Culture Hacker

IntroductionThe Journey from Customer Experience to Employee Experience

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.¹

– Ursula K. Le Guin, American novelist

While I have always thought I would write a book, my main focus these past few years has been to build a successful company that is a great partner and resource for service-oriented companies to deliver a great customer experience as well as reducing turnover and improving productivity. I also wanted to share my insights and some best practices around what we should be doing to improve corporate culture and your employees' experience. Before I get into this, let me give you a brief overview of the journey to date and why I want you to read this book.

A lot of my professional career has been involved with hotels and hospitality—operating them, managing them, or consulting for them. The biggest influence on how I operate my business today comes from my time with The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. The day I became a manager at the Ritz-Carlton in 1996, my boss told me that my first priority was no longer the guest but the employee. This was a hard lesson for me, and it took a while for me to understand, because up until that point, I had been entirely focused on creating the best possible guest experience. At that moment I had to shift from delivering great guest experiences to doing the same for my employees.

Making the employee experience a priority seems simple enough, yet ...