Sponsored by Workhuman.
In this episode we will discuss organizational culture, especially how technology plays an important role in the employee experience. We will also explore how traditionally HR-owned programs, such as recognition and rewards, can become data repositories that create organizational culture maps, helping leaders reveal insights about their talent pool, cultural energizers, and much more. Join us!
Meet Our Guest
Joining us today is Jesse Harriott, executive director of Workhuman IQ. As global head of analytics, Jesse focuses on expanding the research efforts of Workhuman IQ, and he’s also building out Workhuman’s data science capabilities. He is an esteemed research and analytics professional. He has more than 20 years of experience. Jesse has advised many private and public organizations on analytics and labor market issues, including the White House, the Federal Reserve, and the US Department of Labor.
Jesse previously served as chief analytics officer of Constant Contact and chief knowledge officer at Monster Worldwide. An acclaimed author, he spends his time teaching at the University of Chicago and holds a master’s and PhD in experimental psychology from DePaul University
The Research
What does research tell us about why shaping and maintaining culture is so very important?
We study this a lot, right? A big focus for us at Workhuman is to understand some of these dynamics, and it’s really hard. If it was easy, every company would have a great culture. We did a study with Gallup and really found that 2 in 10 employees agree that they are connected to their organization’s culture. So only 2 in 10. But those that did agree that they felt connected to the culture were 3.7 times likely to be engaged in their work. 68% less likely to feel burned out, 55% less likely to be looking elsewhere for job opportunities.
And they were more likely to use words like caring, innovative, inclusive. Other people would use terms like toxic, disorganized, chaotic, et cetera. And another study that Gallup found that only 33% of employees in the US and 23% of employees feel engaged.
Technology in Organizational Culture
So tell us how can technology play a role in providing data-driven insights about an organization’s workplace culture?
At Workhuman, we power social recognition programs for some of the world’s largest companies. And those employees are encouraged to express authentic moments of gratitude, spot excellence and action, and then share that with the entire company. And not only does that do good things for the business, but it’s also a treasure trove of insights.
And at Workhuman, we think about that as human intelligence, right? This crowdsourced and authentic employee insights plus AI can give you things, like skills assessments on employees, highlight hidden gems inside the organization. Help with talent mobility challenges, where’s my next opportunity? Help with mentorship networks, help with onboarding. People coming into the team can see what’s important to the team and values. So all kinds of hosts across the talent lifecycle of different use cases.
Program Insights
What are some of the insights that HR leaders can get from their rewards and recognition program? And tell us when recognition is done right, what does that feel and look like?
When recognition is done right, there are a lot of employee benefits. The experience the employee has, they feel seen, appreciated, heard. They’re more likely to have increased engagement, give that extra performance, be less likely to leave. And there are even improved financial and business outcomes, like total recordable injury rates go down or financial performance increases. Real bottom line outside of even the talent sphere, those outcomes. But there’s also a lot of data and wealth of insight that comes from a recognition done right program.
Things like understanding the skills of an employee. Skills is all the rage right now. Everyone wants to be a skills-driven organization. Very few companies are doing it or know exactly what that means. And a lot of that is, “Hey, just because I raised my hand and say I have a skill doesn’t mean I have it.” And so recognition is a crowdsourced vote by your peers to say, “No, you have the skill. I’ve seen it in action and it’s had an impact.” And so extracting those skills from the language that comes out of those messages is one of those key benefits.
To Learn More About Organizational Culture
For more insights on organizational culture, listen to this full podcast episode. And be sure to subscribe to the #WorkTrends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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