The following was transcribed from a recent interview on The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström podcast. 

Today we’re going to talk about the relationship between customer experience, employee experience, and business experience. To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Leon Gilbert, Senior Vice President & General Manager at Unisys - Digital Workplace Services.

[Greg Kihlström]  Let's start by talking about what we mean by business experience, and then we can get into how it relates to CX and EX. So why don't you start there and just define what does business experience mean to you?

[Leon Gilbert, Unisys] When I think about business experience, in very simple terms, it’s the reason why an organization, a company exists. So for the example that I would want to kind of walk through, the desired business experience for a pharmaceutical might be something like, “Let’s safely create and sell new drugs to make a profit, whilst beating all the major competition to the market.” When a pharma achieves this, the company has that great business experience and obviously the shareholders do as well. But to really achieve this desired experience, the company has to implement several key business initiatives. And as an example, those sort of things, to set up and create new drugs, they may have to go and acquire a small startup. They may have to collaborate with educational facilities such as a university on R&D, or they may have to partner with a large hospital to perform clinical trials. 

So, whether it’s in the pharmaceutical industry or whether it’s in any other type of industry, you know, banking, manufacturing, retail, hospitality, et cetera, every organization has a desire for that true business experience and to provide unique kinds of business initiatives. But if you then start to link the business experience to the employee experience, that is when you will get true customer experience.

So companies might be focused on CX and EX improvements, but what are they missing when they're not thinking about business experience?

I don't think it's that companies aren't addressing the business experience. The problem I see is, when companies proceed with business initiatives, they’re sometimes going without taking into account their employees’ experience, as those key things are rolled out. So if we go back to the example I gave a little bit earlier around the pharmaceutical, we talked about that desired state being to quickly develop and sell drugs to make a profit. So if you think about that, they've acquired a startup company to do drug development, but if they're failing to take into account the experience of those new employees upon that acquisition, and the whole onboarding into their organization, they'll find, after six months, half of those people have either left the organization or are just not happy in the role they're doing. So the acquisition will have failed. If they kick off the R&D with a private university or whatever and they fail to take into account communication, collaboration, to facilitate the joint R&D, that will lead to poor collaboration. 

It's really about trying to join those dots together and really focus, to me, on the employees. Right, so it’s absolutely essential that there is a key focus on the employees, and then trying to connect those dots, Greg, to customer experience. That's ultimately the key thing. If you get the BX and the EX wrong, the CX just doesn't work. Your BX, as in your business experience, and your EX, is the employee experience. If both of those are correct, the CX becomes an outcome of those two working together in perfect harmony.

Is measurement of business experience closely tied with EX and CX? Are there other things to keep in mind as well?

Clearly all businesses have their measurements that they will go with, whether that's revenue or profitability, you know, employee CSAT within their organization. All organizations look at that. I think, in the space that I'm working in, and which I think is a wonderful area, is what I'm finding in my space specifically is that you see organizations are measuring the wrong thing. I think the days of the kind of IT organization being able to pat itself on the back and say, “Hey, we have green service levels, you know, the phone is being answered on time, et cetera,” those days are gone. You know, that's not what people are really looking for. And as an employee, what you want is that great experience, when you have a problem or when you need to request something, and for me that the measurements – and this is what we're doing with the clients but what I'm seeing in the industry as well – is those measurements have to be around the experience, or what is now termed in in the industry Experience Level Agreement, or XLAs.

Because that is truly measuring the happiness of the employees, whereas “We answered a phone call in X period of time” is not a measure, I think, that people really care about. In my own personal life, if I call up and I need something in my own personal life, If it takes somebody 30 seconds or 50 seconds to answer the call, I don't really mind. What I always remember is what was that experience? You know, how did it make me feel, and were they able to solve my problem and I was able to go on about my day-to-day activities? So I think, yes, all of the metrics around revenue, profitability, are clearly very crucial to any business, but for its employees to provide that, for them to be happy, their experience in the organization has to feel good. Because there is choice. Talent right now are looking for organizations that look after them and care for them, and IT, as in my case, should never be a detriment or an issue for how people can achieve what they need to achieve in their roles.

Most organizations are undergoing at least some type of change, whether that's the shift everyone, or most, had to go through from in-office to hybrid or remote, larger transformation efforts, or other shifts in their respective industries. How do you recommend approaching leadership in times of change, since successful change really requires alignment of leadership as well as leaderships that are open to the change themselves?

I think it's an absolutely fantastic question because you can have all the technology in the world; you can have all the greatest strategies in the world, but if you're not thinking about what I would term organizational change management, these scenarios can fall apart, and especially around adult learning. We as adults, you know, we all learn at a different speed. We all learn in a different way, and we all want to consume things differently. And I think what's incredibly important, as organizations think about organizational change management, is to give choice to the employees, but also realize that not one size fits all. And it's very important that employee A and employee B have a different way of learning and different way of understanding and different technical capability, or a different whatever capability. But I think it's incredibly important that all major programs really focus on organizational change management. 

And there are many methodologies to this, but what I've seen in this industry, what is absolutely crucial, is executive sponsorship. So it always needs to have that key level of executive sponsorship to help drive it. We don't just, in business life, just suddenly all decide to do something differently the following day. Technology can be there as an enabler, but unless we know about it, we don't necessarily use it. We assume people can just do things, and I think that's where organizational change management helps bridge that assumption to actually turn it into reality of any type of implementation being successful – so, absolutely crucial.

When employees are able to see and articulate the value their work and role brings to the organization, they're often more engaged as well. I think you were kind of touching on that, too. I think this is made more effective when they have a line of sight between their role and the end customer, so kind of bringing that customer experience component back in. Do you agree with that, and what are some ways that leaders and managers can help enable this to happen?

First, I totally agree with you. I think it's incredibly important that people see their value in any organization, and that could be done through many ways, including remuneration. But it's not just limited to that. I think people need to feel that they can make a difference. I think that is the key thing. There's nothing better than making a difference in somebody's day. And that's just part of human nature. Nobody goes into work to be destructive or to really think, “I don't want to be here.” I think people want to work to achieve something and, like anything, people want to work for a growing organization or a team that's winning. And I think, if people can see the value in their roles, that's the most crucial thing in how they're helping and assisting the business or organization they're working for to achieve its goals, whether financial or whatever, in really kind of helping; I think everyone just wants to feel that they make a difference.

And that is so crucial. I think back to my first role many, many years ago. I was taking calls from people who wanted to have their cable TV channels upgraded, or they were calling about billing problems. This is many, many years ago in my career. But I can still think about, when people just said, “Thank you, that's really good; you've helped me,” that gave you a warm feeling that you're able to make a difference to someone. And that, for me, is, I think, what a lot of, lot of people really want to see the value in what they do.

How is technology's role in improving the employee experience going to evolve over the coming months and years?

I think technology is clearly an enabler for the experience of employees in organizations. If I think about the era I work in, so in what I would term end user experience, end user service, everything that we do touches an employee of an organization. And I think, if I look at where the part of the industry in IT I work in was 10 years ago, you know, I would hear things like “the helpless desk” or whatever, “the help desk that can't answer any calls; it’s a complete waste of time trying to get anything done.” But now, if I think about where this type of organization is, it's vastly different. It's that switch from the reactive, “I've got to call to get a problem fixed” to the proactive, “Actually, IT's letting me know on my screen that they found a problem on my PC and they've remediated it.” 

What's great to me there is that, A, I didn’t know I had a problem on my PC, but somebody has proactively reached out and told me not only did I have a problem but they fixed it,” and that perception change from “I've got to call a help desk because I've got a problem” to “Actually, things are being fixed without me even knowing,” really, I think, is where technology can be that enabler. Now, clearly, in any business, there are three key things. It's process, people and technology. And technology, in that mix, is growing. But I think technology is evolving to shift from reactive to proactive. And I think that is a huge leap forward and a very, very positive leap forward for us.

You recently wrote about the importance of organizational change management. We talked about this a little bit at the top of the show. But you recently wrote about this, change management and transformation initiatives that are often part of improving both EX and CX. What are some change management principles that leadership should keep in mind while undergoing a transformation?

Yeah, I think, back to your question a couple of questions ago, I think the first key one is executive sponsorship, essential for everything. I think the second one is to ensure the communications are multi-channel, not just one route, multi-channel because different people consume communications in different ways. Don't just send a PDF out whenever you're doing something and say, “We have this new thing and you have to go and make 55 updates on your machine,” or, you know, just expect people to do it. The second key thing for me is that multi-channel approach. And then I think the third thing is tracking. So tracking the implementation of that change in the sense of how successful it's been and the whole piece around the reporting of that. And then it's being able to adjust from there and say what was the success/failure and where did it work well, where didn't it, and learn those lessons. And as you're going through that program, adjust as quickly as possible on the fly. 

There's always going to be some things that go wrong. But I think you have to be agile in any type of change management, and recognize if you make a mistake. There are different ways to do things. There are other options. So it’s be quick, be agile, be nimble. Don't just kind of assume that one size fits all and everything's going to work because it never, in my case, never what I see is the case. And back to the whole sponsorship, I think, if the sponsor is truly engaged and helping drive, it makes a significant difference. And I think what's key in all of that sponsorship is the why and the value. If people understand the why and they understand the value, then they're much, much more likely to adapt and change than if it's just kind of “We're doing something.” You know, I think it's incredibly important that the value is called out in any change management.

So we've been talking a lot about relationships between the different types of experience and things. How would you characterize the relationship between customer experience and employee experience? Should leaders look at these as a direct one-to-one relationship, where they affect each other equally, or is it something else?

I think customer experience comes from the combination of the employee experience and the business experience. I think that, to me, they're a multiplier. So your business experience times your employee experience gives you the customer experience. I think that's crucial. You know, if I think about successful businesses I potentially consume services from, the ones that stick in my mind are companies that have doubled down on the employee experience and, really, that has then driven the amazing customer experience. You know, they have a great business model. It's part of the BX, or the business experience. They've really focused on their employees for the employee experience, and that has generated a fantastic customer experience. And I think there are some great success stories out there in the world around that, and there are also examples of organizations where, if they failed on one, you know, they fail on the last one as well. So, for me, there's some great success stories that people look at, day in, day out, and think, “How do we replicate what they do?”

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About the Guest

Leon Gilbert is a highly motivated & adaptable business leader with 26+ year’s global commercial experience. Having grown in the B2C Telecoms & ISP industry, he moved into IT Outsourcing 12 years ago specializing in Digital Workplace, while continuing his career trajectory. Today, Leon is a Senior Vice President for Digital Workplace Solutions at Unisys where his team delivers advanced workplace solutions to help clients transform their digital workplaces and create exceptional end-user experiences. Unisys works with clients to transform their end-user experience to engage and retain employees, increase collaboration and innovation and drive productivity and business growth.

About the Host, Greg Kihlström

Greg Kihlstrom is a best selling author, speaker, and entrepreneur and host of The Agile Brand podcast. He has worked with some of the world’s leading organizations on customer experience, employee experience, and digital transformation initiatives, both before and after selling his award-winning digital experience agency, Carousel30, in 2017.  Currently, he is Principal and Chief Strategist at GK5A. He has worked with some of the world’s top brands, including AOL, Choice Hotels, Coca-Cola, Dell, FedEx, GEICO, Marriott, MTV, Starbucks, Toyota and VMware. He currently serves on the University of Richmond’s Customer Experience Advisory Board, was the founding Chair of the American Advertising Federation’s National Innovation Committee, and served on the Virginia Tech Pamplin College of Business Marketing Mentorship Advisory Board.  Greg is Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certified, and holds a certification in Business Agility from ICP-BAF.