As ship captains set course for new lands and riches during the Age of Discovery, they were dealt a fair dose of mutinous crew members. Mutineers would become dissatisfied with the operation of the sailing vessels and leaders, and when left unmanaged, mutiny could turn into a violent overthrow of authority.
We do not necessarily experience employee dissatisfaction in the workplace in this same manner today. However, just because a band of riotous employees is not running through the office wielding pointy ink pens and turning over desks and chairs does not mean they are happily engaged in their duties.
If a great navigator could look out over the decks of his ships to see every sailor pulling a line or setting sail and mistakenly presume, he had a happy crew, how often do we blankly look across a row of cubicles and workstations making the same assumption?
Here is the challenge: Most organizations are not very good at knowing and less measuring employee experience. It is not necessarily their fault, though. Employee experience can mean vastly different things to different people within an organization, it cannot be unique to everyone. Where one leader might assess behavior, another might look at performance levels, and yet another might consider attitude or mood.
All these factors, as well as others, need to be considered together to determine employee experience at all levels. The needs of an employee are as unique and individual as they are as a person.
Why is it so important to understand the level of employee experience?
According to an analysis of 1.4 million employees, a healthy employee experience creates an overall environment of increased positive results. For example, absenteeism decreases 25% in high-turnover organizations when employees’ experience is great.
Would better experience have helped explorers and their sailors go faster and farther? Probably so. When you improve the experience of your people, you will be able to go further too.
Do you know the level of experience of your people?
According to a Gallup survey, when asked if an employee is looking for a job or watching for job opportunities, 56% of disengaged employees and 73% of actively disengaged employees said “Yes”.
Even early explorers knew if they were going to get anywhere, they had to have a rock-solid ship. Ship makers were considered an elite class during the Age of Discovery and spared no expense in creating vessels that would endure extreme weather conditions, hold tons of cargo, and even survive the occasional attack from a sea dragon.
If the captain of the ship is equal to a leader in an organization and the ship crew equal to the leader’s employees, then the ship itself would be the equivalent to the corporate culture of employee engagement.
To become the captain of this enduring ship requires authentic leadership, that really trusts and empowers people as the ship cuts through the fog and extreme weather conditions, holding tons of cargo and even having to survive the occasional attack of a sea dragon.
