Taking action in the ‘moments that matter’
The way we think about our workplace and our work has changed – it’s no longer ‘just’ a job
There has been a drastic shift in the past decade, and with it a focus on the importance of ‘Employee Experience’. Simply put, employee experience includes everything relating to how and what we think, feel, interact with, and learn about our company and our peers throughout our time there. This is from the moment we see the job advert to the day we step out the door.
Understanding the moments that matter
Our experience is made up of a collection of moments that matter, which are the individual and personal moments that come together to form our overall employee experience. Our manager and our team mates have a strong influence on this experience.
To help us understand this further, The Institute For Corporate Productivity (i4cp) categorises the moments that matter into obvious, opaque and invisible moments.
Obvious moments and the power of feedback
Obvious moments are deliberate events and the points that are historically administrative HR events, such as the job interview, onboarding activities, performance reviews or the exit interview. Not surprisingly, when we look at improving employee engagement, these are the first ones we look at because they’re more easily detected and can be addressed through process changes, such as improving transparency of hiring criteria or adding new onboarding activities to address gaps.
These can more easily be identified as there’s a clear trigger. Managers can start to create positive change internally by opening up dialogue through informal conversation or more formal feedback sessions during or after these key moments. This will help to identify problematic areas or where employees are responding positively. Traditional surveys can also delve deeper into how these moments were received.
Opaque moments and the importance of safe dialogue
In contrast, opaque moments are more challenging to detect but still hold a clear, identifiable trigger, most commonly the result of action (or inaction) from the organisation. These moments could look like the allocation of a highly sought-after project to a colleague with the wrong skillset but a friendship with the leading manager, or an annual report which neglects to mention company values or people contributions. It could also be the time you put through a request to replace your old laptop that kept breaking down, but your response was met with silence.
Opaque moments can be harder to detect, and traditional employee surveys may show a low score, but little indication of why. Moments that matter are individually experienced, which means managers can start to identify potentially problematic areas by holding conversations with employees in a safe space. The key to understanding opaque moments is asking more situationally anchored questions or discussing examples to arrive at the root cause. For example, if managers are working in a high pace environment where work or projects are allocated, it can be helpful to open discussions to understand if team members feel there’s equal opportunities amongst all team members. It could also be beneficial to look at processes and whether there are protocols in place that drive fair and balanced decision making.
Invisible moments and creating team-based cultural change
Lastly there are invisible moments which, unlike the obvious or opaque moments we experience, there is no clear trigger. This makes them near impossible to detect and creates challenges for managers and organisations looking to understand and improve employee experience. While less tangible, the impact can still be significant. These moments could be the time you accessed your company website and noticed no one in the photos looks like you or stepping into an elevator with 2 executives and not being acknowledged. It could also be woven into meeting dynamics, such as the hesitate that’s felt about pitching an idea because you’re uncertain whether your voice will be noticed or heard.
Positive changes to company culture are the best protector against these negative moments because culture is the strongest driving force in guiding the acceptable behaviours in a group. Creating cultural change at an organisational level can be hard, but managers looking to shift this can start from within their teams. Managers and team leaders can take a simple first step by role modelling company values day to day and working to create a safe space. Acting with authenticity, engaging genuinely with members of the team, and showing vulnerability through owning mistakes and sharing challenges can be hugely powerful in driving positive change from the ground up. This signals to the team that it’s ok to raise concerns and enables us to catch the invisible moments often missed by traditional surveys.
Understanding these catalyst moments are the key to unlocking how we can positively impact employee engagement. Without visibility, creating change becomes infinitely harder. The great news is that managers and team leaders are in a prime position to create impact that will be truly felt by your team from at the ground level.