The role of the modern leader is the care, protection, and preservation of meaningful everyday moments with an employee—or employee experience stewardship.

An organization’s most promising competitive advantage is establishing and maintaining a meaningful employee experience (EX). That’s why Avēsis, a national leading insurance provider of vision, dental, and hearing health services for millions of Americans, has prioritized EX. In partnership with TiER1, we’re helping Avēsis to create a strong company culture through four EX stewardship practices:

• Support moments that matter for a desired employee experience.
• Articulate cultural expectations through a company narrative.
• Activate culture through leaders.
• Sustain a thriving culture through collective commitment.

The Journey to Employee Experience Stewardship

1. Define Culture Through Employee Moments

EX is the full collection of interactions between employees and leaders that happen in everyday moments and in the work journey – these moments bind the culture of an organization. From frontline supervisors to the C-suite, every leader has a critical role as a steward, delivering on the organization’s desired EX proven in the moments that matter.

Certain EX moments are more critical than others. At Avēsis, employees said the moments of high impact at Avēsis were moments when the employee:

• Reflected on how they were doing and the progress they’ve made.
• Learned their role.
• Connected with how they impact the organizational big picture.
• Influenced and led peers or leaders.
• Collaborated with others to accomplish work.

Identifying these high-impact moments created clarity and focus for Avēsis on where to support and develop leaders to be stewards of their culture. From there, the next step was to clearly articulate the organization’s culture through a company narrative.

2. Articulate Culture through a Company Narrative

The Avēsis senior leadership team recognized the value of articulating the aspiration of the organization’s employee experience. Together, we crafted a company narrative that captured the truth of Avēsis at its best to serve as a compelling statement about the organization’s promise to employees.

Through the work, leaders identified opportunities to rewrite the Avēsis mission, vision, purpose, and values, which would reflect this new promise. Along with the written expression, an internal brand was established to authentically represent the values visually.

The impact? Through the process of articulating a shared vision, leaders are more aligned around who Avēsis is. One senior leader remarked, “Our new vision, mission, and values make Avēsis look and feel healthier. It’s our rally cry.” The rallying cry created the momentum for activation through leaders to improve the organization’s EX for a stronger culture.

3. Activate Culture Through Leaders

Aligning the modern leader to be a good EX steward is essential, yet aligning on the desired experience is not the same as enabling leaders to create it. According to Gallup, 70 percent of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager. To reduce this engagement variance and amp up leader commitment, Avesis focused on three areas to better enable these cultural stewards:

1. Caring for the well-being of leaders.
2. Communicating the leader’s role as EX stewards.
3. Upskilling leaders to care for their team.

Leaders are employees too, and their need for clarity, connection, and care is just as essential. To kick off the culture activation, leaders received a self-care package containing a self-care guide, cards to inspire self-care, and other materials that encouraged overall wellness. As leaders take the time to care for themselves, they can focus on the well-being of their team, especially in the remote work environment.

As reported by SHRM, we’re seeing a rise in work loneliness globally. Loneliness has also impacted connectivity and a sense of belonging at Avēsis; teams work remotely and are dispersed throughout the U.S. To launch the experience journey for leaders, 100 leaders came together in Nashville, Tennessee, for Connect 2023, a leadership summit that brought the Avēsis culture to life. In a post-summit survey, 96% of respondents rated their experience highly positive—and 87% felt ready to begin applying what they learned.

 Connect 2023 Objectives:

1. Leaders can build strong relationships by practicing curiosity, providing clarity, and creating space for connection.
2. Leaders can describe Avēsis’s strategic priorities and feel energized about their role and purpose.
3. Leaders can ignite a culture where they’re living the values and the EX promise is evident.

Feedback from Leaders:

• “This is the best leadership event I have ever been to. It was very impactful.”
• “The sessions on company culture and values were eye-opening and helped me understand the bigger picture of what we’re trying to achieve as an organization.”
• “The most effective part of the experience was meeting other team members whom I have only ever spoken to on the phone or over Teams.”
• “Engaging with other leaders on a personal level was effective and helpful to build future relationships.”

4. Sustain Culture Through Collective Commitment

As part of Connect 2023, all 100 leaders were invited to ceremoniously commit to an inclusive culture where all associates feel trust, belonging, and safety. Each leader chose one commitment to put these values into action that would sustain the Avēsis culture. Starting with the CHRO, Allison Ellison, each leader wrote down their commitment on a leaf-shaped paper and taped it on a canvas with a tree—an exercise that demonstrated the power of collective commitment, as the bare tree blossomed to full life with every leader’s contribution.

Following Connect 2023, Avēsis leaders embarked on a four-month virtual learning journey to continue growing their EX stewardship. Leaders organized into cohorts and attended cohort sessions to delve into high-impact moments at Avēsis. During these sessions, leaders discussed crucial topics, assessed the impact of new mindsets or behaviors, and tackled their challenges with implementing the desired EX.

Conclusion

In an increasingly competitive business landscape, it’s the meaningful everyday moments that set organizations apart and drive long-term success. The modern leader is the steward of these moments that create the whole employee experience, which can leave a lasting impact on the lives of those they lead.

Avēsis demonstrated how prioritizing EX can lead to a strong company culture built on a bedrock of belonging, trust, and collaboration. By redesigning important employee moments, creating a clear company narrative, fostering a culture of care through strong modern leaders, and collectively committing to sustaining this culture, Avēsis leaders are empowered to own their role as stewards who care for, protect, and preserve those meaningful everyday moments with an employee. This is what modern leadership looks like.