Leveraging Diversity to Re-Imagine Employee Experience
Crazy Might Work ran a session on Leveraging Diversity to Re-Imagine Employee Experience at Gartner’s ReimagineHR Conference, held in Sydney on 14 and 15 May 2018. We asked attending HR leaders for their craziest ideas about redesigning the employee experience. Well, what can we say, there are going to be some super fun and crazy workplaces out there!
Here, with a little combinative alchemy, is the workplace of the future:
We’d all get a shot at being the “CEO for a Day”. Planning the rotations could be interesting, but the insights would be worth it! The TV show Undercover Boss comes to mind. Would our CEO’s soften? Or would we all run in terror from the top job? Wait, could this be how the Australian Prime Ministerial role is organised?
Employees will get to “set their own pay and benefits” and design their own roles, based on what they’re good at. Peers determine whether the role, salary and performance cuts the mustard. The great news is that we are only going to do something we love (or get fired by our mates)! Any boring or repetitive jobs that no-one wants can be delegated to AI and robotics.
Employees will get a budget to solve their employee experience dilemmas (although it’s getting tough to imagine these ‘dilemmas’ when we’re all writing our own script!)
Policies will be a thing of the past and if we do have them, they could well be set by external parties. For example, ex-employees will be hired to write the HR policies! A bit like getting a performance review from your ex-partner!
In the brave new world without policies, we’re also going to work without budgets! Employees will prioritise the projects that get done with whatever capacity and resources are available!
When we’re hired, we’re going to be matched “at first sight” with an existing employee with similar interests for onboarding. We’re each going to have a day where our leader gives us love, with a special experience gift day, carefully designed for each individual – a scuba lesson perhaps?
If we ever need a change, we can organise virtual secondments at other firms, in other countries or with our competitors.
We’re going to tap into diversity by harvesting inspiration from teenagers about how work could be even more fun and we’ll have a ‘shadow Board’ made up of youth to help our execs and non-execs stay ‘unstuck’! We’ll also have hackathons, electronic notice boards and idea management platform like Feisty Fish® to ensure we make the most of all the great creative ideas we’ll be generating.
We’re going to get lots of exercise, as e-mails will be banned (for a month at least) and when we do get stressed out, there will be a meditation space with virtual reality island settings and sounds to retreat to! Interestingly, vitamin company Swisse already meditate every day at 3:00pm and this model seems to work (if Swisse’s recent performance is anything to go by!)
Not only will we be designing our jobs, but also our days, allowing organisations to make the most of their employees’ individual work styles and preferences.
To keep us honest with all this newfound freedom, there will be employees and executives posing as ‘mystery customers’ to give us immediate feedback on performance and our actual customers will decide our bonuses – just to make sure we are fully customer-centric!
If our self-designed hours ever allow for a meeting, we’ll have boxes of fiddle toys and art supplies to make these more interesting. And of course, as we set our own hours we’ll regain precious time every day as we bid farewell to peak hour traffic!
Our time at work will be made even more productive by an employee concierge, who takes care of everything from child-minding to take-home meals. Farewell hot stove, hello quality time with the family!
As we wind up, we’re going to simulate a death! Don’t worry, it’s just a simulation to see how our customers and their families, experience dealing with us when the worst happens. No more charging customers for investment advice in the afterlife!
When it all gets too much there will be a new Masterchef Challenge: Managers Vs Employees. The great thing about this is that it relieves tension and everyone gets fed!
Finally, when all the cooking is done, there will be a party – a big one, with dress-ups and a show! And if we end up exhausted (or hung over), never fear, we can hit that snooze button thanks to our unlimited unpaid leave and return to Nirvana when we’re ready!