In February we were delighted to join Engineering NZ at their annual conference to connect and share our knowledge on what the future of work will look like, and how we can prepare ourselves and our teams for success.

Like so many other industries, Engineering NZ and their member organisations have come through a challenging few years, and now turn their focus to building confidence and capability in their people, particularly in the leadership space.

Throughout the two days we connected with leaders passionate about creating a great employee experience, and open to learning how to design experiences with their people.

The value of designing experiences with your people, not for your people

Nicola Dunn kicked off the conference as keynote speaker by sharing her experiences as a busy HR practitioner through various lockdowns and the journey she went on to realise the value of designing employee experiences with people, not just for them.

We posed the questions “what initiatives or programmes have you excitedly introduced in your workplace that just didn’t land with your people?” We have all had great intentions and motivations to build and improve employee experiences, but we often overlooked the greatest data source available to us – our people.

The true value and impact of business leaders being deliberate about focusing their energy and resources on designing experiences that align with their employees' needs was a powerful message and one that attendees connected strongly with.

The deliberate leader - Being ready for the future workforce

After two full days of learning, listening and pondering if we need to throw out our current practices and start again.... Megan Kirk closed the conference by talking about deliberate leadership and identifying what is unique about your organization to articulate your employee experience.

Leaders are the ‘Chief Reminding Officers’ in communicating purpose, delivering strategy, guiding operations, creating culture, enabling people, living the values and translating the vision - that’s a lot!

High performing and deliberate leadership teams have a clear sense of purpose, shared goals, complimentary skills, trust, and commitment that drive collective success.

The true value and impact of business leaders being deliberate about focusing their energy and resources on designing experiences that align with their employees' needs was a powerful message and one that attendees connected strongly with - experiences that work for people and drive organisational performance.

Designing an employee experience that is unique to your organization is a powerful tool for retention and employee satisfaction. The Humankind Employee Value Proposition (EVP) model identifies what sets your organization apart from others and how to leverage those strengths to create an attractive employee experience.

So, what’s in store for us in the future?

We know that the world of work is constantly evolving – our future selves and work environments are the result of what we are doing today.

We also know that leaders are not the experts of employee experience, the people we are designing for are!

The world of work is constantly evolving, and leaders should embrace new thinking and approaches to design employee experiences. The answers to designing great employee experiences lie within the people that leaders are serving, and leaders should be deliberate about balancing short-term wins with longer-term objectives for the success of their organisation.

We loved sharing our knowledge and passion for employee experience. Some of the concepts and models we shared that resonated with Thrive participants were:

The Humankind Leadership Model - any leader has a direct impact on those they lead and how their organisation performs. Being deliberate about what that impact is, is what distinguishes a great leader. Ultimately, delivering sustained organisational performance through deliberate leadership.

Employee Value Proposition (EVP) - a clear articulation of the experiences and benefits an organisation offers their employees to enhance their experience at work. It helps to attract and retain top talent to drive business performance. It can be a combination of what you currently offer, and what you aspire to offer.

Read our blog here.

Stay Interviews – why wait until your people have one foot out the door before you have a conversation about their experience? We encourage our leaders to hold ‘stay interviews’ and give people a vehicle to provide feedback on the challenges they face and what is working well for them.

Read our blog here.

“Having seen and heard the talks from Humankind and what they do, to me, I am struck how a business that focuses on enhancing the employee experience is still relatively unique! We have known for a long time that organisations are key to employee experiences, including their wellbeing, retention, and performance. While some firms are excellent at providing their workforce with a superior experience, the challenge for many appears to be creating change and actualising the experience. People really are a firm's greatest asset and from what I heard at the conference, Humankind can help organisation’s tap into enhancing that experience - to the betterment of employees and employers!”

Professor Jarrod Haar, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Mahuta, Dean’s Chair in the School of Management at Massey University.