I have been thinking about the Peak-End Rule lately and it’s usefulness in designing Customer Experiences. For those not familiar with the Peak-End Rule, it’s a cognitive bias that impacts how people remember events or experiences from the past. Specifically, intense positive or negative moments (the Peak) and the final moments of an experience (the End) are heavily weighted in determine if it was a good or bad experience
You can apply Peak-End in your journeys by understanding where the strongest positive or negative sentiment exists, and what is the true end of the journey. CX leaders and practitioners have been using this cognitive bias to design experiences that shape our memories to believe that average experiences were actually really great.
But while we see it a lot in the context of designing customer experiences, what about applying Peak-End to the Employee Experience? Here, most companies and teams are not doing this today, but it’s definitely worth the conversation or exploration.
So what are specific areas across the employee journey where we might have positive or high satisfaction and that lead to higher engagement? I think of a continuous learning culture and the workforce having access to training that supports professional growth; or a stipend to explore external training opportunities. Another is perhaps leaders are providing ongoing coaching and mentoring to their team members. The easiest one of all of course is giving someone a promotion and raise.
When looking at companies like Google, they’ve identified teams as a foundational principle to high engagement. Their research identified several key aspects that make excellent teams, including:
- Psychological Safety
- Team goals are clearly articulated and understood
- Each role on the team is meaningful and each understands their impact
- Team members are reliable
- Team members have confidence in their mission is making a difference
Now that we have identified a few areas that could make up the “peak” of the employee experience, what about the “end” of it? I think focusing on the true end of the employee journey is one of the most important. And there is no better way than to focus on the “end” that to focus on employees exiting your company.
Specifically, exit interviews are one of the easiest to put in place and most valuable. Over time, your company will gain valuable insights and themes to improve your company. Exit interviews will help you:
- Uncover issues related to leadership, even down to asking who should run the team next and why.
- Understand perceptions of the work itself, from job design and working conditions to culture and peers
- Gain insight into managers’ leadership styles and effectiveness
- Learn about benchmarks related to compensation and benefits
Exit interviews don’t need to be considered when one of your team members decides to leave. I hope that all people leaders have open and honest dialogue with their team members at all times, so that possible exits are discussed well in advance. I would even go so far as to argue that people leaders tell their employees that if there is ever a time whereby the company can’t meet the employee’s needs, they would support their exit and help them prepare for the next step in their career. Now that can create psychological safety!
Moreover, companies should have regular success discussions in addition to identifying which employees are high-potential, and which are at risk of leaving. For the latter group, leaders should engage them purposefully, to create lifelong advocates for their organization.
Many companies have created Alumni Networks to continuously engage employees who have left the company. This is an excellent way to stay connected to colleagues. Some companies have “reunion years” inviting employees who left and joined in a given year back for some social fun. What an incredible message to all employees this sends, when you consider people part of the company family no matter where they are in their careers.
Finally, companies should survey former employees each year. Just like you measure through the employee journey, continue to pulse former employees. You should ask former employees how they continue to perceive the company and would they consider returning at some point. Or perhaps an exit-NPS score asking former employees if they would recommend the company to a new or prospective employee. Imagine what that says to current or prospective employees when those that left feel as positive about the company as the day they joined or the day they were promoted. Think about your CEO publicly announcing NPS, eNPS and exit-NPS during an earnings call!
The Peak-End Rule can be a very powerful tool; and I would encourage everyone to think about it in the context of the employee experience, not just the customer experience. There is so much companies can do to ensure employees are as connected during their tenure with the company as they are after they leave.
