Reaching Across the Aisle

In an earlier post, I wrote about swim lanes across the corporate functions that typically comprise the employee experience: Corporate Real Estate (CRE), HR and IT. I discussed how these leaders need to work together. As we continue to work with clients on this very thing, it's become very apparent that our WorkplaceUX framework is the perfect vehicle for leaders in CRE and HR to invite and integrate IT leaders into their employee experience initiatives. These initiatives are now table stakes for building out new workplaces (typically led by CRE) or going through a business transformation (typically led by HR).

Why is WorkplaceUX the perfect vehicle to bring about collaboration across these swim lanes? Because it focuses on tech experiences in the workplace and allows for employee/user input to give us the truth about how employees experience working for that firm. By reaching across the aisle and inviting IT into that discussion upfront, there's a much higher rate of success. 

No one likes to feel that they're late to the party, especially when the party has to do with their work. Let the head of CRE or HR make that call to the CIO and say "Hey, we are about to embark on this really important initiative to understand the current state and the desired state of employee experience and you're a big part of that. Let's do it together and both take in the information and collaborate on how to enhance the experience of working at our firm." 

Really, who says "no" to that? 

When you look at the experience pillars of workplace technology and the type of input we are getting from the users, it will illustrate to the CIO how the collaboration across those swim lanes will benefit the business.

With WorkplaceUX, we are not only working with leaders in CRE and HR to reach across the aisle to the CIO and the IT org, we are also performing outreach and coaching for CIO's. Our message to these strategic leaders is to say "Hey, the reality is that CRE and HR leaders are typically owners of employee experience initiatives in the workplace naturally as a result of real estate transactions and business transformation projects. Rather than waiting for those leaders to come to you and ask for your participation, be proactive. Commence your own WorkplaceUX initiatives that bolster your approach. Come to the table with HR and CRE and bring your own data and perspective on workplace technology and its impact on employee experience." 

This approach from leaders is required to compete in today's world. I'll delve more into this in future articles.