After an impressive turnout at INSIGHTS 2022 in Austin, Texas, Perceptyx is going even bigger and bolder for 2023. Our exclusive gathering for People Leaders focused on employee experience will take place April 3-5, 2023 at the stunning Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California
INSIGHTS 2023 gives you the opportunity to dive deep into employee listening and the transformative impact of connected experiences at work. Learn from your peers, network with Perceptyx product and consulting experts, be inspired and entertained by a diverse roster of speakers, and walk away with actionable insights you can immediately put into practice for your people and your organization.
Spanning keynote speeches, panel discussions, and interactive breakout sessions, People Leaders can explore the best practices, technology, and strategies being used to create connected employee experiences. INSIGHTS 2023 keynotes include:
As we look forward to gathering again in Spring 2023, we thought it would be interesting to take a look back at some of our favorite moments from this year’s event. Here’s what some of our team members had to say about their experience in Austin.
Bradley Wilson, Director of Consulting: It was fantastic to be back meeting in person at INSIGHTS 2022. The quality of the presenters and content shared was fantastic as always, but there was also a unique energy at the conference this year after a two-year pause.
Future of work, culture, and inclusion were three major themes, and there were some important connections across those themes that emerged during the conference. While many companies are in the process of increasing office access, the overwhelming sentiment was “the future is hybrid.” However, this does not diminish the value of face time; if anything, I believe it elevates it.
In his keynote speech “Navigating What’s Next,” Seth Mattison kicked off the conference with six observations about organizational change. The one that stood out to me was the reminder that “culture is not in the building.” Despite leaders often citing organizational culture as the primary factor driving the push for return to office, companies need to be intentional about when and why they bring people together. It’s about celebration, coordination, and collaboration.
The discussion panel, entitled “A Culture of Action Planning: Moving from Understanding Insights to Driving Focused Action”, included a mantra repeated by Israa Khan: “Make the right thing easy to do.” This aligns with Perceptyx’s philosophy around engagement and employee experience. Rather than “driving” engagement or performance, organizations have the opportunity to identify and eliminate barriers to those desired outcomes, essentially making the right thing easy to do. We’ve also seen organizations create pull for people initiatives rather than pushing them on the business by thinking critically about barriers to adoption. If we can reduce the hoops people have to jump through, then adoption increases significantly.
The third and final piece that stuck with me came from Latasha Gillespie’s session on inclusion and diversity. She shared many great stories but one, in particular, was about her experience working on an extended project in India and how she was made to feel so welcome. Then she reflected on times when people from other countries and cultures came to work in the US. The attitude was often that it’s the manager or company’s responsibility to support colleagues, but the truth is that we all have the opportunity and obligation to make the people we work with feel valued, welcome, and seen.
Lauren Beechly, Director of Consulting: One aspect I enjoyed most about INSIGHTS 2022 was the quality and variety of speakers. The diversity of topics, company sizes, industries, maturity in employee listening/people analytics, and business challenges ensured every attendee found something relevant and actionable. Sessions also blended strategic conversations with tactical advice, simultaneously provoking thought and leading to immediate action planning.
From a strategic perspective, “Workquake” author and workplace futurist Steve Cadigan posed the question as to whether tenure is still a valuable metric, suggesting organizations should explore the benefits of building and encouraging a more fluid workforce. Armed with data detailing the rapidly declining average tenure for employees, Steve led a thoughtful discussion on how organizations can increase value creation with a more fluid workforce and shared business models that thrive on celebrating employees who leave for new opportunities while also welcoming alumni back. While a tenure metric likely will not disappear any time soon, the conversation raised an important question as to whether we are overemphasizing tenure in this more agile, fluid world of work.
From a tactical perspective, a roundtable discussion tackled the challenge of staffing, recognizing the struggles that many organizations are facing in terms of attracting and onboarding the talent needed to achieve business goals. To improve the quality and speed of hiring, one organization shared how they deployed a panel hiring model to hire all nurses within each facility. Because their volume of hiring is so high, nursing leaders were constantly pulled from mission-critical work and wound up spending all their time hiring the next employee.
While some leaders enjoyed this work, many found it unfulfilling, were distracted from other essential tasks, and lacked confidence or training in hiring best practices. By identifying a handful of leaders who enjoyed hiring new talent, the organization was able to utilize and develop their skills in selection and focused their time on hiring for the entire facility. Initially, there was opposition from some direct supervisors who did not get to select their own employees; however, the resulting speed and quality of new hires quickly became clear and acceptance of this hiring model became widely adopted. This tactical advice provided attendees with a new approach for hiring high-volume roles more effectively within their own organizations.
Megan Steckler, Director of Consulting: The INSIGHTS 2022 conference was full of incredible energy and a hunger for opportunities to learn and network with other People Analytics and HR Leaders. It provided an exceptional blend of strategic insights, practical tips, and emotional connections. There were sessions that gave us insight into the opportunity we have to define the future of work, others that provided valuable real-life examples and lessons learned, and still others that tackled tough topics and made us a little uncomfortable in the best possible way.
One of the consistent messages we heard from each of the speakers was “there is no one size that fits all.” There is no single right answer when it comes to addressing the complex challenges that organizations are facing today. Latasha Gillespie, Head of Global DEI for Amazon Web Services, emphasized the importance of aligning your inclusion strategy with the culture of your organization and making sure it resonates with employees. She used the example of leveraging the safety focus of a manufacturing organization to reinforce psychological safety to drive inclusion. The safety focus resonated in that culture and provided the stickiness needed to maximize adoption. Judy Jackson, President, of JLC Ventures and Former Global Head of Culture and Engagement at WPP reinforced this, encouraging leaders not to do something because everyone else is doing it, but because it’s right for the culture and values of the organization.
It was great to hear from such a wide variety of organizations about their approach to employee listening, analytics, and managing through change. Valerie Dubois, Global Director of Employee Listening at AB InBev mentioned multiple approaches her company had taken regarding employee listening, each in different circumstances. Ultimately, she emphasized the importance of flexibility and empowerment. No matter which methodology and listening plan works best for your organization, the purpose should be to put the data into the hands of those who can drive action. It was incredible to see so many different organizations each leveraging best practices and having a positive impact on the employee experience in ways that reflected their unique cultures.
Tiffany Pires, Senior Consultant: INSIGHTS 2022 was an amazing opportunity to come together in person to not only learn from organizations at various stages of their employee listening journey, but also to engage in a dialogue with other leaders on best practices and actionable steps for driving improvements.
The sessions included a mix of panel discussions, presentations, and roundtable discussions on key topics that are front of mind for both leaders and employees, such as well-being, DEIB, and culture. The variety of sessions helped attendees remain engaged and select the right sessions that fit their learning preferences and organizational needs.
One session that stood out to me was led by Melissa Tempio, Director of Employee Engagement and Organizational Development at BAYADA Home Health. She shared her experience moving her organization from an episodic and fragmented listening strategy to a holistic and continuous listening strategy, which allows them to integrate employee experience data in their business by increasing transparency and empowering leaders. Melissa emphasized that moving to a continuous listening strategy does not mean doing the same thing more often, which is often the misconception. Instead, it means leveraging multiple channels to capture new insights that align with what's most important to the organization.
By actively engaging and listening to people throughout the employment lifecycle — and enabling key comparisons with data from other organizations within your industry — Perceptyx helps leaders connect the dots between insights and actions.
At conferences like INSIGHTS, we can extend those dotted lines across organizations, facilitating knowledge sharing throughout our growing community of People Leaders. Click here to register for next year’s conference, and to take advantage of our early bird price of $699 through December 31, 2022.