Future HR: Employee Experience Meets Neuroscience | 未来的人力资源：当员工体验遇见神经科学

Using Neuroscience to View Employee Experience |?神经科学视角下的员工体验

Written by (作者): Ben Whitter & Amy Brann
Photos by (图片来源):??socialbuzz.com, forbes.com, www2.bc.edu

What do you get if you bring together the latest thinking on the supercharged employee experience (ex) model, which represents the evolution of the HR field and you fuse it with the latest understanding of our brains being delivered through the field of neuroscience? Well, not many organizations know just yet, but think about it for a second. Imagine the possibilities.

Workplaces designed and developed with the employee experience in mind are being cited and referenced more often as not only great places to work, but also in many cases, they are increasingly the envy of many within their respective sectors. With over 600,000 people reading it, Ben’s earlier article called Bye, Bye, HR? continues to cause a global stir. In that article, Airbnb’s employee experience model was discussed as one that transcends the usual HR remit. In 2015, and as its first attempt, Airbnb went on to become the number 1 workplace on Glassdoor, a site that allows employees to anonymously rate their employers, usurping Google no less. This is a company leading in the shared economy. Even with high profile employee experience approaches coming to mainstream attention, the questions for practitioners remain:

“How and why does focusing on employee experience really work in practice? Why should you move to an employee-centered approach throughout your business operations?”

To help us answer these questions we have to understand more about the way in which our mind actually works. One simple thing we know from neuroscience is that each of us has a brain. (You knew the field was groundbreaking). A brain. Singular. That brain comes with us to team meetings, when we work on our own, when we visit clients, when we have performance reviews – and strangely even when we leave the office. The relevance of this is that the neural networks that are created when we, for example, are fully present during a workout, are still within our brain states when we try to have a challenging conversation. So too are the feelings when we have a bad performance review and we have to try to motivate a team.

We often see segregation between business strategy and people strategy. The business strategy being the responsibility of senior leaders while the people strategy is seen to be the responsibility of HR. The first existing with the purpose of moving the business forward… while the second with the purpose of playing a supporting role in making sure that business plans and people are aligned, as much as they can be. This makes absolute sense – if employees have both a business brain and a human brain. In reality though, an employee within an organization has a single brain, which means that having two independent and separate strategies is sometimes a recipe for problems. This is where neuroscience can really help out.

Understanding the latest research that helps us further understand people is a huge job. There is absolutely a place for these experts within any organization. However, it actually does more harm than good if they are squirreled away. They should be assets and the input they share highly respected. The aim would be for everyone in the organization to be inspired and equipped to learn more about people and the meaning associated within everything in the business.

“The best people and HR leaders…challenge the status quo, and they see beyond the perceived limitations of their function and therefore extend well beyond it. They bring meaning to the workplace and it runs through everything that affects people.”

Do you have a purpose beyond making money? Do you like your work to be meaningful? The answer for most of us is that we would like to live a life with meaning and impact, and the long-standing research featured in Amy’s book, Engaged, suggests the same. So why then does this thinking not really underpin how most organizations work and develop? Neuroscience offers a deeper insight into what could be going on within our organizations, and integrated within employee experience, can offer the chance to build something really quite special. It doesn’t replace some of the excellent research that has been previously done through other disciplines. Nor does it disprove what considerate thinkers have come up with before. In this case, it simply offers an additional perspective.

What else does an Employee Experience approach ask for? Results need to be articulated. This is normally clear from senior leadership. The behaviors that generate those results next need to be clarified. The level of specificity that is useful here is quite rare. Finally, the environment, both internal (the brain) and external environment that people exist in need to be considered fully. It is still the exception to the rule that organizations invest time in exploring research or consulting progressive experts to understand how best to create environments that drive behaviors and will deliver them a key business results.

This is a huge opportunity for HR professionals, presently and in the future. We’re seeing HR people being equipped with more relevant skills such as digital, analytical, research, and it is not far-fetched to suggest that organizations in the future will be asking for a ‘strong understanding of the neuroscience behind great workplaces’. It must be our mission to see people equipped in this way. This is a greater service that could be offered through HR or employee experience functions.

Here’s a clear example of employee experience meeting neuroscience. The Jarring Awakening utilized through employee experience could literally revolutionize people management. This is the assertion that, from one perspective, our brains are incredibly easy to influence. This means that for many of us, we have a lot more opportunity than perhaps was previously believed to shape our own minds. We know that our brains can and do change. If our brains are easy to influence think about the ways in which people can utilize this when creating objectives that naturally align to the strategy, mission, and purpose of an organization. It’s no surprise that the voluntary sector is consistently one of the most engaged sectors, and aligning purpose is a key aspect of that, and it doesn’t take as much effort within the employee experience to attract people in that sense to an organization’s cause.

Hold on a minute though. For those organizations that have to work that little bit harder on their reason for being other than generating shareholder value or profit, why do people need to be jarred awake anyway? Well, the year-on-year global data out there suggests that we have more people not actively engaging within the workplace than ever before. In an engagement crisis, we need to think very differently. This is two-sided by the way. Organizations are failing to create the right experiences for their staff, and employees are not accepting their responsibility to fully engage in their work.

Most people do not intentionally invest in the shaping of their brains and we are still in an economy where organizations develop almost by accident and through implementing established practices. The opportunity here is to understand some of the ways we know neuroscience can help to wire the psychology of the organization more effectively, and you can see how this fuses nicely with employee experience thinking.

Another foundational insight is The Reassuring Truth. This is the understanding that we are wired for interpersonal attachments. This is a fundamental human motivation. It is incredibly powerful. It is that power that is reassuring. We need frequent interactions with people with whom we have an ongoing bond. Feeling that you belong somewhere, with some people, has multiple strong effects on emotional patterns and cognitive processes. A lack of attachment causes pain, increases our perception of stress, impairs cognitive functioning, and can interfere with the immune response. Yes, literally, employee experience thinking could boost your immune system.

Is this all just about making people happy? Absolutely not. This is razor-sharp, leading edge HR. Sure, happy people are great and mostly make better employees but this is about better business. If we rely on humans in our workplace then we rely on brains. It makes sense to turn to insights from neuroscience to support us in reaching our objectives. Humans aren’t just human resources. When we look through the lens of neuroscience we can be better at creating the kind of employee experience that enables people to work at their very best within a meaningful organization and what is now becoming a much more meaningful and connected economy.

如果你把代表人力资源领域演变的超动力的员工体验模型的最新观点与神经科学领域对于人脑的最新认识融合在一起，你会得到什么呢？是的，很多企业都不知道。但是，请你稍加思索，设想所有的可能性。

出于员工体验考虑而设计和开发的工作场所经常被人提及和作为参照，因为它们不仅是理想的工作地点，更能引起同行的艳羡。本?维特先前撰写的一篇名为《与人力资源说再见》的文章已经获得超过60万的浏览量，并继续在全球范围内引起轰动。这篇文章将爱本卜的员工体验模式作为超越人力资源一般职权的范例进行探讨。2015年，爱本卜一举成为Glassdoor（一个允许员工对雇主进行匿名点评的网站，相比谷歌毫不逊色）上的最佳工作场所。这家企业在共享经济中处于领先地位。尽管高调的员工体验模式已经获得了主流的关注，但是对于实践者而言，问题依然存在：

重视员工体验如何在实践中真正发生作用？原因何在？在企业经营中为何要选择员工主导型方式？

为了回答这些问题，我们得更多地了解大脑的运作方式。神经科学告诉我们的一个简单事实是，每个人有且只有一个大脑。（你知道这是一个开创性的领域。）当我们开展小组会议时，做自己的工作时，拜访客户时，绩效评估时——甚至在我们离开办公室时，这个大脑都如影随形。这其中的关联是，当我们全身心投入到锻炼中时所创造的那种神经网络，在我们试图与他人进行一场富有挑战性的对话时仍然存在于我们的脑状态里。所以当我们的绩效评估很糟糕，不得不试图鼓励团队时，那种感觉也是一样的。

我们经常看到经营战略和人才战略之间存在隔阂。经营战略是高层领导的责任，而人才战略被视为人力资源的职责，前者的目的在于推动企业发展，而后者则是作为支持性部门，尽可能确保人才在经营计划中各司其职。这确实讲得通——如果员工既有商业头脑，又有人力资源头脑。然而事实上，企业中的每一名员工都只有一个大脑，这意味着，有时候，拥有两个相互独立、各不相同的战略是解决问题的灵丹妙药。这就是神经科学对我们真正有所帮助的地方。

理解有助于我们进一步了解员工的最新研究是项艰巨的任务。任何一家企业一定都有这些人才的容身之地。然而，如果他们被雪藏了，那只会弊大于利。他们应该被视为公司的宝贵财富，他们的付出也应该得到高度尊重。目标就是企业内的每一位员工都被激励去了解更多关于员工以及企业内的每件事情所蕴含的意义。

“最优秀的员工和人力资源领导者……挑战现状，他们能够看见职责范围之外的事物，因而，也能很好地延伸出去。他们赋予工作场所意义，而这种意义贯穿在每一件对员工产生影响的事中。

除了赚钱，你还有其他目标吗？你希望你的工作变得有意义吗？大部分人的答案是我们想过一种有意义、有影响力的生活，在Amy撰写的书籍Engaged中提到的一项长期研究的结果也如此表明。那么这种想法为何对大多数企业如何运作和发展起不到丝毫作用呢？神经科学对于企业内部会发生什么情况提供了一种更深入的见解并将其融入到员工体验中，从而有机会创造一些相当特别的东西。这既不会取代其他学科领域做过的杰出研究，也不会否定深思熟虑的思想家曾提出的观点。它只是提供了另一个观点。

员工体验方式还需要什么呢？结果要明确。一般来说，这一点高层领导是心知肚明的。导致这些结果的运行状况也要明确。很少公司能做到可以产生效果的明确程度。最后，需充分考虑环境，不管是内部环境（大脑），还是员工所处的外部环境。例外情况也有，就是企业把时间花费在探索研究或咨询进步专家，以便了解如何更好地创造一个能够推动企业发展并带来关键经营业绩的环境。

不管是现在，还是未来，这对人力资源从业者来说，都是一个巨大的机会。我们看到人力资源从业者具备更多数字、分析和研究等方面的相关技能。可以毫不牵强地说，未来的企业会寻求“理解伟大工作场所背后的神经科学”。让员工具备这种能力就是我们的使命。这是人力资源或员工体验部门所能提供的更好服务。

这里有一个员工体验与神经科学相结合的绝佳例子。在员工体验中使用的“惊醒”策略能够为人员管理领域带来真正的变革。从一个角度来看，这表明我们的大脑非常容易受到影响。它意味着对于许多人来说，我们比以往所认为的更有机会塑造我们的思维。我们知道我们的大脑能并且会改变。如果我们的大脑很容易被影响，想想人们可以通过哪些方式利用这一点，来创造与企业的战略、使命和目的一致的目标。毫无意外，志愿部门始终是员工参与度最高的部门之一，也不需要在员工体验上花太多心思去吸引人们致力于组织的事业，而一致的目标正是关键所在。

不过，请稍等片刻。对于那些除去为股东创造价值或利润以外，在其他方面都需要加把劲的企业，员工又为什么需要被惊醒呢？全球年同比数据显示，并未积极投入到工作中的人比以往要多得多。处在参与度危机中的我们得换个角度思考问题，毕竟这是双向的。企业无法为他们的员工创造恰当的体验，那么员工也不会承担起全心投入工作的责任。

大多数人不会特意投资于头脑的塑造，我们也仍然处在一种企业几乎靠偶然以及通过实施惯例得以发展的经济之下。了解一些神经科学能够对高效联结组织心理产生帮助的方法将是一次机会，你会看到它是如何与员工体验思维融会贯通的。

另一个基本的见解是“让人心安的真相”。这是指被人与人之间的依恋联结在一起是一种基本的人类动机。它非常强大，让人感到安心。我们需要与关系密切的人进行频繁互动。对某个地方、某些人有归属感会对情感模式和认知过程产生多重的显著影响。缺乏这种依恋会使人痛苦，增加我们的紧张感，损害认知功能，干扰免疫反应。的确，毫不夸张地说，员工体验思维能够增强你的免疫系统。

所有这些都只是为了让员工开心吗？当然不是。这是一种犀利、前沿的人力资源观点。当然，快乐的人都很棒，而且多半能成为比较优秀的员工，但是这关乎业务改善。如果我们依赖公司里的员工，那么我们依赖的其实是大脑。利用神经科学知识帮助我们达成目标是合情合理的。员工不仅仅是人力资源。当我们通过神经科学视角看待这件事，我们就能创造一种更好的员工体验，使员工能够在当下这个更具活力、联系越发紧密的经济中，在有意义的企业内，以最好的状态去工作。

Ben and Amy will be running events on this theme during October 2016 with a public lecture taking place on the 21st October 2016 at UNNC. Contact opd@nottingham.edu.cn for more details.

Ben Whitter

Amy Brann