When Rob Catalano decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life with his girlfriend, he picked what he thought was the perfect spot for a proposal site, at the top of a mountain after an enjoyable hike. Just before the pair were set to go on what Catalano hoped would be a fateful excursion, authorities closed the mountain to visitors. 

Disappointed but determined, Catalano proposed at a later time and a different locale. His girlfriend still said yes and, wanting to hold the ceremony quickly, their wedding planning was ramped up in double time. They quickly booked a venue, established a guest list of 250 people and decided on a honeymoon destination. 

Then, the Covid-19 pandemic swooped in to disrupt it all. Their wedding was delayed, the venue was changed and the guest list was whittled down to 30, with a number of loved ones who would ordinarily have been thrilled to experience the celebration forced to merely send a gift and congratulatory greeting card. Eighteen hours prior to the nuptials, a problem with Catalano’s suit arose and he rushed to secure a new one. More than a year later, when Catalano and his betrothed were allowed to travel and finally embark on their honeymoon, they wound up in hospital beds abroad suffering from a flu bug. 

However, when people ask Catalano about his wedding experience he doesn’t delve into those details. For him, recalling that period brings nothing but joy. He tells them the proposal—which happened while on vacation in Hawaii—as well as the outdoor wedding they had with family and friends and even the honeymoon were the stuff of dreams. 

“All in all it was this fantastic experience, an experience I’ll remember forever as a positive one,” said Catalano, the co-founder and chief engagement officer of the employee experience platform WorkTango, during a From Day One webinar titled, “How to Future-Proof Your Employee Experience Strategy: Navigating Through Economic Uncertainty and Beyond.” 

The relevance of his wedding to the workplace?

“​​If we think about our employees and our organizations, we want our employees to remember their experience at our organizations as a really, really positive one,” he said. “Perception is made up of moments. The only way we can contribute to the overall experience of our employees is thinking of that employee experience as a collection of moments that happen on a regular basis.”

Workers will encounter unpleasant challenges at work no matter what—just as people do in all aspects of their lives, just as Catalano did across his entire wedding experience. But what companies can do to create an enjoyable employee experience, Catalano said, is develop favorable “moments that matter, the things that really define that overall perception, that overall experience.”

Company leaders can do this, according to Catalano, by first adopting what he called the three pillars of the modern employee experience framework: working, living and growing, all of which are cultivated on a nourishing foundation of corporate culture and enablement. 

The first pillar, “working,” is about “designing an optimal work experience,” he said, and “aligning it towards making employees successful.” The ways in which a given organization might establish this vary from organization to organization. But a foundational principle can carry a leadership team to success: “Companies need to focus on the success of the employees, not on the success of the company,” Catalano advised. “That’s a critical mindset to be in.”

In regard to the “living” pillar, Catalano said it requires “a consistent, intentional focus on the employee experience strategy that supports the living human being, not just a working employee.” The serviceable mindset for people managers here, he said, is “focusing on the whole person, the wellbeing needs of a purpose, and the equity and impact of support allowing the human being to recover and return to work.”

When Catalano thinks about the “growing” pillar, to him it means the facilitation of an employee “growth experience”—their opportunities to develop as a worker over the long term, a natural inclination. “People want to grow, they want to thrive,” Catalano said. “Employees don’t want to work for business anymore, they want to work with your business. Growth goes both ways [and] if you’re just a company thinking about growth of the company, not your employees, again, it’s not going to be the experience they want [in order] to go on that journey with you.”

Optimal work productivity, comfortable well-being and professional development within an organization are powered by a company culture that has purpose, vision, values and rituals, Catalano said, as well as practical enablement tools that leverage technology, agility and good leadership. 

Once this framework has been established inside an organization, team leaders can start to build what Catalano called those “moments that matter,” which will help build a truly amiable employee workplace experience. 

His first piece of advice: Take inventory of what you do well and not so well through self-reflection—keeping in mind the three pillars of experience framework—and thinking about moments in terms of “beginnings and endings.”

“When people think about experiences, they typically remember the beginning and the ends and high points,” Catalano said. “When I shared my wedding experience, it started with a proposal and the honeymoon at the end [because] that’s just the way people react and how they absorb moments.”

He also said that the employees themselves need to be engaged on the matter, through conversations and surveys that cover what’s working in the office and what isn’t. Some questions to ask include: “What’s been the best moment at work?” “The worst?” “What are your past memorable experiences?”

Once they’re understood, leadership should do their best to shape and define the moments that matter, Catalano said. 

“You can’t control all the moments,” he said. “So how do you define the ones that really matter? And the way to do that is, first, you scribe and identify all the negative experiences that you’ve learned.” 

From talking to employees, maybe a leader learned that employees didn’t know what to do before their first day or they felt lost in their first week. 

“That’s not a great experience,” Catalano continued. Find out what isn’t working and figure out “how not to repeat those items,” he said, and instead foster more of what workers respond to positively. When leaders identify moments that matter that employees appreciate, Catalano advised that the leaders “make it a big deal” when they happen. Instead of just a team welcome card, maybe a handwritten note from an executive is in order. 

“​​The idea is…how do you add excitement and fireworks to that moment?” he said. 

These outreach efforts should be curated so that they feel not only authentic but uniquely representative of the organization, as well as personal and intentional, too. Instead of a gift card to celebrate a work anniversary or some other achievement, the employee is perhaps sent what Catalano described as a “culture package,” items the worker will enjoy that are somehow tied to the company’s culture, mission and values.

“You need to make it recognizable,” he said, adding a third tip. “How do you ensure that the intrinsic motivation and pride that goes into your employees when they accomplish something happens?”

Again, the execution of this outreach should be contrived by an individual company, but Catalano said he recently learned of an organization that sent a new hire’s family a gift in a show of appreciation for their support of their job change. 

“​​These are simple [acts] that create wonderful, memorable moments and contribute to that overall [workplace] experience,” Catalano said. 

Ultimately, the best way to ensure the success of this approach is to make it “foundational” to the business, Catalano added. 

“The reality is, once you have all that, now you can start bringing these moments that matter, which influences your better employee experience overall,” Catalano said. And we all know the benefits when you have people that are enjoying their experience: less turnover, more engagement and productivity. That’s what you’ll start seeing in your organization.”

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, WorkTango, for sponsoring this webinar.

Michael Stahl is a New York City-based freelance journalist, writer, and editor. You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books.