, until
learning and development. Now we’re working across we nailed down our program.”
the employee lifecycle, looking at candidate experience,
referrals, interviewing and more.”
40 41
Snapshot of Building the InVision Team: Interviewer training.

Snapshot of co-created onboarding.
“For our go-to-market strategy, we leveraged word of How is EX connected with Employee Branding?
mouth and advocates across the company. We engaged
evangelists of the program to share their experiences with Marie shares that: “One of the projects I’ve worked on
others. We launched the program last February and by recently is around internal training for interviewing and
June, every department in the company was having its hiring. The goal of this program is to make sure our internal
new hires go through Onboarding.” teams know what they need to do to create a great
candidate experience which bleeds into employer brand,
particularly with the rise of candidates sharing social
What are some of your key findings and how did and digital reviews. We started internally on employer
you measure impact? brand first, to make sure our people have the tools and
knowledge they need to support that in processes they’re Second, make sure your tools support the work and
Marie acknowledges that: “The initial release of our program doing every day. Now one of our focuses for this quarter is human connection. InVision has a unique set-up, being
was working well for new employees. The content, open external-facing employer brand.” a fully remote company. Marie explains: “What I find
conversation, and hosted format really resonated with our so interesting about what we do as a remote company
audience. Over time, we recognized an opportunity to do is the fact that our tools are always there. They are the
even more. Our InVision culture is very much focused on What lessons does Marie have to share with means through which we build relationships. We can’t do
being proactive and taking ownership, and we wanted to others? it without a digital tool. And in that context, the question
create a space for new hires to practice that—giving them becomes: how can we make sure the interaction through
an even more ‘real-to-life’ expectation of going out there “First, says Marie, it is important to capture and work on the the tools is not purely transactional?”
and doing your own discovery, building connections on in-between moments to create a seamlessly connected
your own. With this in mind, we redesigned the structure Employee Experience. She shares that “We realize that
of the program to feel more true to day-to-day InVision in addition to major moments in the employee lifecycle, What advice does Marie have for someone
life. Since this major release, we have seen a boost in there are also smaller moments that we need to think starting EX? re-applying it in a new context, not for clients, but for
our engagement and satisfaction scores and continue to about as a People Team—the ‘in-between moments’. How employees. “I am most proud to see how our team is
receive positive feedback from our participants.” do we make sure those major milestones feel connected Marie confidently says: “Never forget the people you are embracing design and constantly thinking of the end user.
and are designed with intention so there’s continuity serving. As great as the process or the tool or the new It’s exciting to see traditional design frameworks that are
“We are still looking at ongoing engagement survey between them? Both from the employee experience as program can be...if it doesn’t serve your people at the end typically used in the digital space or to build products,
results. We have been running this program a little over a well as our systems and tools and processes. There is so of the day, then it’s not a great solution. Always talk to your being used to support people at our organization.”
year, and are just beginning to see if there is any correlation much opportunity for us to do that and really move into customers. Look outside of HR and employee experience
between what we’re doing and long-term impacts.” a space of refinement to elevate the great things that we teams for inspiration. There’s so much to be learned from “EX is about building empathy for your people. Defining
already have into an even better end-to-end employee complementary or contrasting disciplines!” the problem that they’re having and then moving into
experience.” ways to solve it—that framework is critical. Listening with
The advantage Marie brings to the People Team table empathy and letting go of your own assumptions about
is a deep understanding of how design works, and then people’s needs is crucial for anyone who wants to embark
on the EX journey.”
42 43
CAS E STU DY
How did KBC start building Employee How did you engage employees?
Experience?
Lucien explains: “In the first year we asked questions
As Lucien and Sandra describe it: “We reached a point to lots of employees: ‘What are your needs’ and ‘What
where nearly everything was self-service within HR. But would you like to see in this kind of app?’ Whether it’s job-
after some time, we felt that something was missing. related or facilities, it doesn’t matter. To facilitate further
Some processes could still be automated and we could development, we created an employee journey team.”
shorten the times and we could make it easier and a bit
more comfortable for employees, but what we missed For this EX project, Joris became Product Owner of the
Employee Experience
was what we now call ‘Service Design’. app, and organized a team with a Scrum Master, two
analysts and another person in charge of communication,
driving Innovation at KBC

“In the beginning, everything we were doing in EX was very and developers. But not only that, Lucien says: “We also
HR-centric and we did not consider involving employees. organized bottom-up an extended ‘virtual’ team involved
But then, two years ago, Joris, an IT colleague of ours had in EX. “We don’t have a big budget behind this effort. We
an idea for building an employee app. We found him at are a team of two people, but we have a real community
a KBC innovation fair, and he already had a prototype.” of people in our business.”
Lucien and Sandra loved the idea of an employee app
Lucien De Boeck and Sandra Mertens founded the core
where there is no silo anymore between HR, IT and Where did Lucien find the people to work on this project?
EX team for KBC Group, a 42,000 employee Bank-insurer facilities. Lucien remembers: “We talked to him and we He recalls a transformation going on “where certain
headquartered in Brussels. Their EX idea started with began dreaming. Joris also had experience in using the people might lose their job, but we have a policy that
Service Design for HR, and ended up with an Employee whole service design cycle and so together we started we don’t fire anyone. So, we had people coming to our
building from scratch an employee app which is now in internal job center where they look for new opportunities
App that acts like a Butler, helping their colleagues find
use.” For Lucien and Sandra, that experience helped them or temporary jobs. And we enlisted them in this EX work.
solutions and support in 20 seconds.
realize how important it was to involve employees. We took some of these people and we said: ‘Okay, just
go talk with employees. If you want to create a journey
Lucien De Boeck The app is called AppYourService and is meant to be a for employees, for example to support a leave or a
HR Digital Transformation Lead and Head of EX
“Butler” for anything employees might need. “The app sickness journey, pretend you are sick. Stay at home and
is simply a connector, a support system that facilitates reflect on the experience of being sick try to gather lots
action. If you look beyond the siloes, everything is a of information: What do you want to do? What’s most
bundle of systems that can be connected”, says Lucien. important to you?”.
“Nobody can imagine life now without WhatsApp, and “We simply decided that if somebody has some spare
we wanted to build a similar feeling for our employees.” time, let’s give them an assignment. Think about a specific
And so Joris got HR, IT and the facilities department to situation and go and listen and capture all this information.
co-sponsor the idea, after pitching it to our management. We had to be like…. Detectives!”
Sandra Mertens
HR Innovation & EX Manager
44 45
What were the first things to discover? only does the CX team have a stake in EX, IT does too, change from business as usual.” Could there be pitfalls in everywhere. Whether it’s a request for parking to facilities
as Sandra says: “IT is now willing to invest in us. and now the process? Lucien says: “If anyone has the tendency to or taking time off, the screen looks identical, even if in the
Lucien recognises that the first learning came through part of the budget is coming from HR, the other part from share only positive feedback, the manager can realize this back, the system is different. The employee doesn’t care
really quickly: “We realized that people do not care, when IT. For them it’s really about building IT capabilities, for us is not realistic and can prepare for an honest dialogue. We and doesn’t have to care what the backend system is, they
using an app, where support comes from, whether they it’s building a better Employee Experience, and we get to try to promote openness as much as possible, and we can can just do what they need to do in the same look and
need support from IT or Facilities or HR. They just want one connect the two.” In this way, EX gets to be a playground only promote openness if we look forward, and if people feel, have the same flow whether it’s for making a parking
single solution, to support the whole journey. For example, to experiment and build in-house digital capabilities. True know we will use this to support them forward.” reservation, or booking a meeting room, or some time off.”
if you are sick, the policy of HR is, get a doctor’s note and to the principles of openness and co-creation, “the app
report it to your manager. But if you are sick and you wake itself has an employee feedback feature, so anybody “Third, developing an integrated digital service for
up the first morning, that is not your first concern: you have can just give feedback or make a proposal and they get How EX is answering to business needs at KBC employees means no vendor lock-in: “We’ve learned
meetings with customers and colleagues and you want a response within two days.” that instead of buying and using an integrated system
solution for that.” To succeed, the EX team connects to strategic projects like SuccessFactors, we can make something of our own,
in the company. “Everything we do is connected to much more people-centric. It does not matter if there are
“Therefore, we built what we call ‘20 Seconds’ Actions, so What is a particular example of EX reshaping the broader company roadmap”, confirms Lucien. For multiple components at the backend, the most important
you can report your sickness in 20 seconds. You can take an HR practice at KBC? example, one such project focuses on reskilling people, thing for the employee is to have a seamless experience.
a picture of the doctor’s note and everything is processed because digital transformation is a huge game changer in We want to disconnect the experience from the back-
directly to payroll. And now we are building 20Second ‘Giving feedback to a colleague’ is a good example. banking. Lucien relates: “We are doing a pilot now called end system, and then plug-in what we want”, says Sandra.
Actions which will connect with this particular problem.” How did this start? Lucien says: “People told us: when I ‘The Matching Place’. Some of our people have done “And, finally, borrow as much as you can. Search for
Why ’20-Second Actions’? Sandra explains: “We learned want to give feedback, I am not interested in logging in the same kind of job for lots of years and are not used to partners inside or outside the company with who you can
this from our KBC mobile app for clients (which recently on a platform like SuccessFactors, I simply want to take making career jumps. So how could you ask from these co-create and share ideas. This can give a real boost to
won the prize for the best technology innovation at the my phone and do it on the spot, immediately after I left people to jump to a new position, not knowing where they your EX dreams”
Digital Media Awards). We asked the CX team to teach us a meeting I had with someone. In 20 seconds. And so, are heading?”
everything, and we ‘stole’ not only interfacing standards, through this app, giving feedback connects now with
but also this core idea that, to answer effectively to a user everyday workflow, it is not an isolated HR component “‘The Matching Place’ asks managers to post temporary What is next for EX at KBC?
needs, you need to enable them to solve things in 20 anymore.” assignments, across all domains. And we match these
seconds.” with employees, using machine learning. You don’t even “Our focus is changing with time”, says Lucien: “Until now,
Lucien continues: “For our next sprint, we want to create need a CV. You can upload any descriptive document, we were focused on supporting the employee, now we
Do they all have to connect with a particular journey? Not triggers for people to give feedback. But where do we so this is done in a low-entry manner, very accessible to want to be able to support the team, like knowing where
necessarily, as Lucien describes: “Some 20-Second actions get these triggers from? We use Microsoft 365 which can anyone. ‘The Matching Place’ uses an engine that matches everyone is sitting or finding the best space to meet or
can enrich experience even without being a journey. Like detect which people you collaborate with. So, if you are the skills needed for a project with skills extracted work together. There is a lot of potential for working with
the idea of being able to report broken things in a room working now for 3 months with someone, you can simply automatically”. Lucien continues: “These temporary augmented reality in solving this. People are working in
you booked or being given alternatives if the room you receive a message that says: ‘You’ve been collaborating assignments are about getting a taste of another part of teams very dynamically now”. It is an entire new definition
want for a meeting is booked. By enriching systems with with this person, consider giving feedback’. And we can KBC. Which can translate eventually into people changing of collaborating in teams, and KBC wants to support its
each other, you can provide a better experience.” extend these triggers to other HR processes.” What might jobs, and we see this happening. Now we are looking into people in improving the experience of working together.”
be considered quite revolutionary by many, is that the expanding it, to be more proactive: How can we detect Other plans for the future include connecting customer
feedback lands with the employee, but not necessarily people needs and triggers? Or suggest new assignments, journeys with employee journeys. Lucien describes:
Turning things around: how EX is now inspiring the manager. The employee decides what to share.” to try something else?” That’s where the app will support.” “Right now, we connect CX and EX, but not in a way that is
better CX at KBC digitally supported.” The EX team is considering how they
KBC gives full autonomy for their people to ‘own’ their What are the most important things Lucien can tap into everyone’s expertise to answer client’s needs.
Sandra highlights that: “With this app, not only do we have development. And that starts with the app, where the and Sandra have learned? For example, how would KBC advise me in starting a new
the chance to improve our employee experience, but we employee can decide what they want to do with the activity at my company? You can ask this question, as a
also have an opportunity to learn new things from our feedback they receive. It can be something like sharing “First, our philosophy is Zero Manual”, says Sandra. The client, and the question is distributed to someone who
employees that eventually can impact our customer app. with the manager or others, or connecting with her/his app is aimed to give such a seamless experience that the can support them or has the knowledge.”
This is what we see happening now, our customer app is own targets, etc. The app gives an overview of all the users do not need to read any directions or instructions
re-using insights from our EX app. Therefore, things are things to discuss with the manager, in order to grow. on how to use it. That also means that we don’t introduce “Ideally, in the future, the app will be able to personalize
turning around, not only for the CX team, who benefits from Our strategy is to focus on forward looking experiences. things too fast.” the experience even more, say Lucien and Sandra. Which
our project. We are now collaborating and exchanging We do not look at the past anymore. It is the employee fully resonates with KBC’s motto: ‘Every day we start from
ideas with the team handling customer incidents.” Not owning this, and it is forward looking. Which is a significant “Second, keep the front-end experience consistent scratch’. Never lose the sense of wonder when it comes
to discovering what can enhance people’s experience at
work.”
46 47
CAS E STU DY
Why is LinkedIn focusing on Employee again and again in these employees’ lives and help us live
Experience? up to the First Day Promise and bring our culture to life
beyond orientation.”
Shujaat says: “What we do at LinkedIn is pretty unique
because we are ‘Customer Zero’. Our product is also in Shujaat also worked on the early stages of EX. He says,
the talent domain, so we are in a unique space to not only “We go through this very comprehensive recruiting
advise on talent strategy but also product strategy as process and we’ve built all these programs to attract
well. Our team reports directly to the Chief People Officer people. We want to know ‘What is the efficacy of these
and works with the talent leadership to consult with our programs, what’s working and what’s not?”
executive staff. Our starting point with People Analytics
was different: A lot of People Analytics teams get stuck “We look at different points in time of the employee
being a reporting team. One of our guiding principles is lifecycle. Everything we look at is anonymized and kept
“insights without action = overhead”. Reporting is one of confidential as per our very strict guidelines. We look at
the things we do as part of a strategic value proposition to the group of people who got in. What does it look like in
influence insights-driven culture for all talent decisions.” the first three months, six months? What does attrition
look like in that time frame? Are we losing people at a
specific time, a time that, if zoomed in, could highlight an
How did LinkedIn build EX? onboarding issue?”
Shujaat says: “My role was to make sure any decision- Shujaat continues: “And then we look at our engagement
making around Talent is based on evidence as much as survey as well, to take a holistic look and get a better
possible and to minimize bias. That meant starting with understanding. Is there something that we can pick up
who we recruit, how we recruit, how we onboard and how from a sentiment perspective as a hotspot? And then
do we develop talent? It includes how we look at Diversity, that blends into what type of development program we
Inclusion, and Belonging. How do we look at attraction need, maybe to develop a program for managers. Or it
and retention strategies? Is it informed by data? Is there could be a specific program if we discover the issue is that
People Analytics &

strategic thinking leveraging insights?”. people are not feeling belonging, for example. Can we
create a program around that? So that’s where employee
Culture Champions at LinkedIn

Nawal started with a split role – responsible for LinkedIn’s experience would come in.”
Onboarding and Employee Experience programming in
the New York office. She tells how she met every single Nawal and her colleagues have many inputs for how they
one of LinkedIn’s new hires in New York and Chicago, and understand and build EX. She says: “EX means different
then had the “unique opportunity to continue to pop up things everywhere, so we have to spend time thinking
Nawal is the Senior Manager, Employee Experience at

LinkedIn. Her story began in 2014, when the New York
office was about to double in size. They recognized
they needed someone to own the Onboarding program
because, as they told Nawal at the time, “Right now it’s
not this phenomenal, stellar experience” and it didn’t live
up to the promise that was set during the recruitment
process. Nawal Fakhoury
Senior Manager EX
Shujaat (Senior Manager, People Analytics) joined

LinkedIn two years ago with a background in Strategy and
Operations Consulting. Like many in consulting, he has a
background in running high performing teams, jumping
in to ambiguous and complex problems, leveraging
data and converting into actionable insights to influence
business decision making. What sets Shujaat apart is he is
deeply passionate about the People domain. Shujaat Ahmad
Senior Manager Analytics
48 49
scale of their roles. Based on 1:1 interviews with some scale our Culture and make our experiences repeatable.
of the managers, and analyzing the organizational data, As a company we have been a startup, we have gone
we were able to point out that as we had grown, we had through hypergrowth, we were acquired by a massive
a new group of people managers who had grown up in company, and we are well on our way to becoming our
LinkedIn and had gone through management training, but own established company. And regardless of what stage
were still new to people management. These two insights we have been in as a company our focus has always been,
translated in a strategy for the group on addressing ‘How do we continue to do things by ‘treating people
managerial capacity and capability. beautifully’ and offer every employee an exceptional
employee experience.”
What is the role of Culture and Employee
Experience? “We’re very lucky to have Jeff Weiner as our CEO and
Christina Hall as our Chief People Officer. There’s no
Both Shujaat and Nawal zero in on Culture as the core conversation about ‘How can we get you bought into this?’
of what makes the employee experience at LinkedIn so Our leaders get why prioritizing culture is a strategic play.”
powerful.
What are Nawal and Shujaat most proud of?
Shujaat says: “Attrition has not been that much of a concern
for companies that have had good employee experience Nawal says, “There are 350+ culture champions and 500
programs, good culture. Whenever we look at our alumni, employee volunteers across our 30+ offices. Every year,
we have a lot of ‘boomerangs’ - people who come back. we invite these volunteers to ‘Culture Camp’ where they
One of the common reasons they give us for returning is can apply for one of 65 open spots. This is a leadership
about ‘what is our differentiator’ and what are people In offices like in Madrid where we have 20+ colleagues,
that they can’t find the same culture or people elsewhere. development program where our volunteers learn how
going to talk about at the end of the day that became a we have 3 Culture Champions and in offices like San
And those who remain Alums, express similar sentiments” they can continue to fuel culture at a local level. We’re
‘wow experience’ for them personally.” Francisco, where we have 2,000+ employees, we have 20
moving into our 4th year so we’ve had about 180+ people
Culture Champions. We get them a small budget, monthly
“All of us know that anywhere else we would go, we won’t who have gone through Culture Camp and have the tools
“We spend our time thinking about if people walk into resources and virtual training to bring our EX-related
get the same great people culture that we’ve had here at and training needed to scale LinkedIn’s culture programs
this experience, how are they going to engage their 5 programs to life every single month in our 30+ global
LinkedIn. It’s pretty unique!” with a local flare.”
senses? How do we do something that’s mind-blowing? offices. That’s the body of work that I oversee with a team
Even if it’s as simple as creating a way to interact with of 5.”
Shujaat says regarding the culture: “The biggest thing “We bring them together at HQ, and our campers get to
someone outside of their team, this small moment builds
for me is that it is very authentically human. You will see hear what their volunteer peers and celebrating and what
a new connection, shares another point of view and Shujaat says there are several main things that result
that when anyone is going through a problem in their their challenges are. They learn how to create exceptional
inspires collaboration in a different way.” from their effort to build employee experience: “We serve
life, people actually jump in without anyone asking! And Employee Experiences, and we do a “collaboration
as strategic thought partners within HR. Typically, in the
leaders jump in, helping the person and their family. challenge” Hackathon-style event that allows them to
Nawal talks about how the Employee Experience HR field, HR can tend to jump to a band-aid solution of
Regardless of whether it’s something professional or pitch ideas to our culture program leaders. It’s one of
team continually seeks input for the experiences “Let’s create a program.”, without thinking about the Why.
personal. I worked at a lot of places where I haven’t seen the many ways we provide our employees to put their
they create: ‘We’re lucky to have people who serve as We help teams to to step back and help them think:
that genuine compassion, and it’s something that you fingerprints on our future experiences.”
‘Culture Champions’ in every office, so we’re able to ask “Alright, what is our objective?” “What is the problem?”
can’t quantify. It is that sort of alchemy that is binding
employees to validate our questions and direction like Getting them to think, in that sense being their thought
everyone together.” Shujaat says: “I have seen a lot of large and small
‘does this connect with the rhythm of the business, does partner, leveraging different disparate sources of data to
companies that try to enforce alignment top down.
this feel like it would work for a diverse audience? Is this help validate their hypothesis. We have our engagement
“We do an All-hands every second Wednesday at 10:00AM Whereas the mantra here is are: if you find something that
inclusive to multiple types of personalities?” survey. We have headcount, organizational composition,
Pacific Time. Jeff Weiner and team start with Talent you’re passionate about, and it’s aligned with our vision
attrition and compensation data. We have market data. By
before discussing anything else as it’s our #1 operating and mission, then go create it. It’s not a top down culture,
Nawal explains that “Culture Champions are everyday putting it all together we can best identify the hotspots and
priority. We introduce new hires around the world. When which I really admire. I have seen managers not only be
employees that raise their hands and say ‘I care deeply problems to solve.”
we do any employee voice surveys, the results are kept just managers (who know how to do things the right way)
about our culture. Put me in charge of helping create great
transparent and shared with the company during the All- but also be leaders (who know what’s the right thing to
experiences at a local level.’ They serve as volunteers Shujaat shares an example: “We saw that one of the teams
hands and then have an open dialogue, like every one do). The focus on the individual’s transformation within the
that create monthly culture experiences on top of their had several managers with span of controls greater than
of these meetings, to address any questions from the scope of the company is heartening”
day job. They come from Sales, Marketing, Engineering, what we would recommend. We have set some bench-
employees.”
Finance, and these rock stars are constantly designing marks around span of control based on our prior research.
and delivering experiences so we can ensure our culture We saw that the spans of controls were at different ends
Nawal says that with LinkedIn, “When I started we were
traditions exist in every office. They even provide us with of the spectrum – some had it too wide and some too
in hypergrowth mode and we were wondering how to
input on what people are saying they want in our culture narrow – that didn’t necessarily align with the scope and
programs.”
50 51
CAS E STU DY
Why is Walmart focusing on People The Walmart PX team focused on building three initiatives
Experience? to scale:
Kristin Reilly, Head of People Experience at Walmart, 1. The Associate Value Proposition.
says “Our ultimate goal is to attract and retain the right Kristin says, “For our Associate Value Proposition (AVP), we
talent to win the future of retail. We want to create an started with years of associate research across business
exceptional place for our associates (what we call our units and markets to understand why associates choose
employees) to work so they can serve our customers in to join and stay with Walmart. We looked to uncover
the best capacity. And I think that’s the most important consistencies in sentiment around what truly makes
objective of PX.” Walmart unique in its totality, irrespective of the type of
role or where folks sit in the company. We joined forces
Walmart refers to “Employee Experience” as “People with Corporate Communications and Marketing to sort
Experience” (PX), since they aim to impact experience through and distill this information into themes, and
before, during, and after employment. “We define People then further partnered with key stakeholders across the
Experience as true associate/candidate centricity: a organization to align around five pillars of our AVP which
frictionless experience throughout the journey that are representative of the enterprise and indicative of the
enables and inspires our people to belong, be well, and potential of our people: innovation, well-being, purpose,
be their best every day,” says Kristin. inclusion, and opportunity.”
“Focusing on associates has always been a part of “Soon after that, we created our associate brand and
Walmart culture, starting with Sam Walton who once launch campaign known as ‘This Is That Place.’ It’s our
said, ‘the emphasis on our people must be genuine and rally cry that ties to our aspiration of being the employer of
sometimes very bold and daring.’ Our People Experience choice, and our associates have taken it and made it their
team uses three principles to guide how we work and own. It’s been translated internationally in eight markets,
partner: and the use of the hashtag has been growing organically
1) Lead with the associate perspective on internal and external social channels which is validation
Walmart: Scaling EX
2) Curate the right mix of resources for the fact that associates are looking for a way to channel
3) Measure the right thing and act on insights” their pride. The most important part is that our associates
at the ‘Fortune One’

are telling their stories and sharing their experiences.
According to Kristin, “Our main challenge is typically That’s what drives positive sentiment and reinforces the
scale: how can we meet associates where they are in value proposition.”
a global, matrixed organization with so much variety in
roles and experiences? Personalization is important, but Walmart’s associate brand was woven through the
How do you create and scale an EX Team to support it requires us to think about how we create frameworks experience at the annual Shareholder’s meeting in
and guiding principles for experiences that enable the 2019. “We built our associate brand center, a website
the world’s largest public company with 2.5 million
business leaders to have the flexibility to adapt to their that houses brand assets, voice and tone guidelines,
associates? Kristin Reilly explains how she found and empathy worksheets, UX guides, marketing messages
needs.” She calls it “flexibility within a framework.”
organized a team of people with new kinds of capabilities for ambassadors, and more. Our team regularly hosts
to build a new EX-based Associate Value Proposition to workshops with HR communicators, agency partners, and
help Walmart ‘win the future of retail.’ How is Walmart scaling PX? other groups where they learn about why we created the
brand and how to use it effectively. With the right tools
Kristin joined Walmart through the acquisition of Jet. in hand, communicators have been able to simplify and
com in 2016, where she’d led the Talent Experience connect materials across the associate journey, from job
team and built it from the ground up. She explains, “After ads and offer letters to policies, executive communications,
the acquisition, I had the opportunity to think about and more.”
Kristin Reilly what People Experience would look like more broadly
Head of People Experience and was asked to bring our thinking into a Center of
Excellence within the Walmart enterprise. This situation
was so different because of the breadth of the remit. How
could we create ways of working that are flexible enough
to meet the unique needs of the business units, but also
not so high-level that associates can’t see themselves
in it?”
52 53
Walmart’s Associate Brand Center A page from a Program Measurement Playbook, which
“Between our pillar messaging and associate branding, the PX team at Walmart uses to evangelize consistent
we’re helping to ensure communications and measurement approaches.
experiences have a consistent thread throughout our
associates’ journeys, and that new people-focused With any initiative, Kristin says “It’s crucial to pull in the right
initiatives and decisions support the five pillars. A great players early on and co-create with them so everyone
example is our Live Better U program, launched in our feels ownership in the outcome.”
US business recently, which provides college education
to associates for only a dollar a day. Providing this kind 3. Journey mapping.
of affordable education and growth opportunity to our According to Kristin, “All of our work starts with journey
associates solves an employee need and supports our mapping. We’ve created a high-level journey that the
opportunity pillar.” associate takes from the very beginning, even before they
know they’re a potential candidate, and even after they’ve
“Another example is how we’ve built out our intern and build solutions through the development of MVPs and
“Other examples are our ZP and Even programs, which exited.”
program. We went to colleges and asked students, ‘What constant iteration based on insights and learnings.”
offer our associates easier access to living better. ZP
do you need in an intern experience? If you’ve interned
allows people to set their own goals and socialize their Walmart’s journey phases
previously, what went well and what didn’t?’” Kristin has come to highly value skills relating to Product
efforts, which is behaviorally proven to heed better “For our potential candidates, we want to understand
Management, Marketing and Agile, as well as UX. She says,
results, and Even gives our people early access to their what they’re thinking, feeling, doing, and saying at every
“We try to think about how to remove the friction and “We need tech partners and UX designers to be immersed
earned wages and offers financial planning advice to step of the process, then map out compelling messaging
solve for the pain points—and design experiences that in our work. I believe there will always be the day-to-day
associates. These things help us expand our offerings to and experiences around that. For instance, once they’ve
are connected every single step of the way through strategic components of HR, but the ability to build these
associates in pursuit of improving well-being.” accepted an offer, the recruiter might reach out with
branding, messaging, and holistic support. So, it’s new capabilities and talent will be even more critical in
additional job opportunities in case they want to make
no longer that the Learning and Development team the future. The ability to invent, innovate, and solve big
“We’re now working with different business units to a referral. And the hiring manager will follow up with a
does this and the Recruiting team does something problems in real-time requires an agile product mindset.
evolve and adapt the AVP for their specific needs and note that says “We’re super excited that you’re joining
else completely independent. Our job is to bring folks Bringing in some of these new skill sets, gathering new
populations. Providing a framework for different groups us,” and it will include some of our branded content. Then
together to focus on delivering great experiences across insights, building solutions, and operationalizing what you
at Walmart to work within, but flex to meet their needs after they’ve joined, we’ll ask them for feedback on their
the whole journey.” discover is the new wave of HR.
and make their own, is critical to being able to continue Onboarding experience. We design it in a way so that
to immerse this at our scale.” everyone is invested in building the associate experience
Kristin talked about what she had to do at the beginning “All of these capabilities were a mix of build and buy—
and that they can see it’s a team effort.”
to help the business understand the value of the work many of these people were inside Walmart already,” Kristin
2. Measurement.
they were doing: “I think along the way it was important says. Today, she has a total of nearly 100 people on her
Kristin explains how Walmart is moving away from
to show data, insights, and metrics and demonstrate team—the number and makeup evolves and changes to
once-a-year associate engagement surveys to a model
that this is something that our people want. If you’re not best support the business and capitalize on economies of
of continuous feedback. In the meantime, they’ve re-
starting with a leadership team or a mentality across the scale.
thought their engagement survey so that it better meets
company from the beginning that this is important then I
the needs of the business units.
think you are going to have a more difficult time.”
What comes next for Kristin and her
“In addition to a standard set of questions which are
organization?
scientifically proven to be actionable and indicative of
What capabilities are helping Walmart scale
engagement, each business unit can choose additional
PX? She says: “You may have heard about the plans for our
questions so that they obtain the insights they need to
new Home Office in Bentonville. Our teams are using a
drive their business. They can also choose the timing
The PX function has become part of the People design thinking approach, testing workspace designs, and
and frequency around the survey.”
Leadership Team at Walmart. Kristin says, “The roles we building on our learnings to create a work environment
hire for are not purely HR focused—we have marketers, that’s frictionless and inspiring. We’re using these tests as
“We’ve also created a Program & Product Measurement
product owners, storytellers, and workplace designers. the foundation to how we build out future locations as we
Playbook for our partners, so that we’re all measuring
We have shifted parts of our HR organization and grow and make sure associate-centricity is integrated from
the impact of our efforts in a consistent manner. These
general thinking to a more product-focused approach, the get-go.”
types of playbooks and toolkits are crucial given the
using Agile methodology to create problem statements
consultative nature of what we do.”
54 55
Appendix
56 57
2020: Current stage of EX 2020: Current stage of EX
Appendix
(companies between 5.000 and 10.000 (companies between 500 and 5.000
employees) employees)
Merging CX and EX 0% 6%
Different maturity stages for EX New way of working 0% 35%
Not much has changed regarding where respondent companies are in their progress compared to 2018 – we see more Building capability 25% 15%
companies in the starting phase and fewer in the categories of “New way of working” and “Merging CX and EX”. Only 13% of
our respondents said they have no plans whatsoever for EX. Starting 8% 21%
Researching 42% 24%

2020
No Plans 25% 21%
Merging CX and EX 6%
New way of working 6%
Building capability 18%
Key take-aways: extending past traditional benefits

Starting 25% Small companies with fewer than 500 employees are not • People need to feel they belong
less advanced in pursuing EX for their people: • Because it syncs with our business strategy
Researching 32% • only 16% of them have no plans yet, compared to 21% of putting the customer at the heart of
of medium companies (500-5000); everything we do by creating an enjoyable
No Plans 14% • 100% of big companies (more than 50K employees) experience for them
are on track with EX; none said they had no plans • We see the need to improve the employee
whatsoever; more than a third have already started experience. As part of our digital Strategy
with EX and 28% are committed to building capabilities we are using employee journeys to map
We see a few differences in progress between different company sizes. Regardless of size, the largest per-
• Companies with 10.000-50.000 employees are most out the experience.
centage of organizations are in Researching and Starting. It’s not too late to start if you haven’t begun:
advanced in terms of merging CX and EX, with 11% • EX is linked with our Agile way of working.
currently busy with that right now; We are looking to organize ourselves
2020: Current stage of EX differently around employee and new

2020: Current stage of EX
(companies with more than 50.000 working relations.
(companies between 10.000 and 50.000
employees) • We need to differentiate the experience
employees) Mapping out the business reasons our employees have…EX has been hugely
behind doing EX inconsistent because each aspect was
Merging CX and EX 8% 11%
thought of separately - engagement,
We asked people “Why is your organization building EX?”
New way of working 5% 5% culture, leadership, empowerment, etc.
and their answers give us insight into the purpose behind
So now we are starting to look at this in a
their EX strategy and how they see EX impacting their
Building capability 28% 11% joined-up way
business.
• The job market in the tech arena is extremely
Starting 36% competitive and we need to differentiate

21%
Here are some of the more interesting answers:
ourselves from our competitors
• EX drives and determines how well we perform as an
• To enhance a customer centric strategy
Researching 23% 37%
organization.
and create a sustainable workplace
• We believe it is a new way to do business
• EX is crucial to our business success, in
No Plans 0% 16% • We understand the correlation between CX and EX and
particular our High- Performance Culture.
are more in tune than ever to the needs of employees
58 59
More specifically, for companies which have just • To create an environment where employees get 20% of time is spent on HR business as usual.
started researching EX, the main reason behind inspired and have more energy at the end of the day • At the other end of the spectrum, 5% of all companies Jouneys already mapped
looking into EX methodologies is: than when they started do EX 100% linked to HR processes, not daring yet to
• All the connections an employee has with the company move out of the prescribed territory. • Onboarding - 33% of companies
• To attract talent and build pipelines, cherishing • The moment that matter for our different personas • In the middle ground: 41% of big companies (+50K • Hiring / Candidate journey - 17%
talent • Understanding the E2E employee journey and enabling employees) say more than 60% of their EX activities • Development & Learning - 13%
• To retain the right people and makes them more them to do their best work is entirely following HR processes while 68% of small • Performance review - 7%
productive • We consider every touchpoint between the employee companies (0-500 employees) say HR connects • Leaving / exits / offboarding - 7%
• To motivate our talent and the company throughout the whole journey and directly to less than 40% of their activities, the rest is • Career moves - 5%
• To treat talents as our most important customers design to make them better spent on non HR experiences. • Rewards - 4%
and change the way we operate within HRM • Improving the sum of all experiences (HR, job, culture • Personal moments - 3%
• To enhance employee performance. We want to & leadership, digital & workplace) of our people to help The graphic above tells us that we still tend to emphasize • Help me - 2%
create a workplace where people can strive, bring increase sustainable engagement and productivity. HR processes & systems, etc. over the actual ways people • Leave of Absence - 2%
their best and full self to work. experience work. Moments that matter have more to do • Flexworking - 2%
• To increase employee engagement Then, we wanted to get an idea of how much energy and with person-to-person interactions and how “connected” • Scrum / Agile journeys - 2%
• To transform the HR function focus is on HR processes and programs vs. the holistic someone feels with the people and values, and how well
• To retain competitive advantage in the disruptive experience people have with a company. Note: when asked they feel recognized as a person.
world in our workshops “How much of your day-to-day is spent
• To support a new strategy, culture and associated interacting with HR processes?”, most people (even HR) will
talent profiles say less than 5%. But this graphic tells us how aligned we Journeys already mapped & planned for the
• To transform our business are with that level of interaction. next phases
Jouneys planned for the future
At the same time, for organisations which are more Our Survey attracted a considerable audience still at the
advanced in EX and are already merging EX with CX, We have a ways to go to detach EX from regular HR beginning of its EX chapter. One indication is that 37.5 % of • Candidate journey
the main reason behind implementing EX is: processes: respondents have mapped any journeys so far. • Career development
• At one end, 15% of respondents with 50.000 or more • Offboarding
• To reinvent the “Workplace Experience” employees said that only 20% of their EX is concerned The overall employee journey is defined as the total • Learning & Development
• To become a better place to work for our employees with HR processes. experiences and touchpoints someone has with a • Performance management
• To fulfill our mission to create a working environment • The most advanced companies seem to be medium company, from the moment they research working there to • Onboarding
that allows people to realize their potential sized 500-1000 employees, with 38% saying that only their moments as an alumnus. A journey has a well-defined • Career move
• To empower energized employees to create starting and ending point, and sometimes the full end-to- • New manager journey
incredible experiences for our clients end employee journey can be limiting in its perspective: it • Hiring manager journey
• To enhance speed, efficiency, innovation looks at an employee only from an HR point of view. • Promotion
• To increase productivity and build an engaging • Journey of a new hire
workforce where people want to work What % of your EX focus is on HR Services, systems or Within a long journey, many other shorter ones unfold, from • Agile working
• processes vs. non-HE experiences e.g. manager, team, the first day as an expat in a new country, to a mentoring • Rewards/ benefits
In what concerns our shared understanding of what EX workspace, personal/family, remote working program or becoming a parent. We asked people “What • HR systems
is, for the question “How do you define EX?”, only 25% of kinds of journeys have people mapped so far?” and these • Leaders journeys
respondents say they have an agreed internal definition . 5% of respondents are their answers compiled by specific topics: • International mobility
Here are some examples: 100% of our focus • Mentoring
17% of respondents
• Diversity and Inclusion journeys
• End to end journey around employee moments that 80% of our focus • High potentials career development
matter • Personal moments that matter
30% of respondents
• Happy employees = happy clients. This means their 60% of our focus • Leave of absence
development, their physical work environment • Retiring journey
25% of respondents
or the tools they need. In terms of leadership, 40% of our focus • Wellbeing at work
communication and culture, our job is to help our • Maternity/paternity leave
22% of respondents
colleagues do their jobs more easily, smartly and 20% of our focus • Critical illness
swiftly.
60 61
Key Moments that Matter • When I return to work 4 months after having a baby Turning to outside expertise of “START”, “RESEARCHING” and “BUILDING
• When one of our key team members was picked up by CAPABILITIES”. 92% of those who want to learn
We asked our respondents to give examples of key his colleagues during a very rough personal time and What helps your EX projects? We wanted to know what more about Sprints come from “RESEARCHING”,
Moments that Matter that they have identified. Adapting helped to achieve his goal companies look for when exploring external capabilities “BUILDING CAPABILITIES” and “NEW WAYS OF
a definition from CX, a Moment That Matters (MTM) is • When I get frustrated because I cannot find the right and what they’re missing in their organization that needs WORKING”.
a transformative point in time within a journey, where information to do my job a boost to get started or move forward with EX? • Almost half of the respondents who are willing
someone does something that changes and makes • When I need information and no one knows the Here are their answers: to rely on external support for Journey mapping
a lasting impression on how you feel about them and answer/ or I receive contradictory advice on where to are at the “BUILDING CAPABILITIES” stage (46% of
by extension, the organization. They are alternatively look for it. respondents); 41% of those who want to up their
For which of the following do you seek external support?
described as a Moment of Truth (MOT). Focusing on game in organizing Hackathons also come from the
MTM’s or MOT’s allows you to concentrate your energy “BUILDING CAPABILITIES” stage.
on experiences that matter. You want to ensure that all For companies at the stage of “BUILDING CAPABILITY”: Design Thinking Workshops 41%
touchpoints (service delivery, tools, processes, etc.) are For EX-based People Strategy, the ones who need it
• When I come to work for the first time in a new team EX Transformation 32%
the most come from:
working well. But the highest value and ROI comes from
Moments that Matter. Below is a summary of what our • When a significant change is announced • RESEARCHING- 36%
Analytics 30%
respondents identified already as MTMs, depending on • When I become a parent / come back from parental • START- 30%
their different stage of EX development: leave • We don’t have plans to do EX - 15%
Journey Mapping 28%
• When I give or receive feedback • BUILDING CAPABILITY- 12%
• When I get a moment of recognition Agile 26%
• NEW WAY OF WORKING- 3%
Companies that have just reached the “START” phase • When I finally get promoted • MERGING CX AND EX- 3%
describe as Moments that Matter: • When I get nominated by other colleagues for a role or EX-based People Strategy 23%
I nominate them No wonder, 56% of those who said they need support for
• When I walk into a hiring interview • When I leave the company Hackathons 15% an entire EX Transformation come from the START and
• When I have an exit interview • When I get ill RESEARCHING phases.
• When I receive my first “Welcome to the Company!”, • When, as a candidate, I look at our homepage and Sprint 8%
with a wellbeing goodie bag decides whether or not to apply for a job
• When, as a candidate, I receive timely and relevant Others 11%
New roles and capabilities needed
• When I hit my year mark
• When I have lunch for the first time with my team feedback on the status of the process
on Day 1 • When we set priorities or goals In terms of new roles and capabilities, organisations at
• When I’ve learned from a mistake and decide to • When you look for the right tools that make your job different stages said they need the following:
move on easier External support is perceived as needed by ¼ of the
• When I return from parental leave (my first day back) companies which are just starting, 32% of companies at “START” stage:
For organizations that are at more advanced stages of the researching phase and 18% of companies busy with • Agile teams, Agile coaches, scrum masters, design
“NEW WAY OF WORKING” and “MERGING CX AND EX”, building the right capability. thinkers
Organizations still at the “RESEARCHING” phase have Moments that Matter are: • EX leads
identified as Moments that Matter: Only 12% of organizations more advanced (“NEW WAY OF • Data Analytics specialists
• My first contact with mentor when onboarding WORKING” and “MERGING CX AND EX”) consider relying • Designers
• That moment when we can give to new joiners, one • My first contact with the company on external expertise. • Cultural ambassadors
day before they start, information and a small gift • When I have a 1-1 progression talk with my manager • A project team
through an app, to help them experience our brand • When I realize I have a need for reskilling • 70% of those who said Design thinking workshops are
and to make them feel connected and welcomed • When my promotion is announced needed come from the “START” and “RESEARCHING” “RESEARCHING” stage:
• When the communication coordination between • When clients come back to give us feedback phases. • Agile Transformation Coach
HQ and other parts of the organization fails • When I go on parental leave • Only 11% of those who need Analytics come from • An appointed Global Director of Employee
• When I find out about a vacancy after it has been • When I return from a long leave of absence “NEW WAY OF WORKING” and “MERGING CX AND Experience, with a core task team globally
filled, and discover it never was published / made • When we are celebrating (or not) a work anniversary EX”. • A CX division attached to HR, to enhance internal
available to a wider group of employees, so I was • When I notice someone feels overloaded and stressed • 81% of respondents who need an upgrade in and external experiences.
not aware of it • When I go through a personal milestone (a birth in my Agile ways of working come from the first 3 stages • CX specialists
• When I need to take extra care of their sick parents family, the death of someone I love, moving to a new
or children country etc.).
62 63
• High performance culture facilitators Which other functions do you acively collaborate with? Understanding challenges reflection regarding what makes them proud in their EX
• Community influencers work, regardless of the stage they are at. Here are some
• Product owners / Process owners for EX Communication 76% In terms of specific challenges identified, 67% of respondents selected responses, clustered by topics, with the hope
• A restructured HR service team, to include also said “Leadership Mindset” is ‘difficult’ or ‘very difficult’ to deal that you will find them inspiring for your own efforts:
facilities etc. IT / Digital 68%
with in starting EX. Buy-in from the C-suite is often cited as
the most critical element to start. Getting leadership buy-in, involvement and recognition:
“BUILDING CAPABILITY” stage: CX / Marketing 46% • “I am proud that we finally managed to get a
• Project Centric Leads, Sprint Teams, Scrum masters, 64% of our Survey respondents are struggling with dedicated team for EX.”
Agile Facilitators/Coaches Analytics 36%
• “We managed to raise EX Awareness at SVP level.”
“Organizational Complexity”.
• Agile, Analytics and Design capabilities (including a • “We became recognized as an official Innovation
Facilities 24%
special global task force) 55% of our respondents, cite changing the “Capability, and Initiative for our company, being among start-
• Enhanced tech/digital literacy among HR colleagues mindset of our HR” as ‘difficult’ or ‘very difficult’. up initiatives with an Innovation Fund support to
• Enhanced skills of HR Business Partners in EX validate, design and scale-up EX strategy.”
Lastly, “Transforming the Culture” is perceived by almost • “Engaging leaders and staff in the EX discussion -
“NEW WAY OF WORKING” stage: “MERGING CX AND EX” stage: half of all respondents as ‘very difficult’ (46%). asking them to co-create. One key example was
• D&I Leads, EX Managers, Digital EX Managers • Agile, Analytics and Design capabilities redesign of office space.”
• Change management specialists • Innovation capabilities • “With a leadership push, we achieved true
• High touch roles in HR like Community manager • Workplace Experience Manager Measuring EX impact on business commitment shared across HR leadership team.”
• Emotional analysts • “We are 2 years into our journey and have begun
• Insights capabilities, Design capabilities, Delivery Many companies are taking a dual approach, doing both an to shift the executive mindset. There is much more
capabilities annual engagement survey and measuring EX. The impact support than in years past.”
• Competency architect of EX is being measured at major touchpoints e.g. Moments • “We achieved the lowest turnover ever and that is
that Matter, as well as service delivery points. Many recognized to be due to our efforts”.
respondents are also using Net Promoter Scores, Customer • “I am proud of the movie-at-home kit for new
Who we work with most now New EX Roles & Skills How we are working - Agile Teams Satisfaction Scores, and other measures, and exploring how parents: with a personal note from the board.”
thy correlate with improved EX. • Strengthening collaboration inside the company:
Human-centered Design & Design

• “It brings everyone together around a shared
Thinking Survey types respondents are using include: purpose.”
• UX Designer
• CX Specialist • Annual employee listening moments • “We managed to create a culture of continuous,
• Workplace Designer
• Employee engagement surveys meaningful dialogue.”
IT-Digital • Emotional Analyst
• Experience & Journey Designer • Employee net promoter score (NPS) • “We succeeded in creating an open work climate,
68% • Design Thinking for Organization where people also can get direct support from
CX/Mktg • Customer net promoter score (NPS)
Design
47% Marketing • Turnover senior leadership.”
• Product Owners
• Profitability of the organization (KPI) • “I am most proud of the way we’ve embraced a
Chapter
• Brand Managers
• Recruitment & internal campaigns • Culture survey cross-functional approach to designing employee-
People Analytics • Team barometer centered experiences as a team. By working this
• Machine Learning
Scrum
Sprint
• Cognitive & Predictive Analytics • Inclusion index way, we are able to elevate and amplify our work
Analytics
17% Chapter
36% EX • Social Media, AI, etc. • New hire turnover and truly deliver world-class experiences for our
Agile Coaches & Scrum Masters
• Recruiting spend vs. turnover employees.”
• Agile Coach
• Scrum Master • System data (e.g. Workday), number of escalations and
Facilities • Sprint Facilitator
36% • Agile Organization Design tickets in service centers Taking our thinking to the next level:
• Agile Transformation Manager • “We set our strategy for an employer brand, based
Comms
Digital
on our new insights from EX.”
76% • Digital EX Manager
• “We are finally putting the employee first in our
• App Designer (Consumer-grade) Celebrating success: reasons to be proud of
Others design and thinking.”
• Storyteller
• Community Builder Besides understanding struggles and how to overcome • “We are truly starting to put employees at the heart
Squad Squad Squad
• EX skills for HR Business Partners of what we do in HR as opposed to simply rolling out
them, we wanted to give our respondents a moment of
corporate program after corporate program.”
64 65
• “Raising the bar of HR” Looking ahead: what can be changed or

• “We amended processes and challenged behaviors improved?
based on what we learnt from employees.”
• “We’ve been able to use it to infuse our cultural values EX is still largely perceived as a domain within HR, when
in our various programs.” it is HR that needs to transform itself to become the Peo-
• “We changed the mindset of the recruiting team.” ple Experience function. To truly move the needle and
• “We get a chance now to learn by doing.” democratize EX innovation, our efforts need to include
expertise and perspectives outside of HR. We are seeing Thank you for reading our report
Making a difference in how employees feel: the rapid buildup of many new capabilities coming from
• “We simply create a better world for our employees.” Human-Centered Design and Design Thinking, Mar-
• “We are making changes that impacts people lives.” keting, Agile, Digital and others. What is still missing in
We hope you find this report both inspiring and practical for your work to
• “People arrive at work happier” and “they take a genuine most cases? Better ways of scaling insights on the whole
discover and create strong HX/EX in your workplace. We would like to help you
interest in each other.” spectrum of experiences, including new tech tools to
connect with others who have solved similar problems and together we promote
• It’s impressive “how many employees want to be a part map and design experiences, and an analytics approach
and shape new ways of doing HX.
of paying it forward.” to integrate data points and identify drivers of satisfaction
• “People react to our efforts in a positive manner.” and what helps us perform at our best. And connecting
• “The pride people feel when they leave our company. all these touch points to what drives business success.
When we wrote this report, we had no way of knowing how 2020 would turn out,
They are our ambassadors!”
with the worldwide shared impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Turns out that
• “EX is central to how people feel about themselves and To succeed on this point, EX needs strong coordination
Creating Organizational Empathy, Building & Scaling New HX Capabilities, and
their workplace. Nothing touches employees more between Analytics and Digital/IT. As one of our respon-
using Agile frameworks has never been more critical and relevant.
and nothing else can accelerate engagement and dents said: “We need resources if we’re going to get
productivity.” traction on these issues. We can’t expect new results by
• “Happy employees - is what matters, gives the doing the same old thing with no additional help.”
HX is one of the most significant new movements in organizations in the past
organization energy.”
50 years. Most HX leaders are in their role less than 2 years, and we have
• “Employees feel much more engaged - I feel the Finally, one of the lessons learned in the Walmart and
listened as they have told us about their challenges as well as their development
difference.” KBC Group cases is that you don’t have to ‘own’ a huge
and learning needs.
• “I am proud when we see the loyalty of our employees new team of new roles and capabilities. Borrow from
towards the organization.” existing Marketing, Analytics, Agile and IT people within
• “I feel proud when people talk about a program or your organization and build new skills in Design, Journey
As a response, we’ve created the HX Leaders Network as a global platform for
process the EX team created as something remarkable Mapping, Storytelling, etc. and start organizing these in
shar-ing knowledge as well as new capabilities and ways of working. Our goal
about their experience here. “ Agile teams around personas and journeys, as well as
is not to benchmark and drive sameness but rather inspire diversity of thought
Organization Design and your elements of your business
and shape Human-centered experiences on a global scale.
Transformation.
We invite you learn more and to join our HX Leaders Network.

For more info, please visit our website at: www.hxleadersnetwork.com or write
us at [email protected].
66 67
EX LEADERS NETWORK
ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020
© HXTransforma 2020
www.hxtransforma.com
www.hxleadersnetwork.com
[email protected]
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EX LEADERS NETWORK

3 ARLD E AX NRNE SUEAALR CRHE SS ET U

Employee Experience 2020

For more information, visit:

2.1. Organizational Personas: Stages of EX Implementation

2.2. Key Trends for 2020

2.3. Conclusion: Where EX is going from here

ABN AMRO - EX Roadmap to a Future-proof Bank

Facebook - Building Organizational Empathy About HXTransforma

“EX is about discovering and InVision - A Seamless People Experience

KBC GROUP - EX Driving Innovation

designing around human emotion.”

Walmart - Scaling EX at the ‘Fortune One’ For more information, visit:

60 Appendix: An in-depth look at Survey Results

Maria Neicu is a partner in

Case Studies Executive Summary

Read more the full case study on page 52

• Executive buy-in and support is essential - Business leaders must see EX as an

2017 2018 2019

6% + 46% 52% + 5% 56%

% that feel their organization has made significant progress on EX

Larger companies (over 50K Companies with 10.000-50.000

2.2. Key Trends for 2020

Communications, IT, Recruiting, and an Agile Coach. HX Playbook

Sander talks about integrating Agile with EX: “With

Employee Experience Leaders

Where EX is going EX Roadmap to a Future-proof Bank at ABN AMRO

Building Organizational Empathy at Facebook

Walmart: Scaling EX at the ‘Fortune One”

ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020 ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020

EX Roadmap to a “We followed that up with several key moves:

Future-proof Bank at ABN AMRO

What are some concrete examples of enhancing Employee Experience at Facebook?

Employee Experience at ING

ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020 ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020

People Experience at InVision

Snapshot of Building the InVision Team: Interviewer training.

ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020 ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020

driving Innovation at KBC

ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020 ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020

People Analytics &

Culture Champions at LinkedIn

Nawal is the Senior Manager, Employee Experience at

Shujaat (Senior Manager, People Analytics) joined

ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020 ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020

at the ‘Fortune One’

2020: Current stage of EX 2020: Current stage of EX

Different maturity stages for EX New way of working 0% 35%

Researching 42% 24%

New way of working 6%

Building capability 18%

Key take-aways: extending past traditional benefits

2020: Current stage of EX differently around employee and new

Starting 36% competitive and we need to differentiate

Human-centered Design & Design

• “Raising the bar of HR” Looking ahead: what can be changed or

We invite you learn more and to join our HX Leaders Network.

ANNUAL EX RESEARCH STUDY 2019/2020

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