Employee Understanding – A Chat With Annette Franz (Pt. 2)

I recently had the honour of speaking with Annette Franz, Founder and CEO of CX Journey, about her latest book, Employee Understanding. This is the second post in a 2-part series. I recommend reading Part 1 of our conversation if you haven’t already.

BM: So, we spoke about blind spots. What are some of the biggest blind spots executives have about their employee experience?

AF: Oh, that’s a good question. Day to day, I think it’s around their interactions with customers. And I have to break that down because there’s so much that happens behind that. So, systems that don’t talk to each other, employees who don’t talk to each other, departments that don’t talk to each other, there’s broken processes, there’s tools that we’ve been given that make no sense, or just add on to what we already have, and just make it more complex…

BM: Inflexible policies, conflicting KPI’s between different departments…

AF: Yes, exactly, that happens too. Those are all big blind spots for executives because they’re so far removed from the day-to-day that they don’t realise what employees are dealing with on a day-to-day basis.

BM: How do you see AI and automation affecting EX? Will it improve it or make it worse?

AF: I love this question because it’s such a hot topic right now. But so many companies have failed at AI because they haven’t done the work to really understand why they need AI. They’re simply doing it because everybody else is doing it. And it goes back to what we talked about with technology for employees – they don’t really understand what the AI is going to do for them or how it’s going to help employees have a better experience. A lot of companies don’t take the time to do that homework.

But in terms of how it’s going to impact the employee experience – at least in the near future – automation will take some of the menial and repetitive tasks and automate them to free up employee time so they can spend time doing more of the value-add work. For example, building customer relationships and handling some of the tougher, more challenging service calls.

But in the end, I think that there are still going to be humans in the loop. This is an old stat from PWC, but I think it still holds true today: the more technologically advanced companies become, the more people want that human to interact with. So, I don’t think that’s going to go away. I think humans in the loop will be there because, as we talked about earlier, some of this AI stuff just isn’t 100% yet.

But I also think that a lot of the executives need to take a step back and go, “Wait a second, why are we doing this? How are we using it? Why is it not giving us the return that we thought it would?” and start again from there.

And the other piece of it is data. I always say that data is at the heart of designing and delivering a great customer experience. Data is at the heart of designing and delivering a great employee experience, too. And so if we have that data driven culture – intentionally designed, of course – the conversations around AI would be a part of that because obviously, AI is driven by data. So if we had a data-driven culture, it would be more of a natural conversation. What do you think? What’s the conversation in Australia about AI right now?

BM: It’s very much in its infancy here but I’m seeing international reports where companies are actually walking back their AI implementations and reintroducing humans because AI wasn’t delivering the experience that they were expecting. I just wrote a post with Nabeel Abdul Latheef, who implements AI for organisations, on what should be considered before implementing AI and he was brilliant. But my advice is to look at what problem are you trying to solve by implementing AI. That is the first question you need to ask yourself before you even look at it.

AF: 100%. Yeah, absolutely.

BM: We’ve seen the great resignation, quiet quitting, and return to office debates, how should leaders use employee understanding to navigate these cultural fault lines?

AF: Yeah, that’s a great question. I do love that one. It is a hot topic, and we see it every day right now where companies’ executives are telling their employees they’ve got to come back to work, and a lot of employees are hating it because they have now adjusted to having this work-life balance that they never knew they could have before. It goes back to understanding your employees. And the three pillars of that are culture, insights, and empathy.

Having the right culture is about deliberately designing the culture that you want. And culture has no bounds – it’s not a physical thing. It doesn’t just exist in your office. It can live outside that building as long as you create it and nurture it.

And then insights – constantly listening to your employees and doing that understanding work to make sure that we know what they’re feeling. Are you getting enough communication? Do you need anything else? How can we help you? Why do you stay? Would you want to go? Have a conversation.

And then the empathy piece. In this book, Employee Understanding, I’ve taken the empathy piece to mean both the journey mapping and walking in their shoes, but also for leaders to care to take the time to pause and really care about your employees.

And if you care about your employees, you would understand that they can still work anywhere and be productive and be creative and get things done. We have so many tools for collaboration. But also empower the teams to say, “We should all get together next week in the office and hash this out.” I think forcing office attendance on people is kind of silly. We’re all adults here.

BM: Work isn’t a place you go. It’s a thing you do.

AF: Love that.

BM: It’s a massive thing in Australia, and especially in Melbourne, where, after six lockdowns over the course of two years, people got very used to working from home, and so there is real pushback against returning to the office. But you’re getting organisations now that are mandating it and they’re losing good talent because of it. Because if they don’t provide flexible working policies, their competitors will.

AF: Yeah, agreed. If you’re not talking to your employees every week and really having those conversations and building the relationships and nurturing the culture, that’s a huge problem. And I see that happening too often. I just think this whole return to work thing is an excuse. I’ve worked from home for 25 years. I don’t buy it.

BM: So, having now written Customer Understanding, Built to Win, and Employee Understanding, what’s next? Are there themes that you still want to explore?

AF: Well, there are, and I’m kind of testing the water to see if anybody really cares about this. It’s always been an important part of the work that we do whether it’s listening to customers or listening to employees – it’s around leadership understanding. So, I’ve got Customer Understanding, I’ve got Employee Understanding. But what about leadership? What are your leaders’ values and blind spots and triggers? And what are you doing with regards to employees? What are you doing to understand them and what drives them? And the same with customers. What are you doing to really understand your customers, and how you, as a leader, shape the customer journey and the employee journey? What are you doing to grow personally? So, something around that but I’m still figuring it out.

It’s always a pleasure talking with Annette. If you’d like to purchase any or all of her excellent books, you can find them on Amazon.