What if the way we build organisations is no longer fit for purpose?

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In this episode…

Gerry Murray speaks with organisational psychologist and Chief Scientist at AIHR, Dieter Veldsman, about how to redesign work for a more human future. 

Drawing on his new book Work for Humans, Dieter shares why employee experience (EX) is much more than a buzzword, and how to make it a philosophy, a process, and a practice.

Together, they discuss:

• Why EX is now a core leadership issue, not just an HR function

• How to measure EX meaningfully — without making it overly soft or overly rigid

• The role of technology in either amplifying or eroding human experience

• Why frontline workers must be central to any EX strategy

• How EX links to organisational design, trust, inclusion, and long-term performance

This is a manifesto for leaders and HR professionals who want to build workplaces where people — and businesses — thrive.

Curious?

🎧 Listen to the full conversation now to discover how to do this. 

Connect with Dieter on LinkedIn

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Leading People with me, gerry Marais.
This is the podcast for leadersand HR decision makers who want
to bring out the best inthemselves and others.
Every other week, I sit downwith leading authors,
researchers and practitionersfor deep dive conversations

(00:22):
about the strategies, insightsand tools that drive personal
and organizational success.
And in between, I bring you onesimple thing short episodes
that deliver practical insightsand tips for immediate use.
Whether you're here for usefultools or thought
thought-provoking ideas, leadingPeople is your guide to better

(00:44):
leadership.
What if the way we designorganizations is no longer fit
for purpose?
What if employee experienceisn't just an HR initiative but
a strategic lens for buildingmore human-centered systems?
And what if the future of workdepends not on technology but on

(01:07):
empathy, measurement andmeaningful leadership?
In this episode, I speak withDieter Felsman, an
organizational psychologist,chief scientist at AIHR and
co-author of the new book Workfor Humans.
We explore why traditionalstructures are failing people,

(01:28):
how leaders can reimagine theemployee-employer relationship
and what it really takes todesign organizations where
humans can thrive.
So if you're curious aboutbuilding better systems,
engaging your people moreeffectively and redefining
leadership for a changing world,stay with us.
Now let's get into theconversation.

(01:50):
Dieter Felsman, welcome toLeading People.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Thank you very much, gerry.
It's fantastic to be here withyou today.
And welcome to the listeners.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Now I believe you're South African, but you're
joining me today.
From which part of the world?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
I'm joining you from the Netherlands, so I'm
currently just outside ofUtrecht, but, as you rightfully
mentioned, originally from SouthAfrica, but I've been in Europe
for the last four years or so.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Now you've just published a book, which is the
primary reason I've brought youon the podcast, and I attended a
webinar you gave several monthsago as well, so I kind of know
what I'm getting into here.
But first you've been warned,I've been warned, but first to
kick things off so our listenerscan get to know you better.
So how did you come to end upfocusing your work on employee

(02:35):
experience and sort of whatpeople, places or events stand
out on your journey, and werethere any epiphany moments that
led you particularly to writethis book with your co-author?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, jerry, I think something has always been
interesting for me in my careerand also made me choose a career
in organizational psychologyand behavior and human resource
management has been how humanbehavior plays out in
organizations and the decisionsthat we make around how we work
and why we work and thefundamental role that work plays
in people's lives.
That are very differentdepending on what your approach

(03:07):
towards work is and how it fits.
So I think that's beensomething that's driven me quite
a lot and then from there Istarted shifting a lot more to
understand but how doorganizations as living systems
actually think about theworkforce, especially with some
of the changes that we are alsocurrently seeing with new
technologies et cetera, cominginto the workforce?
So if you ask me about pivotalmoments, I think there's been a

(03:28):
couple.
I first had the privilege andopportunity to work in big
technology implementations inorganizations and how that
changed human behavior and toguide them through the change
process.
After that, worked quiteextensively in organizational
design and organizationaldevelopment.
At my heart, I still believethat the core of a lot of
challenges we find today isbecause organizations are not

(03:49):
designed well and not designedwith both human beings and
business outcomes in mind andthen from there I shifted back
into the working world, into thecorporate environment there,
where I eventually became thegroup chief human resource
officer for a multinationalinsurance business and on the
other side, which led a littlebit towards the writing of the
book as well.
I've always been a bit of acloset academic, if I may call

(04:10):
it that way, so I've always beenvery interested in the academic
world, but not necessarilybeing part of it.
So I've kept on writing anddoing a lot of research and I'm
also a professor of practice atthe University of Johannesburg
as part of my role also as chiefscientist at the Academy to
Innovate HR.
So I think those are kind ofthe things that have shaped my
interest and the work thatmyself and my co-author, dr

(04:31):
Manav Anumarivas, done aroundemployee experience originated
out of the need to say but weshould be doing work better and
as organizations, are we notcaught up in this mix of process
and efficiency and onlyconsidering one of the parties?
And that led us towards thisinterest around exploring but
should we not be doing employeeexperience in a very different
way?
And that's been gosh aboutseven years ago already when we

(04:53):
started some of this work okay,so that's a great introduction.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
So now people have the frame of reference for for
Dieter um, you do have a PhD,don't you?
So you, you have, you have acertain high level of academic
achievement.
Uh, behind you as well, um, solet's get to the book.
So, just for our list, for mylisteners here, it's called work
for humans.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Um, and it's really about how do we design practical
employee experience strategiesthat work both for the business
and for the humans that fallpart of the workforce, and for
the humans that fall part of theworkforce.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Right, and this has got to be a very interesting
topic for any leaders or HRfolks listening to this.
So who is this book for and whydid you and Marna feel now was
the right time to write it?

Speaker 2 (05:39):
So, as I mentioned in the intro, I think about seven
years ago or so, we both Marnaand myself we were working in
the same organization at thetime and we were tasked with
redesigning the talentmanagement process.
And the more we started toreview what was in place in that
particular organization, themore we started to realize that
this was actually designed withvery much wearing an HR hat and

(06:00):
an HR mindset, so very muchdesigned for process, designed
for efficiency, but notnecessarily thinking about the
experiences.
And I asked her the question tosay you know, if I was a
consumer, would I buy to do this?
Would I actually pay my ownmoney to form part of either
this talent process or learningprocess or performance process?
And we reached the conclusionthat no, we would not.
And we asked the question butwhy are organizations not

(06:22):
thinking about their employeesas consumers of the
organizational product?
And if we talk about askill-scarce talent market,
surely that we should bethinking in a very different way
about the experiences that weprovide to people?
Now you asked the questionaround why did we write a book
about it?
It wasn't the intent when westarted out.
So we started out aspractitioners, developing some
models, frameworks that we thenapplied in various organizations

(06:45):
over the years and, as I'vementioned before, I have a bit
of an academic background aswell and we started looking
towards the academia side ofthings and started realizing but
academics and practice is notadding up when we start talking
about employee experience On theone side in practice, we see a
lot of good work being done interms of tools and methodologies
and frameworks being developedwe felt that it lacked the

(07:05):
deeper science to actually tellus where does this fit with
concepts such as employeeengagement, employee
satisfaction?
Is it just a buzzword?
Is it something new?
So we thought it lacked a bitof the scientific rigor.
And when looking towards thescience and the academic side of
things, we thought but this isnot practical enough.
As practitioners ourselves, wewould never utilize any of this

(07:25):
in practice.
And we wrote the book to tryand bring these two different
worlds together, to say how canwe think about employee
experience and where?
The field is currently based onsolid science but giving a very
practical experience focus andexperiential focused guidance to
practitioners that wants to dothis in their organizations.
And that's really what ledtowards the writing of the book

(07:45):
and we tried to summarize thework that we've done over the
last seven years in the book ina concise manner to say but
start here and use this bit of aguide and a playbook for you
and if you start building outyour employee experience
practice okay.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
so a few things uh emerge from what you've just
said which I think we couldunpack a little bit further.
And this idea of, I think andyou're not the first guest I've
had talk about this is this ideathat you know how much effort
goes into the customerexperience in an organization
and then, as you said, if I wasa consumer would I buy it, and

(08:20):
there's a gradually becomingmore and more of a shift saying,
well, hold on a second, youknow, maybe the employee is like
a customer of the organization.
And then you talk about thedistinction.
You said, like you know, theword that gets bandied around
all the time is employeeengagement or satisfaction, and
you seem to imply that this is,this is way beyond that, right?

(08:41):
So maybe we could unpack thisand you sort of this idea of
almost employee experience as aphilosophy and a process and a
practice.
Can we unpack that a little bitand maybe, uh, pull, pull out
some of the distinctions, likethis idea that that you're a
consumer uh, you're, you're.
This is not about justengagement, satisfaction, this
goes way beyond.

(09:02):
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Speaker 2 (09:39):
So I think it starts with a principle there and,
almost to tie on to the lastthing that you've mentioned,
jerry, around the fact that ifyou view your employee as a
consumer of the work experience,we ask very different questions
there.
We ask you know what makes theireyes light up, what gives them
energy, why would they want tobuy this?
Why would they want to comeback?
So almost that same type ofthinking that, to your point, we
apply in the customerexperience space.

(09:59):
But if you start thinking inthe way that if we acquire
employees, if you want to engagethem and you want to retain
them, how would we do thingsdifferently and set up the work
experience in a very, verydifferent way?
Also bearing in mind that weare trying to balance not only
the needs of the employee butalso the needs of the
organization, because I thinkthere's a misconception that
employee experience is onlyabout the employee.
It's about the employee in thecontext of the organization.

(10:22):
So it does need to makebusiness sense in terms of how
and where the organization alsofocuses in terms of optimizing
EX, because you can't beeverything to everyone, but it's
important that you're clear onwho you are and what you can and
what you can't offer and whatthat experience entails.
So I think, from a fundamentalstarting point of view, it's
this principle about saying ifemployees were consumers, how

(10:44):
would we treat them?
And if we treat them in adifferent way, what does that
particular outcome look like Nowin terms of looking at things
like employee engagement,satisfaction, employee
experience.
They are definitely relatedconcepts because these things do
overlap to a large extent, butI think they focus on different
periods of time.
Engagement for us, is anoutcome over a long period of

(11:04):
time in terms of the sentimentof the employee towards the
organization, their willingness,their commitment and
discretionary effort that theyapply.
And employee experience, wethink, is a living thing that
almost integrates and leadstowards employee engagement and
it's about those moments thatmatter to you in the
organizational life and you knowI often describe it as a bank
account there's certain thingsas an employee in your bank

(11:25):
account with the employer thatdeposits money and goodwill into
it and, let's be honest, workis tough.
Work in life is hard.
There's certain things thatwill withdraw money as part of
that.
But employee experience is howdo we manage that balance of
that bank account over time?
By making sure that there'senough deposits in the moments
that really matter to employeesin order to build that
particular goodwill.

(11:45):
Now I do want to categoricallystate it's not about having a
fun organizational environmentand it's not only about the
culture that we want to create,but it goes deeper than that.
It goes about the principles ofwhat do we promise as an
employer?
Are we living up to it and arewe actually making sure that the
experience of it is reallygreat?
And know almost to visualize ita little bit, jerry, there's

(12:06):
three circles that I think wedon't talk enough about.
The one is employer brand.
What do I promise?
And I think we do a really goodjob in organizations about
selling who we are as anorganization to new talent.
Then there's the employee valueproposition side of things.
Do I actually offer the thingsthat I promise?
But then the missing link forme is employee experience.
That has to kind of bring thosetwo circles together in the way

(12:27):
that I then experience what theorganization promises to me,
because very often people join.
You know it's great thebenefits, for example, we offer,
but man, the experience ofaccessing those benefits or
getting things done, or applyingfor that bursary or, you know,
being part of the highperformance talent group.
That's just a really, reallyterrible and kind of detracts
from that bank account that Imentioned earlier and that's

(12:49):
kind of a little bit from thepremise that we wanted to shift
around thinking a bit moreholistically and thinking a bit
more systemically about employeeexperience as well.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Okay, so I want to dig a bit deeper into all of
this.
As you could imagine, there's acouple of questions here that I
want to ask about, and the onethat is sort of jumping at me
first is what is thecontribution of a manager or
leader to the employeeexperience, because context can

(13:17):
condition a lot of things.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, and I think that's it's an important thing
to to think about employeeexperience on four levels right,
and almost see them as fourdifferent circles that build on
each other.
There's a very key componentthere that starts with the
individual themselves.
I need to want to be here inthe organization, so it's a very
cognitive decision that I alsomake One to participate, to
bring my best self to work, toactually be part of the

(13:40):
workforce and contribute myskill set, be part of the
workforce and contribute myskill set and I know it sounds
really strange to put it thatway, but employee experience
does also put responsibility onthe employee about creating
their own experience at work.
I think, then, this interactionthat you spoke about quite
fundamentally and we know itfrom a lot of the research
around the impact and theinfluence that the relationship
with your direct manager has onthings like employee experience,

(14:01):
on things like employeeengagement, and I think that's
an important, almost gatekeeperrelationship, if I might call it
that.
So there are elements therethat we need to think about in
terms of how do I get feedback?
Do I trust my manager?
Do I believe that they are fairto me in terms of how they
respond and how they treat me,do they guide me in terms of my
development, do they care aboutmy well-being.
So I think there's a core partwhere the manager almost

(14:24):
represents the organization inthat experience with the
employee.
And then, obviously, to yourpoint, there's a third circle,
very much in the organizationaldomain around have we designed
an operating environment that isconducive to the experience
that we want to create?
And very often this is not anHR thing, it goes beyond that.
That talks very often about thephysical work environment, the
way we collaborate virtually.

(14:45):
It talks very much also aboutsome other of the can I call
them the harder factors thatexist in that environment that
influences just the way thatpeople experience the work
environment.
And then, lastly, it also thenhappens in an environmental
context, and I think that'ssomething for a very long period
of time that we've ignored.
You know, some areas are tougherto work in than in others,
depending where you are based.

(15:06):
There's certain realities thatyou're going to have to face.
You know I sometimes teasebeing from South Africa.
You know, in the Netherlands, Ithink the weather is a really
good consideration for you interms of how you set up the
employee experience during thecourse of the winter months.
Now I'm saying thattongue-in-cheek, but what I'm
trying to just showcase there isthat I think it goes beyond
just you know, oh, I've got anice office chair in a nice
office environment with a greatcanteen.

(15:27):
It goes much deeper, aroundthose circles being aligned and
being authentic and deliveringon what is promised.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
So you have the individual, then the manager,
then I suppose the circles goout the way the organizational
is designed, not just in thephysical sense but the virtual
sense, and then you have theoperating environment in which
the industry or whatever theperson is working in at the time
.
And I think that point you makeabout the individual creating

(15:55):
their own experience.
I mean, I've also talked topeople about the engagement
aspect, where engagement is notthe obligation of the
organization, it's a two-waypsychological contract between
spot on, you know, organizationscannot give you everything you
want to to have you show up andgive, do your best work, but you
have to be prepared to step upyourself.

(16:16):
And and there's a growing bodyof work that says you know you
could be, you know you have tobe a responsible employee,
you're accountable for your own.
When you can takeresponsibility and
accountability for your own work, you're.
You're actually growing as anindividual in in so many ways,
aren't you?
Now there's an interestingaspect to this, which is the
other question, and it's relateda little bit to when I was

(16:39):
thinking about this a fewminutes ago.
So we have this potential tothink about the customer
experience and think then aboutthe employee experience.
Now, interesting thing is whatrole does technology play in all
this?
Because there's a growing bodyof evidence in customer
experience which says technologyis actually killing the

(17:01):
customer experience.
And so then if we think, well,okay, but let's just throw some
technology at the employees,what impact would that have?
So, in your research and yourthinking and everything else,
what conclusions or whatinsights did you come to in
terms of the role of technologyin this experience?
Employee experience.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
That's a great point.
You know, there's somethinginteresting that came out that
talks about the fact that justbecause we can does not mean we
should.
And I think it's extremelyrelevant today when we think
about technologies that are ableto automate a lot of the
aspects of the employeeexperience, when we start
thinking about the utilizationof things like generative AI as
part of the employee experienceand there's a very interesting

(17:43):
case study that talks about thefact where an organization tried
to replace the performancemanagement discussion between
the manager and the employeewith AI actually facilitating
the feedback, and it completelybombed out because the employee
gave the feedback to say there'sno humanness towards this
typical interaction that we have.
I realize these limitations themanager might be subjective and

(18:03):
there's bias, but how do wecontrol for that and use
technology to almost addressthat problem, as opposed to
really kind of exchanging itwith the high touch human moment
that we want to create out ofthat experience?
So, to get to your point, jerry, there, around the fact that we
think that technology is a keyenabler of the employee
experience, but it needs to bedone intentionally, within the
context of what is the memorablemoment that you want to create

(18:26):
and what's the most appropriateshape and format and channel to
create that.
So, practically, there will besome experiences that we can
automate through technology, butwe choose not to because we
want to create a very humane,high-touch experience in that
particular moment.
And that's why what we found inthe research and we also write a
lot about it in the book, andit ties a little bit to your
earlier point around thepsychological contract is you

(18:48):
have to understand what the needis of the employee in
particular moments of their lifewith you as an organization.
What are those moments thatmatter and what is the need that
they hold as part of thepsychological contract.
Now, that might be stated ontheir side or it might be an
expectation that could beunreasonable, that they've just
brought this thing into theorganizational environment.
But it is important tounderstand what that particular

(19:10):
need is because you will thenapproach it very, very
differently in terms of what youprovide, whether you utilize
that moment through technology,et cetera.
And I think that is quite anice guide for people to say but
what's the need in the moment,what's the best way to address
it and how do I design aroundthat?
As opposed to saying technologycan do the following things for
me.
I'll use a practical example.
You get a salary or you get apromotion at work or you get a

(19:33):
salary bump up.
Sure, technology can automateand send you that message.
But do you really want to hearthat from an automated email or
a Slack message or a Teamsmessage, or do you actually want
the congratulatory message tocome from a manager and then it
gets followed up by thetechnology process?
Now, I know it's a very simplething I'm mentioning, but the
point I'm trying to illustratethere and to highlight is about

(19:54):
what does the human moment looklike and how does technology
support and enable that?
Of course, there will be othermoments that we identify that
has to happen, but they don'tmatter necessarily in the sense
of contributing towards thatbank account.
So let's automate them, let'sget them out of the way as
quickly as possible, or let'suse technology to neutralize
moments that could actuallydetract from the employee

(20:15):
experience as well.
You know those frustratingthings about.
I have to fill in 100 differentforms of my details all of the
time.
Utilize technology to take thepain out of the experience that
people have at that particularpoint in the onboarding process,
but be intentional about that,and that's what all our research
told us and all the casestudies we wrote up is the
intentionality is what matters.

(20:35):
Our research told us and allthe case studies we wrote up is
the intentionality is whatmatters, and combining the
experience that we have with thehuman moment the moment that
matter and then the technologyenabler, is quite an important
part that leads towards just avery different feel to it and um
.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
How would you feel about a sort of notion that when
you're evaluating whether touse technology, you ask the
question how does this make usmore human?

Speaker 2 (20:58):
It's an interesting comment right that you make, and
I think, especially today,where you know, and AI is
everywhere and I think what it'sactually starting to do a lot
more is to pose that questionaround but what does our
humanness actually look like andhow do we bring it out a lot
more and not lose who we are aspart of the progress that we
make into this nexttechnological era right, which
I'm a firm supporter?
I think there's so muchopportunity there, but we have

(21:20):
to remain human in the process.
And that brings me back to thepoint where I said you know,
just because we can doesn't meanwe should.
We are now getting to a pointin time where we're going to
have to be very intentionalabout what we choose technology
to do for us and not do for us.
And it's not just due toethical concerns, but there
might be certain things whereit's not the best outcome if we
just do it faster and moreefficiently.

(21:40):
Sometimes in employeeexperience, you might actually
choose to do a process slowerbecause it's more meaningful,
and you could actually slow acouple of things down, obviously
not across the board, but acouple of things down because
it's just more meaningful to doit that way and the returns are
much higher.
So for me, employee experienceis about.
You know, I love it whenorganizations say they want to
be a lot more human-centric, andthen my first question is okay

(22:02):
one do you know who your humansare beyond the demographic
statistics that you report everymonth?
Do you actually know who theyare, what they worry about, what
keeps them awake at night, whatmotivates them?
And, if so, what have you putin place to address those
particular needs?
If you had to sell the workexperience to them, what does
that actually look like?
And that changes a little bit.
You know the discussion in theboardroom when you have to start

(22:24):
making particular calls onwhere do we invest and where
don't we invest if you reallyknow who the human beings are
and what they care about I gotthe inspiration for that
question, by the way, from thetitle of your book work for
humans well, I'm glad to seethat it's inspiring something at
least put it out there, livewith the consequences.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
You know yeah there's two, there's two, there's two,
two things emerging from whatyou're saying here and maybe
they're kind of somewhat relatedyou can decide how you deal
with.
So there's there's the you know.
There's the question how do youknow right which is down to
this whole thing of how are yougoing to measure everything from
expectations to how wellthey're being met, whether the

(23:07):
expectations are realistic, etc.
Etc.
And then maybe you can dovetailthat into the changing world of
work and how work, what trendsyou've seen in the employee
employer relationship, thecontract, whatever it's called,
the psychological contract,whatever we want to call it.
Between that and particularly,of course, we had this pandemic
a few years ago, which of courseaccelerated a lot of things in

(23:30):
terms of technology and use andhow we worked, and probably also
maybe hasn't all landed yet,because it's like that.
So let's get into the sort ofmeasurement aspect and then
maybe talk about the changingworld of work.
You're listening to LeadingPeople with me, gerry Murray, my

(23:54):
guest this week is DieterFelsman, organizational
psychologist and co-author ofWork for Humans, coming up how
top organizations are puttingthese ideas into practice, what
leaders often get wrong and whythe future of work might be more
human than we think.
Now back to our conversation.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
And I think I want to start maybe answering this one,
jerry, by focusing on how we'veseen the employer-employee
relationship change and shift,and some of it has been due to
the pandemic, where I thinkthere was an immediate focus all
of a sudden on what does thehuman being in the workplace
look like and what do theycontribute, as if it was a
surprise for people that they'reworking with humans.
And I think on the other side,even before, that people just

(24:39):
want something fundamentallydifferent from work today, and I
think what has happened throughthe rise of things like social
media etc.
That people are a lot morevocal about the fact that, if
they are, if their needs are notbeing met at work.
I think organizations are beingheld a lot more accountable as
well, which I think is a goodthing, as long as it's done in
dialogue and in a good way, andit's not necessarily about
shaming organizations in thepublic domain.

(25:00):
But it does tell us that peopleare a lot more vocal about
their expectations from what itcould look like in terms of an
employer and employment, andthere's been a little bit of a
power pendulum that swung right.
I think in the old days therewas very much, you know, just
get a good job, a job one right.
I think in the old days therewas very much you know, just get
a good job a job is fine.
Continued instability andemployment is what you should be
aiming for.
And I think it has shifted alot more, where people are

(25:22):
making different types ofdecisions pertaining to
employment and why they stickwith an employer, and something
we talk a lot about is calledcareer life fit.
You know, for some peoplethey'll make a decision to say
you know, maybe I don't want theyou high status, high ego
driven job for now, becausefamily is more important for me
at the moment and that's aconscious choice that I make
around how work actually fitsinto my life and that's okay.

(25:44):
I think for the very first time, we are in an environment where
it's perfectly fine to makethose type of choices.
So I think there's beensignificant changes in the
employer-employee domain.
We also know that there is aglobal talent shortage, so I
think organizations have tothink very differently about
accessing talent, and goodtalent always has options.
I don't care what you tell mein terms of what the labor

(26:05):
market looks like.
Good talent has got the rightnetworks.
They always have options toshift and move if they want to.
This does bring a verydifferent dynamic as part of
that psychological contract,because I expect different
things from my employer, whilstthey also expect different
things from talent today interms of what that contribution
needs to look like.
So I think there has been asignificant shift there and
that's why we see theconversation shifting a lot more

(26:27):
beyond can I call it thetransactional elements of the
employee experience, which is,you know, am I paid fairly?
It's almost like the tickets tothe game, hygiene factors.
It goes beyond that to say butwhat is it that differentiates
you?
What do you actually want tooffer and what do you want to be
famous for as an organizationin terms of your employee
experience?
What are the things that youwant people to talk about and
remember when you are not in theroom or once they've left, and

(26:49):
to kind of be able to say, yeah,yeah, they promised me X, y, z.
Those things really did playout that way, but you know they
were clear about the fact thatthey can't do ABC and that
wasn't an expectation that I hador something that's important
to me.
So I think that is shiftingquite a bit and you know to link
it around.
But how do we know and what dothe measures look like?
Something that we do promote inthe book.

(27:09):
A lot more is to have, but moreof a systemic, holistic way of
measuring the employeeexperience.
I think there's two extremes atthe moment.
The one side a lot of peoplesay you know ENPS, one measure
to rule them all in, one measureto guide them.
And they say it's only aboutyou know.
Will you recommend theworkplace to others?
I don't think that's a good wayto go about it.
I think it's one of the metricsthat you should look at.

(27:31):
But you know, for example, I'mcurrently in an organization
scale up at.
But you know, for example, I'mcurrently in an organization
scale up fast-paced environment.
I know a lot of good friendsthat's good talent that I would
not recommend the organizationto because I don't think that
they will be a good culture fit.
So it doesn't mean that I havea bad employee experience.
It just means I'm veryrealistic about the type of
environment I am working in andwhat drives me, motivates me,

(27:51):
won't motivate them.
So what we talk about in thebook is a little bit of a
triangle there.
When you think about metrics,there's some general operational
metrics that you need to lookat.
That's day-to-day, daily things, on how people experience
certain practices and processes.
There's a tactical layer thatkind of brings it one level up,
that starts talking a lot morearound measuring those memorable

(28:11):
moments.
And then there's an outcomelayer right at the top that he
talks about.
But why does this really matterto business?
Is it leading towards theexpectations that we had around
improved motivation, engagement,productivity as the outcomes of
having a solid and a soundemployee experience in place?
Now to touch the last point,then let's talk about future of
work.
I think this is going to becomeeven more important from an

(28:33):
employee experience point ofview.
I'm not just saying thatbecause we wrote the book about
it.
I'm saying it because I reallybelieve that people going
forward and we can already seethat with the workforce they
have very different questionsand asks of employers and
they're not afraid one as I'vesaid before to voice their view
and opinion or to vote withtheir feet to say I'm not
getting it here, I will gosomeplace else where I actually

(28:57):
find a better fit and somebodythat cares about that experience
.
Now I'm not saying we should gotowards the extreme and it's all
about just designing placeswhere people want to work.
It's about designing workplaceswhere people want to work, want
to contribute and want to stayin the longer term.
That then obviously leadstowards business impact and
business outcomes there.
That's good for all.
So I think there will be ashift just in the way that we

(29:17):
think about this and EX.
In a lot of organizations it'sa project.
In a lot of organizations it'sjust one of the buzzwords that
HR uses to kind of explain whythey want budget for some new
initiatives.
I think if you're reallyserious about this, you must
look at what are theunderpinning capabilities we
need to put in place to reallymake this a strategic people
value driver for ourorganization, because that's

(29:39):
where the value, I think, in thefuture of work is going to lie.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
Okay, so, um, a couple of things.
I want to ask you a questionand just for the listeners, I
would you used a nice termearlier on the ENPS.
Um, and it's not a Myers-Briggsclassification term, it's the
employee net promoter score.
Is that right?
Yeah, that's correct Taking.
Frederick Reichelt's work on netpromoter score and translating
it into yeah, he simplified itfrom his early research into

(30:06):
like would you recommend this tosomebody else?
Type of thing, and it's kind ofthe same idea, isn't it Sort of
?
Only you make it employeecentric.
So that's just to clarify theacronym.
And the question I have isaround the measurement.
Again, a lot of satisfaction,engagement, stuff is done at a

(30:28):
anonymous level and we talk somuch here about the employee
experience, which is actuallyit's mine, right, same with my
customer experience.
You can walk into a restaurantand have a totally different
sense of your experience than Ido.
It might be the same experiencein terms of what they create,
but you might not be so happywith it and I might be okay with
it.
So how are organizationsgetting to that essential?

(30:49):
So so actually, if I talk toyou, dieter, about the stuff
that another department has saidis important, right, yeah, and
you're going, this guy's notlistening to me.
I, I my what really keeps meawake at night is this I don't
want a pay rise, I, I don't.
I don't want a promotion, Ijust want more flexibility and I
want to be to, to be givenchallenging work that I can grow

(31:11):
and develop myself and some newskills.
But this guy's proposing to mehe's going to give me a pay rise
.
Now, it's not that I'm going torefuse the money, but it's just
that I don't think he's on.
So how do you get to theindividual aspect of this,
because otherwise there's anawful lot of mud thrown at the
wall on this one.
That's one of the biggestchallenges with measuring this

(31:31):
over the years is it's highlygeneralized and people go well,
they're not happy.
Have you ever talked to Italked to a couple of years ago
very senior guy in finance andhe said to me my scores came in
lower than normal and he said Idon't know what's going on.
I've got 40 people in myfinance department and there's
at least five of them.
I can't afford to lose, but Idon't know who's.

(31:53):
Who's bringing my scores down.
I'm doing the same things I'vebeen doing for the last three or
four years.
Why am I scored now?
Of course, his scores werebelow the average, probably,
which means that somebody'sgoing to be below the average
and maybe somebody else didsomething a little bit more
special and got their scores up.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
So how do we get to that individual aspect of this,
because for me it sounds likeyou really have to get to that
level and there's a couple ofthings that you mentioned, right
, I think, with things likeemployee experience, employee
engagement and, you know, thenet promoter score that we've
spoken about, I think,unfortunately, people have this
fascination with thequantitative metric and what it
tells us.
So engagement in a lot oforganizations is just about the

(32:29):
score and it's about thedashboard that we put up, and I,
as a leader, don't want to beread in my division, right, they
want to be one of the greenpeople so that they they kind of
leave me alone withinterventions that we need to
drive.
I think that's an absolutelymisguided way of thinking about
all of these different practices, whether it's employee
engagement or employeeexperience, because I think the
score there is just somethingthat helps you keep your finger

(32:50):
on the pulse of how things areprogressing and you should be
viewing that over a period oftime, the trends that it starts
to tell you.
So I think that's just acomment on the scoring component
and that's why I definitelypromote a both quantitative and
qualitative way to start lookingat this, because employee
experience is personal, so youneed to go deeper in terms of
understanding the depth of whatare people really telling you

(33:10):
and what's the sentiment and thestories that they tell within
the organization about who youare as an employer, but then how
to do that at scale is thenusually the other criticism that
we get right.
So you'll comment around, butmaybe we're just throwing things
against the wall and seeingwhat sticks.
For me, it does boil back to twothings.
The first one is understandingwho the personas of the human
beings are in your organization,and I'll use an example.

(33:31):
We were working with aninsurance business at the time
and, you know, analyzing anddoing a lot of kind of
ethnographic interviews overtime with their workforce, we
actually realized that their canI call them?
The most common profile was a34-year-old African female,
single with study debt, two kidsto support and a dependent

(33:52):
adult on them as well that theyneeded to look after.
Now, all of a sudden, if youstart thinking about it in that
way and now we have to make acall around, okay, if we provide
certain benefits, what's goingto matter more to this person?
Is it about alleviating theirstudy debt, so kind of looking
at bursaries and things likethat Is it about a pay rise or,
you know, is it more flexibilityor more autonomy?
Now we start understanding whatreally matters to that

(34:13):
individual and helps us to guidethe decisions that we make,
because we also don't haveunlimited resources in terms of
being able to just look at andtrying to do everything for
employees.
It gets to be a lot moresmarter and focused and targeted
.
You have to acknowledge andrealize the fact that you will
work at different levels.
So, at an organizational level,I think it's important to do

(34:33):
persona mapping and have not ahundred, but have five or six
type of personas that you lookat in your workforce and always
ask the question arounddecisions that we make, what's
important to these personagroups and how is that playing
out, so that when we alsomeasure the scoring, you can
almost measure it against thosepersonas to see if you're
meeting the needs or not andwhat needs to be improved.
And then I think earlier youmentioned the important role

(34:55):
that the manager plays, becauseI think that's where you start
going really deep in terms ofunderstanding.
In my own context and in my ownteam, what are the anomalies
that I find there and what arethe things that I do need to
talk about a little bit more?
And yes, there's some thingsthat are really good to gather
anonymously.
There are other things.
If you have enough trust in theenvironment that it's really

(35:17):
good to talk openly about and toput on the table around.
You know what's the barrierstowards the EX that people want.
So I think it's trying to moveaway a little bit from it's
about the score.
It's a lot more about theinteraction.
It's the interaction.
It's a lot more about theintentionality and it's a lot
more about realizing that ithappens at the different touch
points and at the differentlevels.
But try to bring the humanbeing into the room when you

(35:37):
start making some of thosedecisions, because it's always
not and it's a pet peeve I havewhenever we talk to executive
teams it's very rare that theexecutive team is representative
of the profile of the rest ofthe organization.
Doesn't happen for variousreasons.
So do you actually have thevoice in the rest of the
organization?
It doesn't happen for variousreasons.
So do you actually have thevoice in the room that's telling
you what matters to thesepeople or not?
And I think that's somethingjust to think about and there's

(35:59):
some practical guidance in thebook on what you can also think
about when you do engage in thisway and you do start thinking
about measuring morecontinuously, and both
quantitatively and qualitatively, when you decide.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
So quite a lot of interesting perspective in there
.
Getting to that more individualaspect, I suppose a thought
come into my head.
When you're talking about thepersonas, you're still
normalizing certain types ofpeople.
I guess the real power in thisis if managers are taught how to
see whether there's outliers onthe personas in their team.
And because those are probablythe likely the people it you

(36:33):
know a lot of the other peopleare going to cluster, aren't
they mathematically?
So they're going to, they'regoing to go.
Well, he's like me.
Well, he's kind of got the sameset up as me and of course it's
it's easier for the managemanager to perhaps manage to the
norm and at the same time maybesome of their best talent, most
talented people, are on theoutliers and they could get it
horribly wrong.
So it seems to me maybe I'mjust making it, I'm making it up

(36:55):
, but I'm just using what youtold me to say well, wouldn't it
be interesting if a managerknows he's got six types,
persona types in an organizationbecause of the profiles you've
created and at the same timethey're not told this is it
they're told?
Take these as a workinghypothesis and then test it and
say who's who's sitting in myteam and do they actually fit to

(37:15):
this, because maybe what we'retrying to do is as a poll at the
policy level is just not goingto appeal to those people and I
I want to keep a couple of thosebecause they might be a little
bit unusual, but they're reallygood at their job spot on.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
And you know, I think the mistake that people make is
now you have these personaprofiles and now I try to play,
you know, match the employee tothe profile where I sit down and
say, you know, I think Jerry isin profile five and Dieter is
in profile three and person X isin profile Y.
I think it is much more to yourpoint.
It's more to embed theprinciple and to utilize as a
starting point to say think in aneeds-based manner and realize

(37:51):
that you have people in yourteam that do have different
needs.
You know, when I was anexecutive, I had people
reporting into me.
Some were 25 years, my senior.
I had people that were youngerthan me over a period of time
reporting into me and they werevery different.
Now, age is not the determiningfactor there, but in the
determining factor there wasthat very different life needs
at that point in time.
So I could use the personasthere as a starting point to say

(38:12):
you know, for person Y, I thinkthis is something that would
speak to them.
But let me validate it withthem when I talk to them.
Let me use this as a startingpoint.
And you know a challenge that Isometimes have with policies and
organizations is they do notapply to everyone.
Let's be absolutely clear aboutthat.
Typically they are kind ofwritten for the lowest common
denominator to try and avoidrisk.
Now, I'm not saying that theyshouldn't be there.

(38:33):
They play an important part,but you can't just be guided by
that, because there will alwaysbe exceptions to the rule.
But at least here we aretalking about the exceptions
within a broader framework andstarting to utilize just some
other generalizable informationto make an informed decision
about how we treat this specificsituation.
And I think that's slightlydifferent, but yes, it's not

(38:53):
about you know.
Okay, these are now your sixprofiles that you keep in your
back pocket.
So if person says x or theymeet criteria y, this is what I
offer them.
It's a starting point, butthere has to be continuous
validation and that's my earlierpoint.
Dialogue and trust it's tworeally, really important parts
that I think employee experienceneeds to foster and needs to
drive and intentionally putforth within the organization if

(39:16):
it is successful yeah, and Iwant to get to another
ethnographical group in a second.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
I'm just really curious did you employ
anthropologists to help you dothis research or how did you get
to that?
Because many organizations arerealizing that there's quite a
value in having people whounderstand anthropology come in,
because they look at things inquite a different way from other
maybe aspects of the HRfunction.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
I'm just curious did you did you do that, or we did
have a multidisciplinary teamand we also tried to borrow some
techniques, also in terms ofdifferent disciplines and
different sciences, and I thinkthat's one of the things I love
about E-X that it kind oforiginates out of various
different places.
There's a lot of techniquesthat you utilize from things
like anthropology.
There's a lot of techniquesthat you can utilize from things
like user interface design,marketing, consumer science,

(40:05):
psychology, et cetera, and it'sabout bringing those different
things together.
But ultimately, it's aboutunderstanding human behavior
within groups over time, and Ithink that's where that's a
really, really valuablecontribution.
So we had some pretty clever,smart people to help us along
this journey, so it wasn'tsomething that we just figured
out all our own, and I think itis one of the things we write

(40:25):
about.
When you build an EXcapabilities, you need a
multidisciplinary team that'sable to bring different
perspectives and look at theorganization and the human
experience through differentlenses.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
That's where the power lies yeah, so speaking of
different lenses and this andanother ethnographic group, that
perhaps doesn't get enoughattention.
We a lot of ex.
Stuff seems to be often definedfrom the knowledge worker
perspective and you emphasize inthe book um, the frontline
workforce and I I think a lot ofpeople out there get a little

(40:55):
bit disenchanted with this ideathat everybody's doing knowledge
work.
If you mean there's a lot ofpeople out there doing
incredibly valuable work andthey're not classified as
knowledge workers.
So maybe you can speak a littlebit to that before we come, you
know, towards the end of ourconversation.
No, you're spot on, and I mean,if you work from the principle
around, we want to understandwho the human, the end of our
conversation.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
No, you're spot on, and I mean, if you work from the
principle around, we want tounderstand who the human beings
are in our workforce.
We need to understand andthat's my earlier circles that I
referenced that industriessometimes do play out very
differently and I think,unfortunately, in a lot of the
human sciences there's been alot of focus on the knowledge of
worker side of things and Ithink we've almost neglected the
, can I say, the frontlineworkforce, for various reasons.

(41:30):
I'll use a practical exampleOne of the organizations we
worked with.
You know they designed somereally, really nice employee
experience technologiesinternally in the business.
They asked the question okay,you've got, you know, 70% of
your workforce is sales.
They're on the road full day.
How do they utilize this?
And they're like no, they needto come into one of our campus
environments to use it.
So you know that's not reallymeeting up then with the need of

(41:52):
that particular employee group.
So what we've seen working withsome organizations and that's
also what we reference in thatparticular chapter is think
about the frontline workforce ina very different way, because
there is different needs, thereis different realities and we
are in a work era where, due tothe technology and the
techniques and things that wehave, it's no longer a good
enough excuse to say that thefrontline workforce is too big

(42:13):
from a scale point of view.
It's no longer a good excusejust to say you know, we will
just kind of adapt whateverwe're doing in the knowledge
worker or head officeenvironment to the frontline
worker.
That's not their need.
Their need is completelydifferent.
So if we start thinking fromthat perspective, there's
different things that canactually play out.
And I want to use an example,because often people say you
know frontline workers veryoften location bound right

(42:35):
Flexibility can't be somethingthat's important for them in the
workforce.
There's actually anorganization that spoke to their
frontline workforce and saidwhat does flexibility mean for
you and is it something that isreally important for you or not?
And one of their keyinteresting findings was and
they're a retailer, so peoplephysically need to be in the
stores during the times thatthey are open.
They said I know I need to beon location, but flexibility for

(42:57):
me is much more about choice.
I want to be able to have abigger say in how scheduling
plays out, because flexibilityfor me means I don't want to
necessarily take the shiftsthat's in the afternoon or I
don't want to work every singleweekend in the, in the store or
not, and by implementing then atechnology-driven scheduling
solution, they actually enableda lot of flexibility in that

(43:17):
frontline workforce.
But they had to go and find outwhat the need was in the
frontline and I think today wehave, like I said before, the
tools, the techniques to reallypersonalize the frontline
workforce.
And you know your earlier pointthat 70 to 80% of the working
population is frontline oremployees that can be
categorized as the frontlineworkforce.
So it doesn't help we do allthese fancy things but it's only

(43:40):
focused on a 20 to 25% part ofthe knowledge worker workforce
and I think that's a big shiftin employee experience but also
just in general in peoplepractices that we do need to
make.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
it has to cater for the needs of different segments
of the workforce in differentrealities, otherwise it is going
to fall flat in future yeah,and if you have high turnover in
some frontline roles like justtake a hotel, for example if
high turnover in the, maybe thehousekeeping staff or whatever
the standards are just going tosuffer in that and the amount of

(44:12):
retraining and supervision isgoing to be needed to upskill or
reskill people, it's just goingto be quite a challenge for for
organizations and, as you say,investing all the money in an
effort in 20-25 percent itdoesn't maybe always make sense,
right?
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (44:29):
and I mean I think that you know there's a lot of
research on on exactly thispoint around.
Especially if your frontlineworkforce is customer facing and
customer touch eye touchenvironments, I think that's got
a significant impact.
But even when it's more like,let's say, manufacturing type of
function or something thathappens in um in the back end
and does not necessarily engagewith customers on a day-to-day
point of view, even there yousuffer in terms of productivity,

(44:51):
you suffer in terms ofinnovation, you suffer also
around the fact that there's alot of institutional knowledge
that lies within your frontlineworkforce around how the
organization actually gets a lotof things done, and I think
it's an important part to alwaysremember and to have that voice
present when we have theseconversations.
And last point, jerry, maybe onthis one, I worked for a leader
in an organization and hemanaged at the time it was a

(45:13):
financial, it was a bank, afinancial institution, and he
was head of the branch network,so all the frontline employees
eventually kind of rolled upinto his division and I always
loved when I sat with himwhenever we wanted to do
anything in the branch network.
He asked me this question aroundI was going to impact the
working life of my people in thebranch network, why should they
care about this and how is itthen eventually going to hit the

(45:34):
customer?
And those were the threestarting points, and I knew over
time as somebody that wanted tochange things in the branch
network.
I had to be able to answerthose three questions really
well before he was even open toany new ideas that we would take
into the workforce there.
And I think it's a good way ofjust thinking very differently
and applying very basic employeeexperience questions in

(45:55):
everything that we do, andthat's what we were also trying
to promote a lot more.
That EX is a mindset and it'san approach as opposed to just
how it plays out from aday-to-day point of view.
So we have to think a lot moreabout EX and how we design
processes, practices, how we putthings forward, when we think
about workflows, when we thinkabout technologies and I think,
especially when we then startmoving into the frontline domain

(46:15):
, yeah, so organizations couldactually just make clear what
three or four criteria are as asort of first-line filter for
any new initiative that mightimpact workforces.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
I had Margaret Heffernan on the show on the
program a while back and shetalked about WL Gore in America,
which is a famous company, andin terms of innovation they've
got like three things they mustcheck.
If they've got an idea, theyrun it through these and then,
if it passed muster, they canthen pass it on for
consideration, and so everybodyknows what the starting point is

(46:50):
.
So it can be quite useful.
So, coming to the end, I had tokind of I want to wrap the kind
of two questions into one here.
Your final chapters are sort oflike a manifesto for the future
of employee experience, and Iguess my question would have
been around if somebody wants tobe a champion from an employee
experience in their organization, where should they?
They start.
But I also have this thing Iwant to leave the listener out

(47:13):
there, my listener, with atleast some key insight or big
takeaway idea, the big idea thatyou'd like them to leave this
conversation with.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
So, coming to the end , three big ideas I think that
we were trying to to promote inthe book, and then I'll talk a
bit about how we make thempractical.
And the first one is and I knowit sounds like such an obvious
one, but the realization thatit's humans that form part of
the workforce and humans havegot certain wants and needs and
if you want to get the best outof them, we need to start
thinking very differently abouthow we design intentionally for

(47:43):
them.
Second big idea is thatemployee experience is a science
and we need to put good sciencewith practical application
together.
And it is a systemic process.
It's not a flash in the panonce-off event.
I do something nice on a Friday.
It's actually something thathappens longitudinally over time
.
My earlier analogy of the bankaccount there, and then the last

(48:04):
one that we've almost touchedon now, is that EX is about
intentional choices that we makein the organization about what
we do and what we don't do andwho we want to be and who we
can't be to our employees andbeing very transparent to manage
the dynamics of thepsychological contract and how
that plays out.
So I think if you want to putthis into practice and somebody
listening today that wants tosay I want to be an ex-champion.

(48:24):
I think first educate yourselfon ex and how it plays out, give
yourself the language to havethese types of conversations
with business leaders and then Ithink, secondly, I loved your
suggestion there on what are thecore questions that I should
always keep in mind.
You know, in the book we talkabout, whenever I design
anything, I need to ask thequestion around for an employee
what I want them to think, feeland do as a result of this and

(48:46):
at least start having theconversation in that particular
way.
And then, lastly, go out andlisten to your workforce, ask
them what matters to you and why, and I think that's a great
starting point to start shiftingand moving some of your
existing practices to be a lotmore employee experience-centric
in future.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
So, Dieter, what's next for you?

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Well, Jerry, I think the one-minute version yeah.
The yeah, the one minute version.
Um well, I think we willcontinue with a lot of the work
in terms of of ex.
I think there's interestingwork that we are looking at the
moment, obviously, as I think alot of people are, in terms of
how ai will play into that, butwe are actually also busy myself
and somebody else writing abook on organizational identity
at the moment, because we thinkif the organization doesn't know

(49:30):
who they really are at adeep-seated level, we think it's
difficult to provide anauthentic employee experience.
So that's our next project.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Okay, as if we weren't impressed with one book,
you're knocking out another onethat's pretty good, and so,
finally, how can people get intouch with you, and do you have
anything special to offer them?

Speaker 2 (49:52):
Jerry, they can definitely get in touch with me
on LinkedIn.
I am quite active there, soplease feel free to follow the
work we do and we also share alot of our research and our work
there, both in an individualcapacity and as AIHR.
And for the first three peoplelistening today that pops me a
message on LinkedIn thatreferences the podcast very
happy to give you a free, signedcopy of the book.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
Okay, and I'll put links in the show notes, as
always.
And yeah, I just want to thankyou, dieter, for sharing your
insights, tips and wisdom withme and my listeners here today.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Thanks so much for having me, Jerry.
I really enjoyed it.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
Coming up on Leading People.

Speaker 3 (50:33):
And that's the impact hypothesis for L&D and it's not
just applicable to learning anddevelopment.
In fact, I use the sameframework in the nonprofit
sector with executive directorsand leadership development
companies who are like how do wecreate some kind of logic
behind what we're doing?

Speaker 1 (50:51):
My next guest is Dr Elena Schlachter educator, data
nerd and author of Measurementand Evaluation on a Shoestring.
If Dieter Felsman asks us torethink how we design our
organizations, elena takes usone step further, helping us
understand how to measurewhether those systems are

(51:12):
actually enabling people to grow, thrive and succeed.
She shares how L&D can use dataand storytelling, even on
limited resources, to proveimpact and influence what really
matters.
It's a fascinating conversationyou won't want to miss and

(51:34):
remember.
Before our next full episode,there's another One Simple Thing
episode waiting for you A quickand actionable tip to help you
lead and live better.
Keep an eye out for it whereveryou listen to this podcast
Until next time.