The Employee Experience Advantage

Foreword

As an executive coach, I have worked with some remarkable leaders – people with outstanding achievements and unbelievable wealth. Any outsider would assume they were happy.

They'd be wrong. Even these fortunate people often struggle to find happiness. Like so many others, they succumb to the great Western disease—I will be happy when. When I get promoted. When I reach the next professional milestone. When I make a certain amount of money. In reality, while it feels good to buy a fancy car or get the corner office, that joy wears off pretty fast. That's why I tell my clients not to hold out for prizes. Be happy now.

Jacob Morgan understands this fundamental truth—which is one reason I find this book so compelling. He makes a strong case for the value of jobs that create happiness, satisfaction, and well‐being in the present.

He's right that extrinsic rewards (like pay or bonuses) don't really motivate workers. Once they reach a certain baseline salary, money is no longer the main driver. They need something more. Reams have been written about the Millennial generation's hunger for impact and meaning at work. In one way, I think Millennials (and Generation Z, coming up after them) are not so different from the rest of us. They just voice desires the rest of us have learned to keep quiet.

We don't want to suffer through an unpleasant job so that we can get a reward on payday, or when we at long last reach retirement—especially now that the borders of the workday are blurring. ...