Focusing On Moments That Matter To Your Employees

Welcome to the Vantage HR Influencers Podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Vantage Circle, the simple and AI-powered rewards and recognition platform for employee engagement. Employee experience and moments that matter are deeply linked. But what are these moments, actually? How do you recognize them? Why are they significant? And what can we, as a business, as an entity, do about them?

Hi everyone, welcome to the Vantage HR Influencers Podcast. In this podcast, award-winning HR consultant and author of Solving the Productivity Puzzle, Tim Ringo, will share why moments that matter is vital in the employee experience and important for organizations. We'll further look at how to recognize and improve these moments, which can be difficult, but not impossible. Let's begin.

Susmita Sarma: Hi Tim, welcome to our show.

Tim Ringo: Thank you very much.

Susmita Sarma: Welcome once again, and thank you so much for being here today. Would you like to tell us briefly about your background and your corporate journey to date, before we start with today's topic?

Tim Ringo: Sure. I started my career 32 years ago, coming out of university. I'm originally from the States, and I've lived in London for the past 25 years. I joined what was Andersen Consulting back then, which became Accenture eventually. I was there for 16 years. I helped Accenture set up their people and transformation practice. I was then recruited to IBM to lead their global human capital practice, and I did that for five years. Then I wrote a book called Calculating Success with my co-authors, which came out on Harvard Business Review 10 years ago. After that, I worked at SAP SuccessFactors, a major HR platform, so I moved to the software side. I retired in 2020, just in time for the pandemic, and got locked down for the past two years. But now I'm an independent consultant.

Susmita Sarma: So Tim, everybody is talking about productivity now, especially after the disastrous workplace results brought on by COVID-19. So it was perhaps the best time for your book, Solving the Productivity Puzzle, to be released. But what actually led you to write this book? Was it COVID-19, or did you start before it?

Tim Ringo: I actually started writing it in 2018, so it was written and finished right before the pandemic. I couldn't have imagined just how popular the topic was going to become. It was already something that was emerging as a major challenge, and a lot of leaders of organizations were starting to look at how they could address people engagement and productivity to improve their business performance. But then the pandemic came along and seriously disrupted the global economy, and that put a focus, first of all, on maintaining productivity at the beginning of the pandemic. Now there's a focus on how we solve it permanently. So it turned out to be really good timing, but it was completely accidental.

Susmita Sarma: Also, going through the articles related to your book, I saw you published one titled "10 Steps to Solve the Productivity Puzzle." Just on the first step, which talks about redefining productivity.

Tim Ringo: Yes.

Susmita Sarma: The very next step, step two, says it's now extremely essential to understand what really motivates your people. So what really motivates people today?

Tim Ringo: Yeah, I think first of all, looking at productivity not just as people producing outputs, we need to look at it more broadly and look at the human experience at work. These days, most everybody is a knowledge worker, right? We're not in factories anymore producing widgets. So you have to look at how people are motivated in the office. People are motivated, first of all, because they join your organization based on what you do, how you do it, and the role you give them. That's what I call intrinsic motivation, and that's what you want to tap into. Extrinsic motivation is the money and rewards. Intrinsic motivation is buying into the organization and wanting to work there. Getting the balance between those two things is really important and very powerful in terms of creating engagement and then more productivity and performance.

Susmita Sarma: I completely agree with you on those points, Tim. It's also being said that COVID-19 is the most significant workplace social experiment ever. So what are the major challenges that HR is facing when it comes to employee engagement in 2022 and moving forward?

Tim Ringo: Yeah, there's a couple of phases. First was the crisis, and HR had to move very quickly to get as many people working from home as possible, and that required new processes, new systems, new ways of doing things. That was kind of the immediate crisis. What came out of that was a questioning of, well, hang on, how can we potentially use some of this change going forward? That's where we are in 2022, where people are now saying, working from home worked for me, I would still like to come into the office, but I'd like more of a hybrid approach. This has created all sorts of opportunity for HR to create new processes, new operating models, and put in place new technology that's going to help people be more productive. This is part of solving the productivity puzzle, ironically. This experiment has, I think, allowed and created acceleration in solving some of the issues I talk about in the book. So the challenge right now is how do we take that change, build on it, and then sustain it to create increased performance going forward.

Susmita Sarma: Yes, nice. Speaking of moments that matter, in HR, what are these moments that matter?

Tim Ringo: Yeah, so this is a phrase I use that describes what the new HR operating model should be going forward. It shouldn't be about administration and back office. It should be about everything from recruitment through onboarding, to people's performance management and goals, their learning and development, succession, through to deploying them to the right work, at the right time, in the right place. So all along that life cycle I just described, basically covering the entire employee life cycle, every point is an opportunity for a moment that matters. Getting recruiting right feels good to the employee. Getting onboarding right should be a good experience. The person you work with, your goals, your objectives, should all be good experiences as you go, not just administration. They should be things that are making you better and the organization better. So all along, there's opportunity for HR to create moments that matter, versus just transactional interactions.

Susmita Sarma: When you talk about moments that matter, like onboarding and training, those are big moments that we all know are important. Are there also small moments that matter in the employee experience? What are some examples of moments that matter in the employee experience?

Tim Ringo: Yeah, so I think the big moments are those main touch points I talked about. But within that, smaller moments that matter are managers who have changed their approach to become more empathetic and better listeners, who look after people, and who know how to give praise, know how to give feedback, know how to performance coach people. Those are the little moments that matter that build up over time and create these bigger moments that matter. Ultimately, people will want to stay and work in those types of organizations and not start over and move to a new job. We've heard about the Great Resignation, where a lot of people have reassessed and said, well, I'm going to change my life and go do something different. You want to try to keep those people, and I think this is part of addressing that, to avoid the issue of the Great Resignation and keep your people.

Susmita Sarma: Okay, sure. So talking now about the future of work, what does the future of employee experience look like to you, Tim?

Tim Ringo: Well, back to that life cycle, I think the first thing is that the employee experience should be integrated, right? It should feel and look the same all around that life cycle, in terms of the process, the mindset, and the way people, or managers, do things inside the organization. Underneath that is a technology platform that enables that. The good news is these days, platforms like SuccessFactors, Workday, and others that are emerging, are very, very good at providing that technological experience, that user experience that's very simple, intuitive, and really beds down this integrated life cycle I'm talking about. So much so that the manager and the employee can do most of the talent management themselves, and HR then becomes advisors versus the people doing that. That's a different experience, where you and your manager spend the entire year on your development and your deployment to work, and you do a lot of it yourselves. That's a much higher touch experience for the employee. And of course, when your manager is involved in what you do, that makes them feel better too. It also helps the employee understand better what they're supposed to do and how to do it. So it's an overall integrated experience, underpinned by these new, intuitive, easy to use technologies.

Susmita Sarma: You come into contact with so many people through your work, Tim. So what percentage of people do you think are harnessing the best of smart technology to transform the world of work? How many of them are used to and welcoming this use of technology in the world of work?

Tim Ringo: I think before the pandemic, there was already a move towards understanding and implementing what I was talking about, this integrated approach I also talk about in the book. But it's now been accelerated. From my perspective, what I'm seeing is that almost the majority of organizations, large enterprise and medium size enterprise, have a program in place to do these sorts of things. Now, the number that have completed it and achieved it and are getting results is very small, in the kind of 15 to 20 percent range. But it's a journey, it takes a couple of three years to do these things. So I think most organizations are on this journey. Some have completed it, but there's a lot of effort and time before we see the majority of organizations have this capability to create these moments that matter through this integrated life cycle.

Susmita Sarma: In fact, I think the heaviest use of technology really started once organizations moved to working from home.

Tim Ringo: Yeah, I think it was already in play, but the programs were kind of drifting and not really achieving anything. What the pandemic did was create a really intense focus on that, which is a good thing, right? It has changed the urgency, the acceleration, and put in place programs that I think now are better positioned to actually achieve what we started years ago.

Susmita Sarma: Right, brilliant, Tim. So what would be your suggestions to our HR leaders? What would you say to them now?

Tim Ringo: Yeah, well, first of all, I would recommend reading my book, mainly because I think it does capture the things we just talked about here, but more importantly, it gives real life case studies about how to do these things. We could spend two hours on the podcast, but I would recommend having a read of the book. I think the main thing you'll pull from that is, again, the models, the approach, but also, how do you make the case? This is one thing I think HR needs to get better at, which is, how do you speak the language of business? Put together a case for change that has both a compelling case, but also a business case that says, look, if we invest this, we're going to get that. I think that's a really important aspect that HR will need to improve on. I go into a lot of detail on how you do that in the book, and also in my workshops, where I teach HR people how to do this. Once you've got that ability to make the case, then it's all about delivering on it, right? You've got over the hump. So my main message to HR is: speak the language of business, put together a compelling case and financials to make investments. Now is the time. There's never been a better time. You've got the attention of senior leadership. Use that to make the case.

Susmita Sarma: So finally, Tim, how can our listeners reach out to you?

Tim Ringo: Really easy. My website is TimRingo.com, very easy to remember. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, just Google my name and you'll be able to find all sorts of ways to get in touch. LinkedIn is usually the best, or through my website.

Susmita Sarma: Thank you so much, Tim. Well, we'll have to conclude our podcast here. But before wrapping up, I would like to thank you for coming on the show today and for all your valuable insights and suggestions. I'm confident our listeners will find this conversation interesting and useful. So once again, thank you for joining us today.

Tim Ringo: My pleasure, thanks.