Why is it that in some companies employees are willing to go above and beyond to deliver superior customer experiences, and in other companies employees couldn't be more apathetic? It’s because when organizations invest in employee experiences it unlocks their discretionary effort to create great experiences for their, and your, customers. 

Take Scott Morris, a salesperson and employee at Workday, a software company in Silicon Valley that replaces a company’s core system of record for HR and finance.  

Scott was struggling with his sales position at the company. He wasn’t having an easy time, and sales for a software like Workday can take a long time because the software is replaced for a customer every 10 to 20 years. He was getting frustrated and he had challenges in his personal life.

His daughter was recently diagnosed with dwarfism and he realized Workday’s employee insurance was not going to cover the extensive speech training his daughter would need. With this knowledge of the limits of his employer’s insurance, Morris was thinking of just throwing in the towel.  

But before simply giving up he asked HR if they would change their policy and review the insurance offering. That way Morris would get the coverage he needed for his daughter’s speech therapy.  

HR decided to review their insurance policy and extend the insurance offering for everyone in the company. Good thing they did because Morris’ sales career immediately exploded. In the next six months he secured three huge deals for the company and the following two years continued to bring major success for Morris which proved invaluable to the growing company. He brought on new customers such as Target. 

When this story was told to Blake Morgan at a small dinner party, the Workday executive told Blake that Workday’s chief human resource officer did not even recall approving the special request (and was shocked to later find out this sales employee was a critical part of Workday’s growth). That’s how normal it was to simply do the right thing for employees.