Trust has always played a critical role in creating positive, productive, and creative cultures. And now, with the added stress employees are experiencing in the current circumstance, as well as the uncertainty of the future and preparedness for what work may look like in the months to come, it is even more important than ever.

There is no doubt that this is a strange time.  For many it’s overwhelming and stressful.  With high levels of unemployment, small businesses going under, children at home from school and worry over loved ones getting coronavirus, anxiety is higher than ever.  COVID-19 is seriously affecting mental health. 

If you've excelled in your career in any way, you likely had help from other professionals. Maybe a contact from college connected you with your first internship, or a seasoned colleague at your entry-level job helped set you up for a promotion. Most people in the business world start at the bottom and work their way up, but they don't often do it alone.

We live in a world where we are pulled in several directions, our limited attention is grabbed and demanded, and we rarely experience a moment of nothingness.  This way of being is having serious ramifications for people and organizations globally.

As 2020 rolls around, many organizations are figuring out their Customer Experience (CX) strategy. Even with the elevated buzz around CX in the past few years, many brands still struggle to deliver an experience that brings the desired outcomes such as customer loyalty, satisfaction, and increased bottom line. It is important to really think carefully about your 2020 CX strategy, as no one wants to remain stagnant for another year!

While running a business keeps the to-do list full, some recent events caused my plate to be vastly overflowing.  As someone that works to help people understand their de-energizers, build mental muscles and habits that decrease stress, and recondition negative behaviors and thoughts, I know all too well what little sleep and lots of responsibilities could do to one’s mind, body and soul.

The leadership gap continues to plague organizations globally, with the average organization losing over $1 million per year, and experiencing lower levels of productivity and engagement, due to less-than-optimal leadership practices. 

Suddenly, after years of planning, managing, exceeding goals and conquering challenges, you realize that you no longer really care very much about your work. Formerly exciting activities, such as leading, influencing and innovating, don't matter much anymore. These days, your biggest work-related thrill is playing the games you find on Slack.

There's a word for this feeling. It's called "burnout."

At MyEMQ, we have extensively researched what makes people feel their best, feel fulfilled, and happy. We studied hundreds of sources of data from neuroscience, psychology, mental wellness, and wellbeing, including academic papers, expert opinions, books, and research studies. After using our data modeling methodology, we uncovered 74 attributes across 12 factors that keep people feeling positive, highly productive, and mentally well. What we found included the foundational self-care habits that we all think of: high-quality rest, fitness, and nutrition, and also highlighted the importance of mental wellbeing. Just like we spend time working on our muscles at the gym to give us strength or reduce pain, mental muscles are equally important.

Life is speeding up, distractions are at every moment and there is “noise” everywhere. Those back to back meetings, those email notifications, those chat pings … all coming up on multiple devices. It is no wonder that studies have found that 8 in 10 Americans are afflicted by stressand more than half of employees have experienced job burnout.

The truth is, we all have 24 hours in the day, and how you spend that time is critical to avoiding burnout as well as feeling and performing your best. If you are always feeling overwhelmed, stressed and as if you should have got more done, there are some strategies you can try to maximize your capacity and feel more energized!

On: Thrive Global

Levels of burnout and stress are concerning to say the least. A Gallup study found that 23 percent of employees reported feeling burned out at work very often or always, while an additional 44 percent reported feeling burned out sometimes, leading to decreased wellbeing and health as well as increased health-care and business costs. There are several approaches that can be used to proactively avoid burnout as well as deal with it if you do find yourself in a state of burnout, from both an individual and organizational level. The Gallup study also found that employees who felt supported by their managers were overwhelmingly less likely to experience burnout on a regular basis. From our work helping managers cultivate leadership skills that empower a positively energized and productive culture, here are some considerations for those who want to support their employees feel less stressed!

Having extensively studied the behaviors and thought processes of high-performance, positive people at EffectUX, there are many key competencies (in fact, we found 74 in the creation of EMQ, a model for feeling and performing your best). However, one stands out that all too often people forget about.

The survey received 1,166 respondents who shared their perspectives on what hotels can do to create a strong company culture. This study analyzes trends in enabling a positive culture, as well as negative detractors to reveal possible patterns that could be contributing to the high turnover rates hotels are currently battling.

As customers, the thought of calling support or trying to find the information we need on the “help” site, can fill us with dread. Sadly, many times the support experiences we have had throughout our lives have been exceptionally frustrating. 

I recently read an interesting article discussing the results of PWC’s 22nd Annual Global CEO Survey. Not shockingly to many, even with all of the data that we have access to these days, leadership teams are suffering from gaps that hinder them from being able to do what they need to move the needle. With operational efficiencies being highlighted as a key strategy and the lack of actionable intelligence also noted as having not changed in several years (across areas including customers and employees needs), it reminded me of why I even started my company in the first place — to measure any goal in a better way….

Wow, where did this year go? This one, I swear, went faster than the last! A couple of years back, I started writing about my yearly learnings from starting and running a business. At my company, EffectUX, this year was filled with highs and lows, as is often the way. While there were some disappointments such as a collaboration that we put a lot of effort into that didn’t pan out as we’d hoped, there were lots of highs that we are so grateful for! With 2019 rolling around, here some of my lessons from the past year that I’ll be carrying forward!

With current U.S. unemployment numbers as low as 1969 rates––3.7%, according to September 2018 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics––it’s a timely opportunity to evaluate the importance of good management in staff retention. Good management plays an integral role throughout the hiring lifecycle, and in retaining loyal employees. But how exactly does leadership-style affect employee satisfaction? And what’s transparent communication got to do with it?

When considering making any type of organizational changes, gathering data is certainly the first pertinent step. However, have you ever wondered how to effectively analyze and action the gained results? Sarah Deane, Founder of effectUX, does precisely that with resilient leadership.

Between the upcoming holiday season and the end-of-year push at work, your organization may see rising stress levels among employees soon. This stress can have major impacts on individual, team and business performance (not to mention insurance premiums). 

I recently caught up with Beekeeper’s Corey McCarthy to discuss employee engagement and culture; both topics that continue to be a focus area for businesses across all industries. With the percentage of ‘engaged’ workers in the U.S., (those who are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace) being reported at 34% by Gallup, there are many tools making their way into the market to help organizations increase this number ..

While self-care should be an integrated part of our daily lives, as opposed to something we focus on separately, with September being “Self-Care Awareness Month” it serves as a good reminder that we need to ensure we take care of ourselves. When researching what made people feel …

Billions upon billions are spent on leadership training and development and studies demonstrate that many companies plan to increase this, with priorities including growing the succession pipeline, retaining high potential employees, and fostering innovation and creative thinking. Even with all of this investment, with the state of the leadership landscape, 77% of organizations are experiencing a leadership gap. Going beyond the typical skills you associate with leadership, in 2017 …

With second half of the year upon us, many brands are reflecting where they are compared to their 2018 goals, as well as starting the processes for their planning and strategies for 2019. Sure enough, they completed these same processes and planning around the same time last year…and yet, in their latest CX results Forrester “revealed a CX leadership gap”.

We remembered writing about this problem towards the end of 2016 …

Customer Journey Mapping, while having been around for quite some time, has certainly seen an increase in interest in the last few years. There are many great articles and content on what they are and how to do them.

The purpose of the Customer Journey Map is to deeply understand what your customer is trying to achieve, how they go about reaching this goal, and how each interaction they have with your company impacts them.

That inner voice...telling you that you can’t do something or that you should be doing something. Telling you how badly you messed up or telling you what an idiot you are. We all have one. We all have a voice telling us what we should have done differently, wondering and questioning how …

“We do innovation” or, “we are innovative”, and numerous other phrases are used time and time again by leaders to explain just how innovate their organizations are. However, sometimes upon further discussion, sadly, you come to find that in reality they may have an Innovation Lab, rooms filled with white boards, lots of sticky notes, and sleep pods, but do not really have an environment, the people, the processes, or infrastructure in place to enable ideas to thrive, be tried, vetted, and brought into fruition strategically - for the benefit of their customers, employees, or the business.

We were recently working with a company’s support organization helping them to elevate the experience of their face-to-face support services. Throughout the day we covered several topics with the engineers and managers of the support centers. While many components must come together to enable a great support experience, several barriers were discussed that hindered the engineers ability to deliver the desired experience. We thought these served as a nice reminder for

We were recently invited to participate at the United State of Women Summit, partnering with equallet and Amazon who sponsored our prize draw. We were there to conduct some live data analytics to explore the various challenges, mindsets, and behavioral blockers that were most …

There is always so much to do. In life and at work, the demands and responsibilities seem to be never ending. For years in corporate it was so easy for me to get consumed by what “needed” to be done, those fires to put out, the 50th iteration of a deck, the meeting to plan for …

Think about this situation... you created a presentation for a meeting. During the meeting some of the other people question you in what seems like an attacking way. After the meeting you think about, what could you have said? What should you have presented? Maybe you do not know the subject as much as you …

We have been working with many organizations and individuals on growing their behaviors and mindset to enable them to better take lead of their lives. As such, we have been privy to many conversations about the challenges faced by leaders, managers, and individual employees alike when it comes to …

Recently I was honored to be a part of a panel during the inspirational Allison Kluger’s workshop on Executive Presence for Women at Stanford - where she covers topics such as how people carry themselves, present themselves, communicate with others, and project competence and calm. I was joined by

As a new year rolls around, many brands have been busy – for a while now – thinking about their 2018 goals and strategies. Sure enough, they completed these same processes and planning around the same time last year…and yet, in their latest CX results Forrester “revealed a CX leadership gap”.

We remembered writing about this problem towards the end of 2016, where ...

The word mindful--or mindfulness --has exploded in recent years, for many reasons and most importantly for many benefits - even though the concepts and practice has been around for ages. That seems to be the trend with many industry crazes, a concept that has been around for some time, which when applied in the right way can be incredibly valuable, arises, gains popularity, and ...

We often joke in the office that the word “busy” would appear to need a new definition as it seems to have become the standard response to the question: “How are you?”

Think about it, when you are asked ‘how you are,’ or you ask someone ‘how’s it going?’ What are the most common responses? We asked around and got a plethora of “things are just so busy at the moment,” “I’m good, you know the usual, busy,” “Same old here,” for which ...

Wow, another year has flown by! That time of year has arrived once again, the time of year when we look back, reflect, learn from the broader patterns, and make decisions that set the foundation for a successful next year!

Last years reflections were certainly plentiful, and this year certainly didn’t disappoint, with the emotional roller coaster of running a business seemingly having no end. However, advancing along your business journey from ...

Changing behaviors is no easy feat. It takes a lot of effort, time, and patience. While we work on driving behavioral changes in individuals and teams on a daily basis, I personally have experienced three things that have helped me when I myself am working on engaging new behaviors and making them ...

Life seems to be becoming increasingly overwhelming and stressful. It is clear that if we do not start working on behaviors and strategies to cope with these challenges, the levels of disengagement, depression, and stress will continue to reach new highs. In fact, a national survey of 614 HR leaders, including CHRO’s, VP’s, Directors and Managers, found that 95% of participants admit that ...

While engagement and productivity are different, engaged employees tend to be more productive and guarantee a better customer experience. Not to mention how an energized work environment not only attracts talent but retains it.

It is that time of year again and, unfortunately, many organizations are set to be disappointed in their employee engagement scores, once ...

With employee disengagement numbers being shown at near 70%, more and more organizations are looking at how they can create better workplace cultures to engage their workforce in meaningful ways, and for good reason. Workforces with higher levels of engagement have been found to be more profitable, have less turnover, and ...

Often times driving impactful change requires conversations that can be difficult, sensitive, or emotional. Throughout our experiences we have seen several instances where data was able to successfully guide meaningful discussion in such moments. The feedback we’ve received from such conversations have proved ...

I was recently honored to participate in a panel at Beekeeper’s announcement of their integrated workplace feature, alongside Jennifer Pappas (Internal Communications Manager at Wireless Vision), Anja Luthje (Group Director Rooms and Quality for Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group), and facilitated by Beekeepers VP Corey McCarthy.

The theme was all about the hot-topic of culture, A.I and especially how they impacted the non-desk workforce.

We were really excited to have recently been invited to see Verizon’s Next-Gen retail store and experience a VR demonstration they currently have at their SF location onMarket Street. We got to have some great conversations with the people behind the new design concepts and took away several insights that can serve as ...

This month the team attended a couple of great events for Culture Week SF (August 14th-18th). For those not familiar, Culture Week is a collection of events, both physical and virtual, focused on workplace culture.

For those that work in HR, or any one of the growing domains ...

As more and more organizations continue to build out their Experience Design (XD) capabilities and their User Experience (UX) teams we are asked more and more often for tips to help expedite the UX teams success in bringing UX capabilities and focus to the organization. Here are 5 tips ....

We love working with newly formed or early stage experience focused teams and getting them going in the right direction as they work to increase their organization’s maturity in the domain. After working with numerous teams all over the globe to build out their practices in various areas of experience design, we have noticed ...

By now it is pretty clear that your customers are the core of driving your experience strategy. Given that using customer feedback and insights is a critical part of the CX agenda, at EffectUX we often find ourselves getting asked about how to create a cohesive customer feedback strategy—from both a client perspective and an employee perspective. So here are 6 considerations and some great articles providing insights ...

The fight for customer loyalty is fierce these days and with the ever increasing focus, many brands are taking a closer look at how they can compete to win the heart-share, mind-share, and of course, “purse-share” of their audiences. As they focus on elevating their customer experiences and finding their advantages in an ever more competitive marketplace, several businesses  ...

These days, it’s hard to look far without seeing people and organizations talking about the importance of designing experiences for customers, employees, partners, and so on.Experience design can be described as “a deliberately applied discipline for a design that is driven by considering the interactions...

For those that read our articles, you’re aware that we often draw inspiration from what we see, interactions with people or organizations, their stories, and from our research (be it from a chef, or a trip to the dentist), and then apply the learnings to the domain of experience design. Well…

Last week we had the honor of attending the EY Global TMT Expo. It was a great day filled with several thought provoking conversations, ideas, and opportunities. The Expo was attended by 14 industry sectors that included several companies around the areas of customer experience, to business transformation, robotics, and AI.

While talking with the attendees—the representatives of various products ...

It is no secret that organizations everywhere are trying to focus on the experience they provide to their customers. But truthfully, thinking about your customers and users should simply be how you work, how you think, and how you operate across the whole business anyway. The organizations that do this tend to see the power of using Experience Design and this way of thinking to solve business problems in ...

After the success of the Confidence EmpowHER event in November last year, we were honored to provide The Glow Effect with a Money Belief Index for their recent event in LA called, EmpowHER: Crush Money Blocks & Raise Your Worth. This half-day conference-like workshop was built on the same event-design principles that I discussed previously with Glow Effect Founder, Saren Stiegel, but, this time, gave females the opportunity...

As organizations try to increase their organizational maturity in customer experience, try to improve the experiences that they deliver to their customers, and try to achieve other business goals that they may have, we have seen lately many cases that we have termed “band-aided Experience Design”.

While band-aids serve a great purpose in life...

Last year Forrester spoke of CX leaders and laggards, and the fact that “Customer experience leaders grow revenue faster than CX laggards, drive higher brand preference, and can charge more for their products.” Now, while being a CX leader is a moving target, as we start 2017 it is certainly becoming even more apparent which brands truly have the customer as their focus, truly have Customer Experience as a strategy, and who is actually moving the needle and transforming how customers and potential customers feel about them.

Recently we were honored to be a part of an EmpowHER event in association with The Glow Effect. At the start, the women in attendance took our Confidence Index. This had two purposes in relation to the event’s design: firstly, to enable reflection amongst the attendees that would set up the correct mind-set for deeper discussions, and secondly, to allow us to see the barriers and strengths present amongst those...

I’ve often been told by several relatives that from a very young age I used to say that I wanted to run my own business. Now I do, and as the end of the year comes, a time that always instills increased and broader reflection than normal, I was looking back at all that I have learned since starting out this chapter of my journey.

Firstly, owning your own business can be...

I had a very interesting interaction the other day with a man who is a partner in a Poke bar chain that has a couple of locations nearby. The interaction served as a great reminder as to how the Customer Experience is built from every interaction with a brand, including moments such as a seemingly innocuous conversation with a person representing the brand.

First, some background..

Recently, I was honored to a be a part of the EmpowHER event in LA. Before the event I had spoken with Saren Stiegel, the Founder of the Glow Effect, and we connected over wanting to use the great building blocks we already had to elevate the approaches that we commonly see. Current events are incredibly motivational, but the challenge lies in stopping the momentum fading once people...

In 2016 we have seen a year filled with everything Customer Experience and, as we now near the end of the year, many organizations are well underway with their 2017 planning. While the focus on Experience is always very welcome (and should be an everyday thought and focal point for businesses), it is also apparent from talking to organizational leaders and spending...

Recently, I looked at how the confidence gap for women in the workplace could be closed. Then, in a recent discussion with Saren Stiegel, Founder and CEO of the Glow Effect, we discussed how to empower rising female leaders with the skills they would need to achieve the best they can.

The discussion sparked many thoughts. While the topic is complex...

National Customer Service Week is upon us. It serves as a reminder of the importance of appreciating those employees that deliver your brand experience directly to your customers, and how important it is to invest in them. With this in mind, during the ramp up to Customer Service Week, we have been particularly focused on evaluating the in-store customer service experience.

The Confidence Gap is being highlighted more and more as a reason as to why women may not be achieving all that they can in the workplace. Multiple studies have indicated that many women want leadership roles, but something is holding them back. That something has been shown to be confidence.

A quick search online will bring back numerous posts, articles, companies, tools and other content centered on measuring your customer experience. In the last year, the topic of measuring experience has been top of mind for many organizations looking to better understand and improve their customer experience.

Throughout the customer’s journey with you, there are multiple touch points and interactions with your brand: all of these provide data that you can capture. While data is incredibly valuable, this access to data has led to a complex landscape, which can be overwhelming and confusing.

Managers play an incredibly important role in the lives of employees at work, in how much the employee feels positively about their workplace, and, in how effectively a business culture of agility can be realized. While Management is not the only factor, Gallup found that as much as 70% of the variance in the employee engagement of teams can be traced back to the influence of the manager - through the manager’s engagement, behaviors as observed by team members, and the natural wiring of managers.

When it comes to experience design, I love learning from other industries. Since achieving an emotional connection with humans is really the very core of experience, the learnings, applications and methodology of experience design can be easily translated between a variety of industries.

I was eating out last weekend and after a great conversation with the Chef

The support experience, customer service, and customer care, play an incredibly important role in a Customer’s Experience of a brand. How a brand shows up when things go wrong weighs heavily on the Customer’s perception of the brand as a whole. In fact, for some people...customer support is a deal breaker.

With 2016 dubbed the year of the Customer by many, companies are fighting to make sure that they do all they can to become customer focused; even obsessed.  They have hired for various roles, ranging from Customer Success to Chief Happiness and more, they conduct journey mappings, create amazing designs…but the truth is, whether they know it or not, all of these are steps on a much larger, highly impactful journey. 

Engaged employees yield many benefits to businesses today - increased productivity, talent retention, and the enablement of better customer experiences being just a few. But, as Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report illustrates, with 87% of employees not engaged or actively disengaged, building a culture of engagement is no easy feat. This is especially true in a world of 24/7 access, where 80% of organizations believe their employees are overwhelmed with information and activity at work.

With the ever-increasing popularity of focus on the Customer Experience, we are seeing a rise in the number of companies who are incorporating some form of experience evaluation for their concepts and prototypes during their creative process, in an effort to rapidly iterate and support better decision-making.

The airline and travel industries have been vocal about a renewed focus on the Customer, as more and more come to realize that creating an experience “means listening to [our] customers and genuinely seeking to make their experience great.”

The truth is that customers find meaning in an observed brand value, which is affected by the perception of their interactions with each different part of the brand.

Cracking up with laughter, I was recounting a story that had happened to me early in my career to a mentor of mine. The story really got me thinking about diversity, embracing differences and how, especially in some industries, there can be the issue of assumptions and biases hindering the amazingness...