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Hugues Guénaux, Global head of employee experience at Indosuez Wealth ManagementHugues Guénaux is currently the global head of employee experience at Indosuez Wealth Management. He has gained extensive experience serving multiple companies and roles, commencing his career in 2001 as a recruitment and sales specialist at Kelly Services. In Indosuez Wealth Management, he worked initially as an HR business partner and later served as a Continuous Improvement Manager and Project Manager for the Innovation & Digital Transformation Department. He holds a bachelor's degree in Resource Humans in Marketing and a master's degree in Responsible Management at Commerce from IPAC Genevois Léman.
Please share some insights into the journey you have had so far and your current position at your organization.
I embarked on my journey in the industry as a Recruitment and Sales Specialist at Kelly Services. Later, I joined Indosuez Wealth Management as an HR business partner, and eventually, I moved to the position of deployment as a Continuous Improvement Manager to gain expertise and knowledge in the sector. This helped me to work on numerous projects that led me to the digital sphere, where I got involved with digital transformation and innovation team as the change manager. After successfully serving these roles for four years, I was hired as a global head of employee experience last year.
What role does technology play in shaping the employee experience, especially in the digital age where remote work is prevalent?
We are closely engaged with technological trends to improve our work efficiency. Our digital tools have become our allies as they help enhance our performance, which is also effective in remote interactions. Therefore, our activities and tasks are completely dependent on digital functioning. Nevertheless, we have also navigated the complexity of the digital environment, which is caused by the multiplicity of tools with similar functionalities. For instance, the availability of multiple channels like Microsoft Teams, Whatsapp, and Bloomberg creates confusion in choosing any one of the channels where everyone is comfortable attending group discussions. So, the most enduring challenge in the coming years would be rationalizing and simplifying the ecosystem while maintaining high performance.
“Like any other organizational resources, we prioritize employee experience as a significant resource, fostering growth and innovation. We ensure that our employees thrive in balancing both professional and personal aspirations to cultivate a positive work environment based on respect, cooperation and continuous improvement.”
When UX design meets a common standard, employee experience gets enhanced with an intuitive, interconnected and easy-to-use digital environment. However, it is challenging to define set standard digital trends and innovations that drive us to seek better UX solutions and adapt habits accordingly. Companies should be able to use the existing tools and also inherit the skills of employees to receive maximum efficiency from the tool. Therefore, the choice of tools is very significant in delivering the optimal result in the employee experience.
Have you been involved in any recent projects?
Recently, we have developed the infrastructure of our respective workstations, which a subsidiary of the group manages. This initiative aims to gain operational efficiency and offer our employees a digital environment. This project operates on a large scale, accumulating many opportunities through collaboration, operational efficiency, and portability. It is associated with significant changes like the arrival of softphones (the transition to digital telephony) or disruption in chat/video systems and operating systems. Employees find these changing phases complex, so we have built a specific change management program with our new interval partner to ensure smooth operation.
Earlier, employees were self-sufficient in adapting to the new tools and replacing the old system with the new one. However, in the ever-evolving digital world, we take the stand to demonstrate the advantages and provide training to incorporate new tools. This improves the employee experience involved in the project and integrates these changes effectively.
What are your business challenges for which current services are unable to provide an optimal solution?
One of the major challenges for the banking industry, especially wealth management, is implementing new technology such as cloud technology. We are convinced by the numerous benefits the cloud system provides, and we ensure to implement it in a way that preserves and maintains control of our data. However, after 20 years, as a digital user, we have completely reversed our private digital experience and corporate digital experience. In the 2000s, we achieved things that weren't feasible at home, like network systems, specialized software, and high-speed connectivity. On the contrary, in the modern world, there are more possibilities in our private technological life than in the corporate space. This is more evident in the banking industry, which follows specific regulations and security standards in order to protect their clients' data and funds. It's the role of the bank to be an impregnable fortress.
How has the concept of employee experience evolved in recent years, and what emerging trends do you find most interesting in this area and why?
We share an emotional bond with our employees to support them in both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Employees are one of the most significant resources for a company and unlike every other resource, their experience is also a part of the resource that shapes their emotions, and accordingly, their performance is influenced. We ensure we have all the resources to accomplish the mission entrusted to us within the workspace. This requires technical means and the right environment. We are more concerned about adapting an environment that supports employees’ personal and professional growth than having luxurious or trendy perks like a foosball table in the break room. The aim is to embrace a positive work culture based on the values of respect, good working conditions, and ongoing improvement. All employees have the opportunity to bring up an "irritant" spontaneously via a form we have called #shareyourirritant or verbally to their employee experience coordinators. In contrast to bringing up a problem or a suggestion, the concept of an 'irritant' is directly linked to a personal emotion. It's a problem that can be entirely subjective, but because it's associated with the negative emotion, no one can dispute it. We analyze this irritant, and we decide how and when we can improve it. Of course, the involvement of employees in the improvement process enhances their own experience and that of their team members. But sometimes, for various good reasons, we decide it’s an accepted irritant and we communicate the reason why we let it be. It's important to note that this initiative is considered significant enough by our CEO for me to be invited terrestrially to the Town Halls to present the results to all the bank's employees.
Any advice, suggestions, or warnings you would give to professionals in a similar role working in other companies in the HR space?
I think the key element to improving the employee experience is to generate a cooperative will and enthusiasm, which everyone needs to imbibe, considering it a part of the corporate culture. Like customer experience, we need to prioritize the well-being of every stakeholder, so I cooperate with my colleagues in charge of customer experience, which leads to great synergy. A customer irritant is also an employee irritant and vice versa, which we refer to as “symmetry of attention.”
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