2. We are in the midst of 3 strategic inflection points that
impact our work:
WORKFORCE
Multiple generations
Culture of
entrepreneurship / startups
Purpose economy
Employees’ market
TECH
Rise of mobile
Cloud technology
Open source
Machine learning
Automation
RETAIL
Shifting channels
Changing consumer
expectations
Technology driving new
experiences
Our industry
2
4. Silicon Valley 2.0
The competition for technology talent is more fierce than
ever
Employees care
more and more
about company
culture and values
4
5. Research shows company culture
impacts performance
2x Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For
perform nearly 2x better than the general market
Gallup found that companies with engaged
employees had 22% higher profitability and
10% higher customer ratings
-New York Times, Why We Hate Work, May 2014
$
5
9. The best of both worlds
RESEARCH DESIGN
We conduct research and design employee programs and experiences to
continuously improve our culture, leadership, and work environment.
RESEARCH DESIGN
Surveys/Adv. Analytics
Program Measurement
Experimentation
Programs
Events
Experiences
9
10. Our flagship programs
INNOVATION BOOTCAMP
A fast-paced, immersive two-day experience that teaches cutting-edge
innovation methodologies and creative problem solving in a real world
environment.
TRAILBLAZERS
Providing a support network and tools for employees to become change
agents for themselves, their teams, and our organization.
21ST CENTURY LEADERSHIP
Providing leaders with a shared approach and cross-company network to
help them build and lead high performing teams through rapid industry
changes.
10
11. Our research efforts
SURVEYS & ADVANCED ANALYTICS
Measuring NorDNA, Tech employee engagement/satisfaction, and
leadership behaviors
MEASURING PROGRAM EFFECTIVENESS
Measuring impacts of programs and connecting participation to business
outcomes
RAPID RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTS
Research and experiments to both understand our work environment and
improve it, including research efforts to support organizational goals,
understand drivers of engagement, and improve career development for
employees.
11
12. Custom workshops, initiatives, & event
support
Audition Hiring
Tech Hiring/Onboarding
Tech Recognition
Tech Fair
Tech Career Development
Hackathons
Tech Intern program
Custom Team Workshops
12
13. Our impact
Honey Badger Project- Developed via Trailblazer Program
experimentation with Unstructured Time
Increased 2015 NorDNA scores average of ~10% and eNPS with teams
from 24 to 32%
Graduated 90 Trailblazers, 27 leaders, and 250 Innovation Bootcamp
participants
Facilitated in design of new employee onboarding experience
Founded Tech Fair, Hackathon, and supported revamp of Tech
Recognition program (resulting in $35K in productivity savings).
13
14. Our team
Ben Grossman-
Kahn
TEAM LEAD
Andrew Buhayar
RESEARCH
Valerie Green
PROGRAM DESIGN
Sarah Lake Hagan
RESEARCH
ben.grossman-kahn
@nordstrom.com
andrew.m.buhayar
@nordstrom.com
valerie.green
@nordstrom.com
sarah.l.lake
@nordstrom.com
14
15. External partnerships
In the past two years, we have…
• Been part of collaborative Design Thinking Network
w/ Jetblue, Citrix, Fidelity, Intuit, Kaiser (Nordstrom
employees participate in cross company innovation
workshops)
• Piloted partnership between Stanford d.School and
Trailblazer program on “Rapid Experimentation”
course
• Partnered with Google, Nike and Intel People
Analytics teams to share knowledge, projects
experiments and analytics.
• Hosted Uber, Facebook, Premera, UW, and other
companies to participate in Innovation Bootcamps -
building recruiting awareness and strategic
networks/partnerships
15
Editor's Notes
In our focus on growth, we’ve shifted away from engaging employees.
Fortune survey results
Glass Door quotes
Exit data quotes – micromanagement, stop caring about people led them to leave the company
We’ve shifted from a hire-from-within culture to bringing in more external employees in a rate that’s been unprecedented for us and that’s likely to be the new norm. These folks have not grown up with the Nordstrom culture. We need to both introduce them to the Nordstrom culture and be receptive to including their ways into ours.
And the war for talent out there is hotter than it’s every been.
At Nordstrom we’ve always prided ourselves on our culture. We believe it differentiates us and is the key to delivering amazing customer experiences.
We’ve engaged our employees by entrusting them with one rule and acting as if it’s their name on the door.
We believe that the long-term path to success requires a focus on both productivity and employee engagement. Culture is more important than ever before.
Traditionally when we want to improve the bottom line, the places we would look would be improving efficiency, increasing output, lean out the systems and processes to get more value.
Recently it’s been found that culture has a big impact on the bottom line – it increases customer satisfaction and profitability.
Companies are now being thoughtful and intentional about nurturing culture in order to be more productive.
“Sheryl Sandberg has called it one of the most important documents ever to come out of Silicon Valley. It’s been viewed more than 5 million times on the web. But when Reed Hastings and I (along with some colleagues) wrote a PowerPoint deck explaining how we shaped the culture and motivated performance at Netflix… we had no idea it would go viral… People find the Netflix approach to talent and culture compelling for a few reasons. The most obvious one is that Netflix has been really successful.” ~HBR Magazine, How Netflix Reinvented HR, Jan-Feb 2014
We can no longer just “use good judgment” as a stand-in for implicitly understanding the Nordstrom values and culture.
We need to be more explicit and intentional about them to ensure they are incorporated into our daily work practice.
We need to pay as much attention to our people and culture as to our tools and technology
We need to articulate, measure, and coach our culture and values in a deeper way than ever before.
NorDNA culture
Data-Driven
(conclusions that are based on data, research, and foundational literature)
Collaborative
(work closely with partners across the org – build on existing programs, leverage skills, spread virally)
Experiential
(modern approach to learning that is interactive, fun, accessible, and modular)
Emergent
(human-centered approach that is constantly evolving to learn from and meet the needs of Nordstrom participants)
Impactful
(we only pursue activities that yield meaningful change with measurable impact on employee engagement and customer experience)
Even though culture is everyone’s job, we’ve created a People Lab to ensure we’re focusing on the development of people and culture.
We believe this will increase employee engagement, improve productivity, and ultimately best serve our customers.
As an internal organization we’re able to tailor the content to Nordstrom, respond and iterate content based on experiences with employees, and facilitate long-term development.
As an INTERNAL TEAM we:
tailor to Nordstrom needs
collaborate real-time and iterate
develop long-term initiatives
INNOVATION BOOTCAMP
Changing Mindsets
TRAILBLAZERS
Supporting Change & Growth
21st C LEADERSHIP
Building Nordstrom Leaders
LEADERSHIP & CULTURE SURVEY
Measuring NorDNA and leadership qualities
DATA WAREHOUSE
Collecting & analyzing existing data
EXPLORATORY RESEARCH
Experimental research to explore specific topics