The Employee Experience Advantage

CHAPTER 23A Lesson from Airbnb

Every organization has a different purpose, culture, mix of employees, business model, and priorities. This is why I caution readers to create something that makes sense for your organization instead of trying to copy what someone else is doing. Although this can be tempting to do, it will end up hurting you in the long run.

One of the organizations that have pioneered employee experience is Airbnb. Mark Levy was hired three years ago as the global head of employee experience, and in 2015 Airbnb won Glassdoor's award for being the number one company to work for in America. At Airbnb employee experience refers to the activities, programs, resources, and approaches taken to make sure that employees are set up to be their best selves, feel they belong, and contribute to the success of the company mission and business results.

Three years ago you would be hard‐pressed to find many people with employee experience in their job titles let alone having an executive with this title. Mark was one of the first executives at a global organization to formally hold this role. When he joined the company one group ran talent, another team handled recruiting, and a third group ran something called ground control, which included the workspace environment, internal communications, employee events, and recognition and celebration. All of these functions reported to different people. Airbnb wanted to bring all of these into one function that was ultimately responsible ...