Best practices for “Employee Experience” learned from Duolingo (1/3)

This article is written by Koki Mizutani, investment manager at independent venture capital firm Genesia Ventures. You can read the original article here, and read the rest of the article here. The Twitter account is @KokiMizutani. For those who need information such as the latest events of Genesia Ventures, please visit "TEAM by Genesia."

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to creating a strong organization that is necessary to grow a business, and there is no goal that is the end if you have done this far. I think there are a lot of people who are in the middle of the day.

I spend my days deepening my thoughts while writing notes about creating a strong organization. In the meantime, I had a valuable opportunity to talk to Duolingo about one of the best practices for creating an organization for US startups, so I summarized their efforts!

Employee Experience

Regarding the importance of creating an organization, there is a common awareness among Japanese startup communities. Efforts are underway at each company to weight the stance on thinking and actions through the use of human resources.

However, it is not possible to create a strong organization simply by setting the vision and mission you want to achieve, and the values ​​you want each member to embody.

Employee Experience (EX ) can be mentioned. It's a word that we hear more and more often these days.

There are still not many people, including myself, who can have a high-resolution, concrete image of this Employee Experience.

According to a survey of Japanese companies conducted by PwC, 89% of companies think that "employee experience is important in their human resource management." Only about 20% of the respondents answered that they were considering and implementing it, or that they were aware of specific cases. Although we are aware of the importance of EX, the knowledge is not widespread in Japan.

The importance of Employee Experience is being scientifically validated. According to an MIT study, the Top 25% of EX-savvy companies compared to the Bottom 25%:

It sounds like you're getting business results.

About Duolingo

This time, I would like to talk to the Senior Manager in charge of Employee Experience at Duolingo, which develops the most popular foreign language learning app in the world. I was able to visit you.

We asked Mr. Sho, the country manager of Japan and Korea at Duolingo, to arrange an interview for us! Thank you for the precious opportunity!

Duoligno is an app (Apple/Android) that allows advanced foreign language learning, and Mizutani has been using it for more than 200 days in a row since Mr. Sho introduced it to him, continuing his Chinese studies.

It is a very wonderful product that has many mechanisms in the app for users to continue learning without difficulty. Users can use it for free.

Duolingo, a US startup developing dream apps to help people around the world learn foreign languages ​​for free, recently went public on the Nasdaq. Duolingo, which is attracting such attention, will move on to an interview in order to approach the efforts of Employee Experience behind the growth.

(1) Since when has employee experience been important?

This time, we interviewed Ms. Elise Walton of Duolingo.

Ms. Elise has the title of Senior Employee Experience Manager belonging to the People Team.

In addition, I got the impression that each member was facing each other from the selection of the department name People Team instead of HR Team. There is also a lesson to be learned from the fact that Diversity & Inclusion, which is gaining attention in Japan, is also viewed in the context of Employee Experience.

So, I asked Duolingo how long the Employee Experience, promoted by a professional manager named Elise, who had a wow in her title and area of ​​responsibility, had been emphasized at Duolingo.

In the early stages of a startup, management team resources are prioritized for product development and user needs verification, and investment in people and culture tends to be delayed. As a result, the members will burn out, and the reputation of black will be born.

However, it is persuasive to say that the company has been committed to employee experience since its founding, precisely because it is a serial entrepreneur.

What kind of role has Elise played as Employee Experience Manager at Duolingo, which was founded under such a philosophy? First of all, I asked her how she joined the company.

Elise's career is very unique. At first glance, it was surprising that an art career would be effective in fulfilling the role of Employee Experience, but it is very suggestive when thinking about EX.

If we apply the two points of view in the art world, ``the perspective of the artist who creates'' and ``the perspective of the consumer who appreciates it'' to the corporate organization, we can say that ``the organization seen from the management's perspective'' and the ``employees' perspective'' I feel that it is implied that there is an organization seen from the perspective of employees, and that the two can become different things.

What role has Elise played at Duolingo since then?

It seems that the scope of Employee Experience is expanding from the physical aspect to the soft aspect, including emotional relationships. As the purpose of EX is that as the number of employees increases along with the growth of the business, the priority of improving productivity as an organization will become higher. I feel that the emphasis on fostering is in line with the common organizational management issues faced by startups in the growth phase.

■EX Points①

Recognizing the importance of employee experience from the first day of the startup's founding, we aim to build collaborative relationships and foster a sense of belonging among members through experience design from the member's perspective.

②Why Duolingo goes to Cancun for a company trip every year

One of the things that surprised me when I heard from Elise is that Duolingo has held a company trip to Cancun every year since its founding. I have been It was one of the jobs that Elise was in charge of planning immediately after arriving.

For someone like me, who thinks of company trips as traditional Japanese companies, I was surprised to hear this word from the manager in charge of Employee Experience at a US startup. It may be decreasing recently, but I think that there are many cases where company trips of Japanese companies include the purpose of comfort by a friendly boys club.

On the other hand, in the case of Duolingo's company trip, it is a big feature that it is officially positioned as a company-wide team building program for a company with diverse members.

I got the impression that the relationship between members that this program aims for goes beyond the framework of mere "company employees" and aims for a "family" relationship. He also corrected me about it.

This is also a very important point.

Of course, the “Authentic Connection” like a family between members is not an end in itself, but it is the foundation of psychological safety between members and leads to healthy business growth. You can see that we are working on nurturing intentionally under

Establishing a collaborative relationship between members is one of Elise's roles from the beginning, and it is an important goal to aim for through improving employee experience. I was stunned by the idea that the annual company trip was positioned as a means to achieve this goal.

■EX Points②

By fostering psychological safety among members, dissenting opinions and innovative opinions will be sent out with peace of mind within the company. Therefore, it is very important for members to build an “Authentic Connection” like a family, going beyond the framework of mere company employees, and the annual company trip functions as an opportunity to do so.

(Continued next time)

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