Iris McQuillan-Grace is the Global Head of Employee Experience at OLIVER Agency, a global advertising agency. During our conversation, Iris shared her thoughts on the opportunities and challenges she currently sees in creating a better world of work that unleashes the talent of all people. Iris also spoke about the pilots and experiments she and her team are running to improve the employee experience at Oliver, how she has leveraged human centered design to deliver better employee experiences, and her wishes for what leaders can do to create better workplaces for people.
The Edge of Work: What is your role, and what inspires you to do the work you do each day?
I know this question is meant for me to identify my role at work, but the first thing I think of when asked that question are the roles I play in my life: mother, partner, sister, friend.
Ultimately those roles fuel and inspire my work as Global Head of Employee Experience. EX is about centering employees (humans) into all of our HR processes and you can’t do that without considering the roles humans play in their work lives and personal lives.
The Edge of Work: Let’s talk about the workplace today. With all the changes that have happened over the last few years, what is one thing that concerns you, and one thing that excites you?
I think one concern is that organizations will fail to attract and retain talent, unless they begin to identify those “moments that matter” across the employee lifecycle and revisit those processes. That’s why I’m excited that EX is gaining traction- when I started incorporating design thinking to my work, I really struggled with educating organizations on what the benefits were so I pivoted to doing the work behind the scenes.
I noticed a shift after that McKinsey article was published but now I’m seeing folx like Jessica Z and products like Pyn enter the mainstream and I’m thrilled. I think once EX is fully embraced we’re gonna see another wave of innovation in the people space.
At The Edge of Work, one of the principles we embrace is around thinking and working in new ways to create better workplaces. Why is this important, and how are you embracing this in your role?
I think the phrase “edge of work” is apt to the work I do and find exciting- it implies an open horizon, full of possibilities. Embracing change, and harnessing change is critical to building the workplace of tomorrow. The most obvious example has been the COVID-19 pandemic and the required pivots as result from work from home mandates.
We also saw during the “great resignation” that orgs who weren’t able or willing to embrace change and adapt were losing out in the war for talent. I think that is where the new frontier is. Organizations need to be asking, how do we position ourselves as a place people want to work. Ultimately that is one of the remits I see in my role- how to enable OLIVER as a place where humans see themselves thriving in their careers and where their whole selves are embraced.
The Edge of Work: Knowing how the world of work has changed, how has this impacted the employee experience at Oliver?
The advent of wide-spread remote work has created an opening for us in EX to capitalize on the need for new and agile ways of working to expand norms around everything from recruitment, to how we hold meetings, to how we identify and develop future leaders in the business.
The Edge of Work: What are some ways you’ve approached designing a better employee experience at Oliver?
I approach all projects from a human centered design lens- this can be anything from building competency frameworks, or creating survey questions to support mentorship programs and everything in between.
The Edge of Work: How do some of these shifts in the employee experience impact your managers and leaders? What do you need from them to make these shifts happen?
I think every change across EX impacts managers and leaders- they’re employees too, right? I think the question when designing any change is to ask yourself “how is this going to affect every level of the org” at the beginning. This way you’re considering the impact to each employee segment and you can identify who the stakeholders from each segment are that will help integrate any changes more efficiently.
The Edge of Work: I know that you’ve focused a lot on building culture and connection. Can you talk about some of the pilots and experiments you’ve run, and how they have gone?
Everything is a pilot- everything is iterative and up for grabs on the next round…so you’re never done? I find when things get precious, the necessary perspective required to evolve it vanishes. For example, we recently launched a revised version of our performance management process- we haven’t gotten all of the data yet, but I already know there are things we’ll revisit for next year’s cycle.
We have also just launched a global feedback model, which is exciting and I hope will become an adopted org behavior. Both of these projects are aimed to position us as a culture built on transparency and trust, which makes space for psychological safety, connection, and creativity to thrive.
The Edge of Work: What is one thing you’d like leaders to do differently so they can create a better workplace for their people?
I don’t think there is “one thing.” Each org is different and their needs are different- just as each leader has different strengths. Instead, I would be curious to see what leaders do to identify and then prioritize what may be missing, or not working in their workplace and how they are continuing to stay curious and flexible when finding solutions for those challenges.
The Edge of Work: What does a better world of work look like to you?
Oh wow, that’s a big question! My initial thoughts are what would work look like if there were global mandates around things like a living wage, universal healthcare, and at least 6 months of parental leave…but that wasn’t the question, right?
I offer that, because that can often be what I default to when considering expansion and the world of work. In order for employees to be operating at their highest potential and in turn increasing profits for an organization, an employee’s basic needs have to be met. I would invite that in a “better” world of work, we not only ask ourselves: What’s in our benefits package, what do our policies look like? But also who have we designed these for? Are we leaving anyone out?