Human Resources: the CX Pro’s Partner

Release Date: December 14, 2021 • Episode #196

The employee experience is becoming more critical in making certain your company has the best possible customer experience. But there’s one department that is critical in establishing and maintaining an effective EX program: human resources. Host Steve Walker welcomes Dr. Cecelia Herbert, a certified experience management professional and a principal XM catalyst for the Qualtrics XM Institute, for a discussion on the importance of building relationships with human resources to improve the customer and employee experience.

Download the 2022 Employee Experience Trends Report

Cecelia Herbert
XM Institute
Connect with Cecelia

Highlights

Reframe the conversation

“…I think to sort of reframe that situation and sort of think about a way of tackling it from a more proactive standpoint. Really thinking through having a conversation with HR, you know, instead of making a request for data and asking them to give it to you and getting a “no,” actually go and talk to them about what it is that you’re trying to do, how you want to do it, they’re going to have a lot of questions, a lot of questions and rightfully so. So talking with the HR people through those, chances are it’s not a “no,” it’s a “they want you to be successful.” They understand that there’s a business case.

Employees want to belong

People want to work for companies – and we saw this in Qualtrics research recently – positive, believing that the company that you work for is having a positive impact on the world is one of the number one drivers of engagement. And so it’s belonging. That feeling of connection and belonging to the organization again is another really big driver of engagement. And if your people aren’t engaged, they’re not, you know, sharing to everybody how great a brand it is to work for. You know, they’re not going above and beyond. They’re not feeling motivated. So your business goals are getting met.

Transcript

The CX Leader Podcast: "Human Resources: the CX Pro's Partner": Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

The CX Leader Podcast: "Human Resources: the CX Pro's Partner": this wav audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Steve:
It's a hot topic in CX right now: making certain your customer and employee experience efforts are aligned and there's one area in your company vital to making that happen.

Cecelia:
You know, we're in CX and we need employee data. We know that there's a great business case for our employee experience and customer experience to be that data to be used together. We go to the HR team and we say, "Hey, we need the data. Could you just give us the data?" And the answer is "no, you can't have the data." And so and it's usually have the conversation ends.

Steve:
Building relationships with HR when combining customer and employee experience on this episode of The CX Leader Podcast.

Announcer:
The CX Leader Podcast with Steve Walker is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their XM success. You can find out more at walkerinfo.com.

Steve:
Hello, everyone, I'm Steve Walker, host of the CX Leader podcast, and thank you for listening. As we say a lot here on The CX Leader Podcast, it's never been a better time to be a CX leader, and this podcast explores topics and themes to help leaders like you leverage all the benefits of your customer experience and help your customers and prospects want to do more business with you. In many recent episodes, we've established that the employee experience is becoming more and more critical in making certain your company has all the best possible customer experiences. And it is, of course, no small task. But there's one department that is critical in establishing and maintaining an effective EX program, and that's human resources. Well, my guest on this episode is going to offer some great insights on building relationships with your HR department. Dr. Cecelia Herbert is a certified experience management professional and a principal XM catalyst for the Qualtrics XM Institute, an organization that needs little introduction on this show. We've had many of their thought leaders on the program in the past, but I'm very happy and honored to welcome Cecelia as a first time guest to The CX Leader Podcast. Cecelia, thank you so much for joining us.

Cecelia:
Thanks, Steve. Thanks for having me and thanks for the opportunity to talk to such amazing professionals out there.

Steve:
Well, we're delighted to have you and I think particularly with some of the work that you all have been doing at the XM Institute on this topic that I think all business people are very keenly aware of today. And that is the the battle for talent has never been more active and I always come to these things partially with my hat on as the host of The CX Leader Podcast and a CX Pro, but also as a as a business owner who is also dealing with these issues that all businesses are today and that's the attraction of talent. Now, for those of my listeners who don't know a lot about you or the XM Institute, maybe you could just take a few minutes and give us a little bit of your background. And also, they'll probably be able to tell that you're not from North America, too.

Cecelia:
Yes, I am. You can probably tell from my accent that I'm Australian and of course, doing this podcast from Sydney, which is actually one of the silver linings I think of the last couple of years of transformation is really bringing in people from all over the globe and all of their perspectives and really leveling that playing field. So it's been a great opportunity to collaborate with so many people across the globe. At the XM Institute, as you mentioned, I am an XM catalyst. My background is that I am a doctor of organizational psychology so, so very much entrenched in that discipline and came to Qualtrics from that background. So my focus has always been on employee experience and particularly creating great workplaces that work for everyone. And even if they can't be great, even if they can just be better and continue to be better and to grow and to change and to meet everybody's needs, both the commercial needs of the business, but also the needs of the individuals who spent so much of their lives, you know, giving to their organization and their peers and everyone to be successful together. So that's always been the focus of my career and and continues to be today with the XM Institute. A bit about the XM Institute: in a nutshell, our priority is to support the growth and development of XM professionals out there. Whether you're working in customer, brand, product or employee experience, we're really there to help you build and grow your capabilities as XM professionals. We do it through training and certifications. We build toolkits and points of view. We even do a lot of work internally with people at Qualtrics. Think about customer success representatives, account managers, XM scientists throughout our organization and really building that thought leadership to enable everybody to be successful and to grow this category. We really believe in the careers of XM professionals, and we support it in a number of ways.

Steve:
Yes, we have had your colleagues on many times and we often refer our listeners and I want to make sure that they can find the website. So just why don't you make sure that they know how to get hold of all the resources that are there at the institute? We'll do it again at the end of the program. But you know, if our CX pros are not accessing the content at the XM Institute, they're really shortchanging themselves, so they can just Google XM Institute or go to the Qualtrics website and navigate to it. Correct?

Cecelia:
Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's so much information there. It's a really great onboarding. You know, if you're bringing someone into your organization and they're wanting, they're seeking out, you know, thought leadership or perspectives on the various elements of XM, there's so much information there. Also, you can get professional certification as well through the XM Institute, which a lot of people are starting to do more and more now.

Steve:
Well, let's get into our topic at hand and obviously you have a PhD in organizational psychology, which is something that I will never, ever achieve. So congratulations on that.

Cecelia:
[laughing] Thank you.

Steve:
And, you know, because of our discipline, we do like to kind of come at this oftentimes from the academic side. And, you know, most of the good work starts there and then we start to apply it for commercial purposes and for helping our organizations succeed. But, you know, just at a high level CX and H.R., why are they different? Why do we have some struggle trying to get those things to align?

Cecelia:
Yeah, it's like it's a big question, right? And I think it's something that we're always kind of thinking through when we're in this work is, you know, why won't HR give me the data, you know, it's usually what we're hearing. Well, I mean, obviously, yeah, with the PhD, you know, I can come at it from an academic standpoint. But to be honest, as a practitioner in this space, having lived and worked in people operations functions, they just have a very, very different role. And when you're thinking through what they are doing as a professional, what their priorities are, they're usually quite different, you know, from people in CX. And you know, an HR professional is is really got a few things top of mind for them. They're there to look after everyone, you know, they're there to look after employees, you know, make sure that we're creating work environments and work systems that help that enable people to come and do their best work and to do it in a way that takes care of them and looks after their needs. You know, they're thinking about employee safety, they think about engagement, they think about pay, they're thinking about diversity. There's so many things that they are trying to factor in to create a great work experience for everyone. But they're also looking after the organization. You know, HR is working through some pretty strict and often very rapidly changing compliance and legislative frameworks. Often the things that they want to do or the company wants to do are bound by, you know, what is legal, you know, to be compliant and to keep them safe from, you know, legislative point of views. And if you're a company working across multiple states, multiple countries, you can imagine the complexity of what they're working with in labor laws and changing labor laws every day. You know, I know that in America right now, there's a lot of stuff going on around, you know, vaccine mandates and things like that. So they're on top of all of those things, particularly data privacy. And if you work with anyone in Europe, we could do a whole podcast just on, you know, GDPR and the rules around data protection and data privacy. So they're thinking through all of those things to not only try and do the best thing for the company and their employees, but also do it in a way that mitigates some of the risk to ensure that both the company and the people working there are doing it in a way that's compliant with the laws that they need to, because that's what keeps them safe. That's what keeps your job safe and and your profession safe as well. And that's what H.R. is there to provide that that function for you.

Steve:
Yeah, you said that so eloquently. And I just want to reinforce again, I'm a small businessman myself, and you know, I am aware of how difficult the role of the HR function is today. And you know, like when you mentioned safety, my head kind of went to construction or, you know, transportation where you got, you know, real like physical safety issues. But now with COVID, we all have safety issues. And so we've we've lopped this whole layer of complexity on. So as CX pros, we shouldn't take offense. It's just that the HR people are busy.

Cecelia:
Yeah, that's right. And they're juggling a lot of things, you know? And you know, they are the funnel through which when things go down, HR steps in that room. And you know, this could be physical safety. It could be psychological safety. It could be, you know, legal and compliance and risk. You know, it could be, you know, I've had to work in a lot of spaces where, you know, employees aren't happy with something and they're going to go to the press, you know, and and you know, there's brand and reputation to consider as well. And so, you know, there's top talent like you want to keep, you want to bring in great talent. You want to nurture that great talent. You want them to be successful in this organization and you don't want them leaving. So so how can we create these environments that not only does the business benefit, but also the individuals are working? And and I think you said it's so great at the beginning, Steve, where it was, you know, it's getting tough out there to bring in great talent. We're seeing huge shifts right now where, you know, the talent market is very much the candidate market. It's not about the money anymore. You know, people want to work for organizations that that walk the talk. You know, for so long, we've been talking about diversity and. Sustainability and our living, our values and employees are talking with their feet that if we we say that this is important to us, but we're not taking action in order to actually live true to those those, you know, those proclamations that we make as an organization, they'll go to somewhere where people aren't just talking the talk, they're actually doing great stuff. People want to work for companies. And we saw this in Qualtrics research recently positive, believing that the company that you work for is having a positive impact on the world is one of the number one drivers of engagement. And so it's belonging. That feeling of connection and belonging to the organization again is another really big driver of engagement. And if your people aren't engaged, you know, they're not, they're not, you know, sharing to everybody how great a brand it is to work for. You know, they're not going above and beyond. They're not feeling motivated. So your business goals are getting met. So these things that used to be nice to have around belonging and having positive impact. These are business critical now. And if there isn't a match between your values and who you want to be and how you're actually acting out and factoring in these things into the decisions that you're making day to day, then they'll go and find an organization that is more authentic in that regard. And we're seeing it happening, you know, in droves.

Steve:
Let's just come back a little bit here to putting ourselves in the H.R. seat. And then as CX pros, how do we come to the HR profession and pitch the case for putting these two things together in a way that would resonate with the HR? And then, you know, in that particularly what would make the HR person more likely to help us with some of our own data needs from our perspective?

Cecelia:
Yeah. And like, let's be honest, you know, the way that these these conversations usually go down is that we, you know, we're in CX and we need employee data. You know, we understand that if our employees feel like they've got access to the resources they need, if they're engaged, if they've they've got the right training, you know, all of those those elements of the employee experience are working, then we can deliver on great customer experiences. So we know that there's a great business case for our employee experience and customer experience to be that data to be used together in order to understand both sides of the coin on any sort of customer interaction with the dual perspective. So the business case is really, really clear. And what usually happens in this scenario is that someone from the CX world knows that the HR team has this kind of data. We fill in employee surveys, we feel it engagement surveys. So we go to the HR team and we say, "hey, we need the data. Could you just give us the data?" And the answer is "no, you can't have the data." And so and it's usually how the conversation ends. And you know, it does create a bit of an us and them, you know, and that we know that they've got it and they won't give it to us. And so I think to sort of reframe that situation and sort of think about a way of tackling it from a more proactive standpoint. Really thinking through having a conversation with HR, you know, instead of making a request for data and asking them to give it to you and getting a no actually go and talk to them about what it is that you're trying to do, how you want to do it, they're going to have a lot of questions, a lot of questions and rightfully so. So talking with the HR people through those chances are it's not, it's not a no, it's a they want you to be successful. They understand that there's a business case. They want you to have the information that you need to be successful in your role and to meet the business needs. But they want to do it in a way that also, you know, protects employee privacy that ensures that it's going to be used appropriately and that you as a professional, are also safe as well, that you're not going to accidentally do something that might put your role in danger. So they're there to help you. So having that conversation with them about what are you trying to do and how can HR work with you to achieve that goal rather than just making an outright request for access to data.

Steve:
Yeah. Hey, I actually I saw in my notes and I got a you got a hashtag #CXsplain?

Cecelia:
[laughing] I don't, but I think we're going to start one. Oh, you don't. Yeah, yeah.

Steve:
Don't #CXSplain, right?

Cecelia:
Don't explain. Yeah.

Steve:
What is #CXSplain? Is that like the curse of knowledge around CX

Cecelia:
#CXSplaining, it's where someone from CX comes in and tries to tell HR how to do their jobs. You know, it really is a beautiful thing to watch. It's a bit of a car crash, you know, and I've seen it. You know, I was I like, obviously, you know, without giving any details away like I was in a situation, you know, with, you know, an enterprise level organization where the new head of people experience comes in, right? And he's and he's from a marketing background. You know, he's he's brilliant at what he does. Don't get me wrong. And he's got all of his HR professionals in the room and he's like, we're going to bring in this amazing technology. It's going to be so great. It's going to transform everything in this organization and it's going to make all HR roles redundant in the future. And like needless to say, it went down like a lead zeppelin like, and he did not good buy in with his stakeholders. He wasn't with the company for very long because the project wasn't successful. And like, I think having that like mindset to sort of come in and say, Hey, we're going to show you how it's all done. You know, it doesn't land well, it doesn't play well with any profession. And I think that there's a reason why it happens, right? I've sort of been thinking about this for a while, like why? Why does this happen? Look, CX is is an amazingly dynamic and innovative space to be in. It is it is new and it's emerging and it's technology driven. And I don't think people would say the same things about HR. You know, I don't think that people would describe HR that way. HR hasn't been technology led. Historically, it's been practitioner led or it's been compliance and legislation. You know, it's been thought leadership and things like that. It hasn't been led and technology has come in to support that work. It hasn't been led by the technology, so it's not as fast moving. It doesn't appear as dynamic as maybe something like CX. But to flip that around, H.R. and particularly organizational psychology has been around for generations. You know, this isn't new. So it's it's quite fun to watch a lot of CX professionals discovering things for the first time that we've been doing for decades. And so coming into a room of people who are 10, 20, 30 year, you know, tenured in this space and explaining to them, like, do this work, it's not going to land that well.

Steve:
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Steve:
My guest on the podcast this week is Dr Cecelia Herbert. She's a principal XM catalyst for the Qualtrics XM Institute, and we are having a great conversation about linking up CX and EX. Hey, I want to talk about your report. The 2022 Employee Experience Trends that I know is hot off the press. And why don't you just give us a little overview of that? And then I want to talk specifically about some of the DE and I implications, too, because I found that very interesting.

Cecelia:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, I mean, who has seen about 30 articles in the inboxes right now about the great resignation? I mean, we know it's a thing, but what what we're really trying to do is sort of unpack that a little bit more. And, you know, wherever there's great crisis, there's great opportunity. And I'm almost reframing this as like the great opportunity. We know what's going on. You know, will we know that there's been huge upheaval. There's been two years of chaos and disruption. People are sort of filling from empty cups right now. You know, employee wellbeing is something that used to be that we would have in our organizations. We knew it was there. We knew it was necessary. But was it a strategic priority? Probably not. Whereas now, you know, if we know that if your employees aren't well, they can't show up, they can't do the work that you need them to do. And if they can't show up and do that work, your business can't function. So employee wellbeing is becoming increasingly important. What's what's changing here, though, with it, wellbeing is that we're seeing organizations starting to really lean into the role that they play in well-being. Before it used to be will provide you with the resources to take care of your own well-being. Whereas you know your work, your work environment, the way that we communicate with each other, the connection with each other, the physical workspaces as well, all within the organization sphere of influence and have a big impact on individuals well-being. So taking that responsibility and really leaning into that is a big strategic priority. And then if we shift over to who's leaving or what's going on, we know that from the research we're seeing, it's female executives that are telling us loud and clear that they're they're going to go.

Steve:
Yeah.

Cecelia:
And there's so much to unpack in that as to why that particular group of employees at the end of their rope and really starting and they're just a canary in the coal mine. You know, we know that female executives are people. You can't see me on this podcast, but they look like me. I'm white, I'm educated, I speak English as a first language, you know, I'm able bodied, you know, female executives of women who have a lot of privilege often like me. And if they're saying that they aren't going to be able to get through that next year with your company, there is a whole swathe of others there as well. And we don't need to do the research on this. The market and labor research tells us this that women of color, women with disability, you know, any other intersectional variance on that those people already impacted, they're already at the end of their rope and they've probably already left.

Steve:
Right.

Cecelia:
And so really starting to think through the implications and the growing inequity and gaps in experiences between different groups, it's really causing a lot of organizations and a lot of leaders to start thinking, how are our work systems and our work processes and our work environments designed to meet the needs of our employees? And it's been designed in a particular way to to meet the needs of certain groups of people over and above others. And we're seeing the cracks starting to form in organizations for four people that were sort of already feeling from an empty cup. All of those people are the ones that are, you know, deeply impacted by what's happened in the last couple of years. And we're seeing it show up now in our labor statistics and in our report where we're seeing that people are noticing and, you know, they're speaking up about, you know, these gaps in diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.

Steve:
If you could summarize everything, what what kind of is the ultimate benefit of having a good tie in between your CX and your EX programs? I mean, this is just such a hot topic going on right now. And you know, obviously you bring a really unique perspective from the EX side that most of our listeners don't have access to. But what are some of the noble aspects of this that we're going to see if we keep at it?

Cecelia:
Yeah. And I think I like to think about EX and CX coming together in sort of two different kind of lanes. I guess you could think so. You've got your EX programs which are run by your people operations. They're run by your, you know, EX teams, things like employee engagement surveys, candidate onboarding, et cetera. Those programs are really, really important to get it right because that's how you're going to get the best talent in your team. That's how you're going to find, grow and keep great people in your company, so those programs are super important and working with people operations teams to make those programs successful is almost a way of lending your expertize for growing the culture within your organization. But they are very much within that realm of people operations and HR led and HR driven. But if you to flip it over into the CX world into a completely different lane when you're thinking about your CX programs, if you don't have the voice of employee in there, you're missing a huge amount of information for every customer experience that happens within your company, there's an employee experience as well. There is an employee at the end of that experience. So if you only speaking to your customers and only collecting customer data, you're missing half of the story. So bringing employee voice into your CX programs, which is different from an EX program like engagement, to ensure that you've got dual perspectives so that you can actually solve for some of the pain points or the challenges that are happening in your execution of great customer experiences. Super important. That's where you bring in your HR person to support you with the design of bringing employee voice into your customer experience programs.

Steve:
Dr. Cecelia Herbert We have reached that point in the podcast where I ask each of our guests to give our listeners that take home value. That's your best tip that our listeners can take back to the office and implement and to improve their programs. So, Cecelia Herbert, what is your take home value this week

Cecelia:
What is my take home value? I have so many take home values. Just pick one. So I think my take home value is its inclusion by design. It's about being purposeful and intentional about who, whose perspectives you're bringing in and why and who it benefits. You know, who's the who's the person that you're serving in this situation. So when you think about it in context is really having that – and I know that what CX people do really amazingly well and I've seen this is empathy is really understanding and walking a mile in the shoes of others. And we do this really well with our customers lending that same empathy for thinking about the employee experience or even thinking about that HR person in front of you and what their job is and how how they're operating and what their needs are. You know, having that intentional inclusion of their perspective, I think it's really important and it's it's a value that I find carries through in pretty much everything, every decision that we're making, whether it's a product decision or a service decision, a process decision, who whose perspective am I missing here and who do I need to be bringing in consciously and purposefully into the design process to ensure that I'm having my blind spots illuminated along the way?

Steve:
Dr. Cecelia Herbert, thank you so much for being a guest on The CX Leader Podcast and for giving our listeners such good insights. It's it was. It was a real pleasure to have you on the program.

Cecelia:
Yeah, my pleasure, Steve. Thanks for having me.

Steve:
And if people want to check out the report or track you down, just go to the XM Institute?

Cecelia:
Yeah, so you can go to xminstitute.com And there's a whole bunch of resources there. You can literally just go to the qualtrics.com website and you will find EX 2022 Trends Report and of course, LinkedIn it's the perfect way to to have a look at someone and to connect with them. So like I'm easy to find on LinkedIn, so if anyone wants to connect that way, please feel free to connect.

Steve:
Cecelia Herbert is a principal XM catalyst for the Qualtrics XM Institute, and thanks again for being a guest on our podcast. It was a pleasure.

Cecelia:
Thanks, Steve. Thanks for the opportunity to have a conversation.

Steve:
And if you want to hear about anything else you've heard on this podcast or about how Walker could help your business's customer experience, feel free to email me at podcast@walkerinfo.com. Be sure to check out our website cxleaderpodcast.com to subscribe to the show. Find all of our previous episodes, podcast series, contact information. You can drop us a note, let us know how we're doing, or give us an idea for a future podcast. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We're an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success. You can read more about us at walkerinfo.com. Thank you for listening, and remember, it's a great time to be a CX leader. Thanks again, and we'll see you again next time.