19 Takeaways from the Sorwe Employee Experience Summit 2022

The Sorwe Employee Experience Summit 2022 delivered 19 key takeaways on transforming employee experience inside out, covering leadership, culture, HR ownership, and workplace change.

On 14 October 2022, we held our first in-person event and our second Employee Experience Summit. The Sorwe Employee Experience Summit 2022 featured four amazing speakers, people leaders and human resource professionals in person and online. The day featured endless words of wisdom about the theme of Transforming the employee experience Inside Out. From our London headquarters, our inspirational speakers covered key areas of the employee experience.

So, in case you missed it, here are our 19 takeaways from the Sorwe Employee Experience Summit 2022.

Our Speakers

We'd like to thank all our speakers for being an essential part of the Summit.

Our keynote speaker, Ben Whitter, Founder of HEX Organization and author, kicked off the day with his expert views on where the employee experience is heading and the six high-priority elements for employee experience success.

Anastasia Kuzmina, VP, HR at Baker Hughes, focused on how organisations can optimise people processes and use analytics to improve the employee experience.

Tom Probert, Director at BeenThereDoneThat (BTDT), discussed how to spread culture inside out in a fast-growing business. Tom shared BTDT's unique model and gave fascinating insights into how to build a strategy to overcome these challenges.

Our final speaker, Ciprian Arhire, Head of People Experience at Entain, shared his views on the employee experience map, how to approach employee experience research and design, and how to future-proof that design.

What Important Takeaways Did the Summit Provide?

Here are the key takeaways from the Summit about the employee experience in 2022:

1. Employee experience is gaining recognition

As Whitter said, "It's started to break into the mainstream thinking now which is a good thing. We couldn't have imagined the scale and depth of the recognition that is being focused on the employee experience. It's been accelerated by the pandemic and all the different challenges that we faced over the last two years have literally reshaped our organisations."

2. What was normal before the pandemic is not normal now

Challenges have been accelerated by the pandemic. Whitter said, "One in four people have identified an intention to quit their jobs, and one in four are moving away from cities apparently. So, there's a great level of change within that human experience which is affecting the employee experience."

3. Every organisation has an employee experience

Whether it's accidental, organic or planned and intentional, Arhire said every organisation has one. The right people experience strategy is five times more likely to create a sense of belonging and helps retain the right people.

4. Consider what it's like to be an employee

According to Arhire, we must consider how employees access HR systems and what it's like to be an employee within the organisation. Surveys alone don't provide this information. He said we have to step into employees' shoes as end users and "Improve their experience bottom up."

5. Keeping up with expectations

We need to constantly look at new employee expectations and meet them today and tomorrow. Whitter said, "Change is happening at a pace that is hard to keep up with; we're already behind the expectations of tomorrow." He added that forcing people into commutes or nine-to-five jobs they dislike doesn't help productivity, and employers must question that and move to new ways of working.

6. Assess where you're at

You need to understand your current employee experience before planning change. Arhire said you should assess what might not be landing right in your organisation, explore different areas, then prototype and interrogate. He added that you also need to look at the organisation you currently are, rather than the one you want to be in future.

7. Consider social justice issues

Whitter said that as individuals change how they live, employers need to understand environmental and social justice concerns: "If there's an issue in society, then does it affect your employees? Absolutely." He added that three pillars—people, planet and performance—will be essential to connect with people in new ways.

8. Change is the only constant

According to Kuzmina, change is guaranteed wherever you work, so you must adapt and give your people and leaders what they need. She said you may need to change your organisational or HR model, and design processes and systems based on your persona groups' outcomes.

9. Consider what you expect from people

It can be easy to stick with roles or job titles that have always existed. However, you may need to step back and assess these. Kuzmina said Baker Hughes moved away from the concept of "manager" and now calls such individuals People Leaders, because "We're not there to manage someone's performance, but we are there to lead them."

10. Purpose, values and mission are vital

Whitter said a large Harvard survey shows purpose is essential in an organisation, as it uplifts the meaning of work, performance and productivity. But it doesn't stand alone—you need a strong mission and values alongside it. Kuzmina agreed: "Values are so key to what any organisation does." If care is one of your values, you need to show it.

11. Consider other issues individuals face

It's not only the pandemic causing employees to deal with issues outside work—parental responsibilities or caregiving are real concerns. Arhire said we should be "Stepping in the shoes of our people and walking through what's happening in day-to-day lives." Whitter added, "Imagine if your employer was not supportive of personal situations. Would you check out or quietly quit?"

Whitter cited Ford as a caring employer that designed a welcome-back-to-work experience during the pandemic to ease anxiety for returning manufacturing employees—an example of how support and trust make a big difference to engagement.

12. Involve stakeholders

Arhire said stakeholders should be involved in the employee experience approach to define the problems you're trying to solve.

13. Ensure differentiation

You can't blend in with competitors and still deliver the best employee experience. Whitter said you need to stand out, "As opposed to doing a vanilla employee experience," and decipher what resonates with people about your brand. Kuzmina agreed, stressing the need to consider different employee groups and tailor the experience for each.

14. You need great leaders

The best facilities or perks mean little without great leadership. Whitter said, "If you have a poor leader, it makes no sense. We have to take care of leadership." Kuzmina added, "We can design the most amazing experience, but if the leader doesn't talk to their people or discuss their career development, or if they don't coach or mentor them, then the employee experience is not there."

15. HR does not own the employee experience

It's common to assume HR owns the employee experience, but this is shortsighted. Whitter said the business owns it and must take full accountability. Kuzmina agreed it's a holistic business approach, and Arhire said it should be "initiated by the CEO, supported by the people team, technology and workplace team, driven by line managers and championed by everyone."

16. There are many different aspects of the employee experience

Arhire favours a definition of employee experience as "the totality of perceptions that people are having around their workplace"—how people interact with each other and technology, and how they reflect culture daily. It differs from engagement, which is about everyday interactions.

17. Employee experience is not limited to the organisation

Arhire noted that employee experience lives with us inside and outside work, as we carry much of it into our daily lives.

18. Think about employees as customers

Kuzmina said there's no single HR solution to combine everything from day one. Baker Hughes uses an HR portal to resolve new starter queries easily, treating employees like customers. The employee experience is also about making life easier for employees—just as Amazon or Uber do for consumers.

19. Overcome cultural challenges

Probert said culture is crucial to keeping everyone aligned, and network-based business models like BTDT risk becoming overly transactional. He discussed building a community, not just a network: "The risk is that people feel a sense of place and not a sense of desire and passion for interacting."

He shared specific ways to overcome culture challenges, spread culture inside out, and build community to improve the employee experience:

• Ideal Conditions – create ideal conditions for colleagues, community and customers to thrive and encourage psychological safety. Probert said, "How do we achieve psychological safety in an environment where people are working anywhere in the world? Psychological safety is the crucial focal point for our culture."
• They focus on products and processes to build community, codifying everything so the experience is consistent for every community member, helping create psychological safety and belonging.
• Cognitive Diversity – harness diversity to build a growth mindset and culture of innovation. Probert recommended Rebel Ideas by Matthew Syed, noting that "People in organisations can feel on their own as a result of displaced working and this is a really powerful way to unite people and bring them together."
• Common Language – organisations need a consistent business point of view: one viewpoint, start point, mission and focal point.
• Finger on the Pulse – when operating at high speed with displaced teams, it's easy to focus solely on delivery. BTDT ran a survey to gather data and empower cultural decision-making.
• Sense of Belonging – when there is no physical home, you need to create one. Probert said BTDT uses the Sorwe platform to focus on people, reward and recognition: "It's made a big difference to our company to have a space where people can come together and communicate on the things that get lost in the traffic of everything else coming in." Interaction rates for giving kudos have been especially high.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the theme of the Sorwe Employee Experience Summit 2022?

The theme was Transforming the Employee Experience Inside Out, exploring how organisations can rethink and improve employee experience from within.

Who spoke at the Sorwe Employee Experience Summit 2022?

Speakers included Ben Whitter (HEX Organization), Anastasia Kuzmina (Baker Hughes), Tom Probert (BeenThereDoneThat), and Ciprian Arhire (Entain).

Who owns the employee experience in an organisation?

The business as a whole owns the employee experience, not HR alone. It must be championed by the CEO, leaders, and every team.

Why is leadership important to the employee experience?

Great facilities and perks mean little without strong leadership. Leaders must coach, mentor, and engage with employees for the experience to succeed.

How can companies overcome cultural challenges in a fast-growing business?

By creating ideal conditions for psychological safety, embracing cognitive diversity, using a common language, monitoring employee sentiment, and building a sense of belonging.