In I THINK I LOVE MY JOB: Secrets To Designing A People-Centered Employee Value Proposition, executive advisor and international experience coach Kalifa Oliver provides strategies for companies to help employees get more job satisfaction. Oliver writes that she began studying “employee experience” before the field even had a name and describes what it essentially includes: “It starts from the time a candidate submits an application to the time they finally walk out the door, be it an exit, a layoff, termination, or even retirement.”
Her 175-page book is divided into 16 chapters. She addresses issues including employee engagement, organizational culture, employee surveys, data gathering, work-life balance, DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion), and leadership. The book is aimed at professionals responsible for managing employees in all facets, as well as managers who are “charged with executing an employee-experience strategy and are searching for the right framework and architecture.”
At several points, Oliver provides convincing assertions that run counter to conventional wisdom. For example, she argues that there is no such thing as “survey fatigue” but only “inaction fatigue” (when companies ask employees’ opinions but never make changes in response). She goes on to write that employees’ happiness should not be a primary goal for companies, but purpose and resources to do their jobs are what enhance productivity.
On the other hand, Oliver makes tendentious arguments when it comes to DEI: “There are whole continents and areas of the world filled with Black and Brown people. There is an entire area of the world filled with Asian people […] yet you want me to believe that you cannot find one qualified non-White person to sit on your board? Please.” This ignores issues like the proportion of equally qualified people in certain cohorts, the required level of skill sets, and their availability in developed Western nations.
Similarly, although Oliver emphasizes the value of data throughout the book, she never cites other experts—nor even her own doctoral work. A consultant must be credible, yet Oliver’s bona fides in this book rest entirely on four testimonials (two from HR professionals, two from researchers) and the arguments she makes about employees. The book is thus more polemic than analysis, though it’s usually persuasive in its rhetoric.
Kalifa Oliver’s I THINK I LOVE MY JOB: Secrets To Designing A People-Centered Employee Value Proposition offers insights into many facets of worker experience.
~Kevin Baldeosingh for IndieReader