Why do moments matter?
Because, “Moments snowball their way to shape experience.”
Imagine planning a vacation for a long time. Before sitting in the airplane itself, you have mentally visited that place multiple times. Let’s say you face some issues while boarding the airplane. Then, as soon as you land you realise the taxi that was supposed to take you to the hotel is late. Now that you have reached your hotel you face some booking issues (despite booking the room in advance). Having settled this issue now you are pumped up to visit a particular place and it starts raining! All these small moments shaped your experience had these moments been beautiful you would have had an altogether different experience.
Likewise, small moments shape an employee’s experience which determines the way they perceive the organisation and this in turn affects various factors that influence organisational productivity.
Example: As a new-hire enters the organisations, entire team arranges a quick welcome party, provides a “buddy” that will help them settle in the organisation, a list of all important contact numbers is pinned on the their desk; on the contrary if the new-hire is greeted with just a formal hello and then left to figure things on his own on his first day itself, both these experiences will be unforgettable for the new-hires however it is the kind of moments that determine the experience to be positive or negative.
“Moments That Matter” (MTM), this concept originated in customer experience as “moments of truth,” or points in a customer’s journey that determine if they will buy from you. In HR, ‘moments that matter’ are the moments that impact an employee’s organisational experience most significantly throughout their day, year and career.
Organisations that invest in these three types of moments yield positive employee experience.
- Obvious Moments: Comprises some of the important events in an employee’s lifecycle. Eg: Onboarding, Performance appraisals, training and development.
- Opaque Moments: These moments are episodic in nature which trigger some action or inaction from an employee’s side. Eg: Promotion of a co-worker who evidently didn’t deserve it, little mention of the efforts of the employee in the annual magazine/newsletter.
- Invisible Moments: These are the moments that are very difficult to see. Tracking the occurrence of these moments is almost impossible. Eg: Employee experiences a significant development but no one at work acknowledges it, Getting assigned to a new team which welcomes warmly.
Employee Experience and Business Revenue are inseparable.
MTM recognizes the fundamental truth that employees are customers and organisations that are not employee-centric can not be customer-centric.
This is because organisations build their brand by providing remarkable customer experience. This fuels loyalty, customer engagement thus, increasing the sales. However, unhappy or disengaged employees rarely provide remarkable customer experience. Thus, it is necessary to provide the employees with an enriching experience which is created by discrete moments.
HR’s Role in Moments That Matter:
Gartner Survey, 2018 revealedthat when 5,783 employees were asked whether, “ HR really understands what people like me need and want?”, only 29% agreed that HR really understands them. This explains a disconnect between HR and employees. McEwan beautifully explained that MTM focuses and helps the HR to understand what is really important to the employees rather than what HR and other leaders think is important. Thus, it is critical to identify these moments from an employee’s perspective. Once these moments are identified HR can formulate clear next steps which helps in fostering a positive employee experience.
In order to deliver a positive employee experience, HR can view employees as consumers of service and craft out experiences accordingly.
MTM Strategy:
There are various moments that impact an employee. Organisations can use these moments to reinvent experiences of an employee.
Employees are after all humans and humans take time to adapt to a change. If an employee is experiencing change fatigue, apart from engaging them, it is essential to search for insights that will help them deal with the change fatigue and include it in the MTM strategy.
According to a survey conducted by Forbes, 55% employees are willing to walk that extra mile if they feel they are doing meaningful work. HR can become the driving force of building a culture where every action of an employee is viewed, appreciated, understood and then adjusted to suit their needs, as well as the needs of the company.
Leveraging Technology:
With the current change in dynamics, Technology can be a strategic enabler for HR and L&D professionals to design moments that foster satisfaction, engagement and positive experience.
- HR can customize the experience and make it relevant as per the employee
- Make these experiences available whenever and wherever they are needed by the employee.
Employee-HR disconnect can be tackled by tech-driven engagement measurement tools as part of an organisation’s MTM strategy. New-age technologies such as AI and people analytics gain real-time data in contextual manner across touchpoints to capture employee sentiments. Many organisations that have employed the moments that matter approach have observed an improvement in employee perceptions of HR.
For example — the head of HR function at Puma, the global lifestyle brand, said they witnessed a whopping 85% employee engagement after deploying a chat-bot for real-time feedback and engagement.
According to Gartner only 16% HR teams are experimenting with MTM strategy, however 56% are interested.
I often ponder over the MTM moments I’ve experienced in my journey so far. Through launches and pitches, I’ve been fortunate to work with teams that valued my growth, gave me voice, and appreciated my work. These moments have had a tremendous impact on my personal sense of confidence, and I still draw from them on days when I feel it shaking. My personal success with MTM has been one of the driving factors for the ideas I bring to BHyve.
Our singular focus is on helping companies make effective use of “people asset”, by creating these moments that matter through the employee experience. Our AI matches and recommends internal collaboration for employees to learn faster and effectively, share and get appreciated for the wealth of knowledge they bring to the workplace. Personalized skill cards for employees are provided which can be mapped against their interest and career aspiration. Our BuzzBox feature enables an employee to access quick help from trustworthy colleagues.
To know more connect with us at www.BHyve.io
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
