#MillenniumLive Like A Survey, But Better with ThoughtExchange

What if you could hear from all your employees at once, and leverage their expertise into a strategy you could use? With the world’s first and only anti-bias enterprise discussion management platform, the actual human perspective can be scaled into high-quality data to solve the most critical business problems. Thousands of leaders are gaining insights and bringing millions of people together in the business, public, and education sectors using ThoughtExchange.

#MillenniumLive welcomes Dave MacLeod, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer at ThoughtExchange and Arun Chidambaram, People Analytics at GE Healthcare. During this episode, the two discuss the value ThoughtExchange brought to GE Healthcare, and how using ThoughtExchange impacts productivity and empower leadership decisions, now and in the future!

Listen on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, and Google Podcasts.

About ThoughtExchange

ThoughtExchange lets people lead challenging conversations about things that matter. ThoughtExchange allows people to quickly and easily connect with their team to solve problems together. The ThoughtExchange app lets people ask an open-ended question and invite groups of 10 or 10,000 people to answer it in what’s called an “exchange.” Not only do people submit their own answers, they also get to rate other participants’ answers, so the most popular ideas rise to the top.

For more information visit https://thoughtexchange.com

Improve Employee Well-Being with O.C.Tanner

Contributed by O.C Tanner

Employee well-being: addressing burnout in a diverse workplace

The world of work has changed dramatically and organizations struggle to attract and retain top talent—especially diverse talent. For HR leaders to reach their hiring and retention goals, and for organizations to reach their growth goals, they need a more holistic view of employee wellbeing. This includes their diverse employees.

There’s plenty of quantitative research on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workforce. Organizations with diverse workforces enjoy increased financial performance, innovation, and creativity. They also experience lower attrition and can better mitigate the high costs of turnover. While most companies approach DEI through changes in hiring, promotion, personal development, and other policies, HR leaders must go beyond that and dig deep into ensuring and improving another DEI needs—employee wellbeing—especially in diverse groups where burnout can run rampant.

What do we mean by employee well-being?

Let’s start by taking a closer look at what we mean by employee well-being, what it is, and why it’s important, especially in diverse groups.

What is employee wellbeing?

Employee wellbeing is the capacity employees have to work through day-to-day stressors, be productive, maintain their proficiency, and seek their potential. Employee wellbeing is a hot topic in today’s HR circles because wellbeing research shows that employees in good health are more likely to deliver optimal performance in the workplace. Optimal performance drives productivity, efficiency, and organizational growth.

What does employee wellbeing look like?

Employees need both mental and physical wellness to thrive. Those who succeed in both areas report not only having a better quality of life, but also benefit from having a lower risk of disease, illness, and injury. This leads to increased work productivity and a greater likelihood of contributing to corporate wellbeing culture.

Wellbeing as a corporate strategy ensures that employees are able to contribute their best while navigating the myriad challenges that impact how they live, work, and relate to others.

Why is employee wellbeing important?

Employee wellbeing can drive meaningful change within any work culture. But it’s imperative that business leaders address employees’ total wellbeing. This not only includes their physical, mental, emotional, and financial health, but also work-life balance and social equity.

For example, HBR reported last year that 42% of women and 35% of men in corporate America have felt burned out in the last few months (up from 32% and 28% respectively last year). And 1 out of every 3 women surveyed have considered downshifting or leaving the workforce altogether (up from 1 in 4 in 2021). These figures come from McKinsey and LeanIn.org’s latest Women in the Workplace report, which surveyed 65,000 people across the U.S.

Employee burnout is the number one problem in employee wellbeing

It’s always good to consider burnout when developing a comprehensive employee wellbeing program, but after more than two years of a global pandemic, it’s more important than ever. Check out these troubling employee burnout statistics:

In 2021, 79% of employees experienced work-related stress in the past month

44% report physical fatigue from work-related stress
32% report emotional exhaustion from work
While the average employee says they are “fine” 14 times each week when asked how they are doing, they are lying almost 20% of the time
70% of employees feel their employers aren’t doing enough to prevent or mitigate burnout at work.

Click here to read more

About O.C Tanner

O.C. Tanner helps organizations inspire and appreciate great work. Thousands of clients globally use our cloud-based technology, tools, and awards to provide meaningful recognition for their employees.

Learn more at www.octanner.com.

#MillenniumLive Behind Every Great Idea is a Human Truth with Visier

#MillenniumLive welcomes Paul Rubenstein, Head of People & Culture at Visier, the recognized global leader in people analytics and on-demand answers for people-powered businesses. Visier reveals the fundamental questions and actionable insights to help businesses and employees win together. to answer organizations’ most pressing HR questions to solve the most urgent workforce challenges. Paul joins this episode to discuss how People Data is changing the way we manage, employees’ future expectations, and what’s next in DEIB.

Listen on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, and Google Podcasts.

About Visier

Visier is the recognized global leader in people analytics and on-demand answers for people-powered business. Founded in 2010 by the pioneers of business intelligence, Visier focuses on what matters to business leaders: revealing the fundamental questions and actionable truths capable of elevating your employees – and your business – to new heights. Headquartered in Vancouver, BC with offices and team members worldwide, Visier has 15,000 customers in 75 countries around the world, including enterprises like Adobe, BASF, Bridgestone, Electronic Arts, McKesson, Merck KGaA, Uber, and more.

To learn more visit https://www.visier.com

The Millennium Alliance Commits Fully To In-Person Programs For 2023 And Beyond

NEW YORK – October 26, 2022 – The Millennium Alliance, an invitation-only organization for Senior-Level Executives and Business Transformers, in September of this year made its triumphant return to the in-person stage when they successfully hosted their first non-virtual C-Suite Assembly in two and a half years in Miami. The program was met with rave reviews across the board from members and partners and left those in attendance craving even more of these incredible in-person networking experiences. As a result, Millennium is continuing to stand behind its commitment to listening to the needs and desires of its community, as they announce its decision to pivot back fully to hosting in-person programs in 2023 and beyond.

“After evaluating the needs and wants of our community by gathering a significant amount of their feedback, we came to the clear conclusion that despite the success that our virtual programs have had, which delivered the highest revenues in our nine-year existence in 2021, there is an overwhelming desire from the vast majority of our C-Suite members to return to the in-person assembly format that Millennium was known for and that people loved pre-pandemic. Our entire team has been blown away by the overwhelmingly positive response to our initial in-person programs and cannot wait to bring our one-of-a-kind executive education and networking experience to even more cities across North America next year.” – Alex Sobol, Co-Founder, The Millennium Alliance

To check out the full list of in-person programs that Millennium is hosting, take a look at their growing calendar of assemblies.

For more information or to get in contact with The Millennium Alliance directly, contact info@mill-all.com

About The Millennium Alliance

The Millennium Alliance is a leading technology and business educational advisory firm with the sole mission of helping to transform the digital enterprise. Through our executive education platform, peer-to-peer learning model via our senior-level Assemblies, exclusive research projects conducted with Ivy League academic institutions, and our numerous digital properties, we have become a trusted source for real-world tangible learning and engagement opportunities for senior executives and their technology partners.

This all started in 2014 when our founders, Alex Sobol & Rob Davis decided to create the most intimate, high-level & exclusive in-person and online think tank for leaders in a wide variety of industries within both the private and public sectors: The Millennium Alliance. Since its founding, Millennium has built a strong reputation nationwide, now with thousands of engaged Members, and was recently featured on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies. The Millennium Alliance is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.

Building upon its award-winning conference and executive education businesses, today, The Millennium Alliance continues to stay connected with its C-Suite Members and partners through intimate In-Person Assemblies, industry-leading Executive Education Opportunities, and by providing exclusive industry insights from the nation’s leading academics, business leaders, and technology providers via our 50+ annual events and The Digital Diary Content Platform, as well as the rapidly growing #MillenniumLive Podcast Series.

Is a Lack of Discoverability Costing You New Customers?

Contributed by Slickdeals

Although window shopping has always been one of the most delightful parts of the shopping experience, consumers are now more interested in finding new brands and products than ever. The Covid-19 pandemic was a major contributor to this focus on product discovery, as it altered the needs of the average consumer. Shopping lists changed forever, and they continue to evolve today. Pitney Bowes reported that even during the recent Delta surge, 55% of consumers said they expected to discover new brands and retailers while shopping online.

Yet, the element of discovery is oftentimes missing from online shopping journeys, which can make trying a new product or brand difficult for consumers. Likewise, without facilitating discovery– and more specifically, deal discovery– retailers and brands may find it difficult to inspire serendipitous purchases or replicate the “window shopping” experience for consumers.

Whereas consumers used to discover items in a multitude of ways in-store (through salesperson recommendations or high-impact merchandise displays, to name a few) the online shopper majorly relies on proactive online search and targeted ads (which are typically indicative of what they’re already aware of and shopping for). This makes it difficult for consumers to discover new brands or products that they didn’t know they needed.

However, by combining paid media with entertainment and social elements, brands can facilitate consumer discovery and new customer engagement.

Unlike other social commerce sites, Slickdeals sits organically at the intersection of social and commerce. Whereas traditional social media platforms shoehorn in a commerce experience (consider an ad in the middle of your friend’s Instagram story), users come to Slickdeals to talk exclusively about shopping, discover new brands and products, and purchase items they stumble upon in their deal feed. Through its mobile app, desktop site, and browser extension, Slickdeals facilitates discovery among a robust community of savvy shoppers.

Slickdeals’ unique discovery component yields repeat visitors and unplanned purchases. For example, in a 2019 survey, Slickdeals found that 85% of shoppers regularly found new products when browsing the site and 91% bought items they weren’t even searching for. And these shoppers are ready and willing to engage with different brands. Five of the top 10 most popular deal alerts created in 2021 did not mention a specific brand, indicating interest in a product with no brand or retailer in mind.

Additionally, discovering new products and the fear of missing out on a great deal keeps users coming back to Slickdeals, often multiple times a day. In 2021, 73% of total desktop visitors were flagged as returning shoppers while the mobile app saw a daily average of nearly 2 visits per unique visitor.

So, as social commerce continues to claim more of the shopping journey, it’s crucial for advertisers to facilitate discovery in a way that adds value to the consumer’s shopping experience and encourages engagement.

Click here to get in touch to learn more about how Slickdeals can help you brand or product get discovered by over 12M monthly users.

About Slickdeals

Slickdeals is the only shopping platform powered by millions of avid shoppers, where consumers interact to share and discover the most up-to-date information on online shopping deals and coupons. Through the power of human intelligence, Slickdeals has saved its 12 million savvy shoppers $10 billion by providing a forum for deal discovery and shopping discussion; as well as shopping tools such as its free Android or IOS app; its browser extension for Chrome, Firefox and Edge; and its Slickdeals Cashback Rewards program. Slickdeals is one of the top ten most visited shopping sites in the U.S. per Similarweb.

For more information, visit: https://slickdeals.net/

Quantum Workplace: 2022 Organizational Culture Research Report

Contributed by Quantum Workplace

65% of employees say their company culture has changed since the start of the pandemic. Our latest research shows the link between culture, engagement, and retention. It will help organizational leaders rethink their approach to culture to shape foundation for business success.

Key Takeaways:

The most important elements of workplace culture
How culture impacts employee engagement & retention
The impact of remote/hybrid work on company culture
5 tips for creating a strong & engaging workplace culture

Make Culture Your Competitive Advantage

As the employee landscape continues to change it is important to rethink culture to ensure trust and communication across the organization can be sustained. Culture in the workplace affects every aspect of the employee and business lifecycle. Strategically listening to employees allows organizations to focus on what matters—building a strong foundation for employee engagement, performance, and development.

Read the full report here: https://bit.ly/3CFKQbJ

About Quantum Workplace

At Quantum workplace, they help leaders connect the dots between engagement and performance with intuitive and user-friendly tools including comprehensive and automated employee surveys; goal setting and tracking tools; peer-to-peer recognition; real-time feedback; continuous one on ones; smart talent reviews; and, robust people analytics.

With 9,000 organizations surveyed annually, Quantum Workplace has grown into North America’s largest database of employee engagement data—through its core engagement and performance platform and nationally recognized Best Places to Work program. Quantum Workplace’s engagement, performance, and intelligence solutions help them power teams to stay focused engaged and deliver powerful business results.

For more information: visit: https://www.quantumworkplace.com/

Meet Quantum Workplace at Our Transformational CHRO & Benefits Leadership Assembly November 9-10 in New Orleans

Join their roundtable discussion on approaching culture with confidence in uncertain times & meet their experts Mark Rathouz, Account Executive & Todd Pernicek, Senior Insights Analyst.Attendees will explore:

Why culture is key, especially in changing and uncertain times
Discuss how to design a powerful & magnetic culture in a new world of work
Learn how to leverage your culture for employee, team, and organizational success

#MillenniumLive Making Ordinary Customer Experiences Extraordinary

#MillenniumLive welcomes Mark Smith, VP of Digital Engagement Solutions at CSG. By channeling the power of all, our partners at CSG make ordinary customer and employee experience extraordinary. CSG is with you and your customers every step of the way and at every stage of the customer lifecycle. They consult on customer needs, design a front-facing customer experience and deliver the back-end systems to back it up and CX consultancy to continue fine-tuning and improving interactions and operations. Mark discusses ways to improve customer experience, the best way to centralize enterprise data, and how important executing journeys in real-time is.

Listen on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, and Google Podcasts.

About CSG

CSG is a leader in innovative customer engagement, revenue management and payments solutions that make ordinary customer experiences extraordinary. Our cloud-first architecture and customer-obsessed mindset help companies around the world launch new digital services, expand into new markets, and create dynamic experiences that capture new customers and build brand loyalty. For over 40 years, CSG’s technologies and people have helped some of the world’s most recognizable brands solve their toughest business challenges and evolve to meet the demands of today’s digital economy with future-ready solutions that drive exceptional customer experiences. With more than 5,000 employees in over 20 countries, CSG is the trusted technology provider for leading global brands in telecommunications, retail, financial services and healthcare. Our solutions deliver real-world outcomes to more than 900 customers in over 120 countries.

To learn more visit https://www.csgi.com/

How SoFi Drives New User Acquisition with Slickdeals

Contributed by Slickdeals

Founded in 2011, SoFi is an American online personal finance company based in San Francisco, California. They provide a vast array of financial products including student and auto loan refinancing, mortgages, personal loans, and more to their 3.5 million members.

In 2019, SoFi launched its SoFi Money product. Looking to drive new user acquisition and promote awareness of their newest product, they partnered with Slickdeals to activate high-intent users and establish a presence within the Slickdeals shopping community.

Activating an Engaged Audience

Slickdeals users are financially-savvy and are always looking for ways to maximize their savings and diversify their portfolios.

4.5M Slickdeals shoppers have an affinity for banking services and are avid investors
Slickdeals visitors are 1.8x more likely to visit Personal Finance websites than the average internet user
1.3M Slickdeals shoppers are in-market for a financial or investment service

Knowing that Slickdeals users have an appetite for personal finance deals, the Slickdeals team used its resources to determine what type of offer would be most compelling in the community-based forums.

The team determined that an incentivized promotion, using Slickdeals Rewards as a vehicle for cashback, would receive positive feedback from the community. To stay competitive, Slickdeals recommended offering a $75 cashback bonus when users created and funded an account with $125.

Leveraging the Power of Community

The first $75 bonus offer posted in May 2021 utilized Slickdeals Rebates as a vehicle for cashback. The deal moved through the Slickdeals forums, achieving “Popular” status with no paid media promotions.

After sunsetting Slickdeals Rebates in June 2021, The team re-launched the same SoFi offer in July via Slickdeals’ new Rewards program. The Slickdeals Rewards program allowed for better tracking & attribution and delivered a more seamless user experience for shoppers to receive the $75 bonus.

This time, SoFi’s offer reached Frontpage status with no paid media promotions.

By maintaining a consistent presence in the Slickdeals forums, SoFi was able to boost brand awareness while the Slickdeals Rewards program made it more feasible to expand the longevity of the offer.

Over the course of 8 months, the deal post remained live and generated over 1,700 account signups.

The Results

Drove new user acquisition: 249% increase in SoFi Money accounts created across the Slickdeals ecosystem
Increased site traffic: 418% increase in outbound clicks across the Slickdeals ecosystem
Boosted SoFi’s market share: 28% increase in market share on Slickdeals
Improved brand awareness: 72% increase in “sofi” search term on Slickdeals

Read the full case study here: https://bit.ly/3UGbgSR

About Slickdeals

For more informatiom, visit: https://slickdeals.net/

#MillenniumLive on Healthcare in America with Dr. Jonathan Gruber

Alex’s next guest on the #MillenniumLive podcast series is Dr. Jonathan Gruber, Ford Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught since 1992 (30 years). In this episode, they discuss the healthcare landscape today, including universal healthcare and MIT’s role in leading the charge.

Listen on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, and Google Podcasts.

About Dr. Jonathan Gruber

Dr. Jonathan Gruber is a Ford Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught since 1992 (30 years). He is also the Director of the Health Care Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the former President of the American Society of Health Economists. A member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and the Econometric Society.

He has published more than 175 research articles, has edited six research volumes, and is the author of Public Finance and Public Policy, a leading undergraduate text, Health Care Reform, a graphic novel, and Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revived Economic Growth and the American Dream (with Simon Johnson). In 2006 Dr. Gruber received the American Society of Health Economists Inaugural Medal for the best health economist in the nation aged 40 and under.

During the 1997-1998 academic year, he was on leave as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Treasury Department. And from 2003-2006 he was a key architect of Massachusetts’ ambitious health reform effort (aka Romneycare), and became an inaugural member of the Health Connector Board, the main implementing body for that effort.

During 2009-2010 he served as a technical consultant to the Obama Administration and worked with both the Administration and Congress to help craft the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). In 2011 he was named “One of the Top 25 Most Innovative and Practical Thinkers of Our Time” by Slate Magazine. In both 2006 and 2012 he was rated as one of the top 100 most powerful people in health care in the United States by Modern Healthcare Magazine.

Optimizing Your Web Experience with Glassbox

Contributed by Glassbox

Every session on your website or app is combustible. Friction from any number of factors – from page load performance to poor navigation, bugs and irrelevant messages – can derail a user’s session and erode brand loyalty. Standard conversion and abandonment metrics are all useful for establishing a baseline, but they only tell you what your visitors did – not why.

The secret to optimizing your website to give visitors the experiences they expect is buried inside that ‘why.’

With the global pandemic spurring changes in customer expectations at an unprecedented pace, user experience (UX) expectations have never been higher. In a short period of time, people significantly altered the way they evaluate brands, make online purchasing decisions and select the brands worthy of their long-term loyalty. In addition to the always-important factors of price and quality, these new customers are looking for brands that understand them as an individual and will tailor an experience just for them.

UX professionals are finding the tools they used to understand online behavior a few years ago aren’t cutting it anymore. Today’s landscape requires real-time digital insights to help you learn what customers expect when they visit your site so you can deliver it every time.

Good enough isn’t good enough with UX design:

The bounce rate increases by 123% if the page loading time becomes more than 1 second. (Source: Think with Google)
52% of users say that a bad mobile experience will make them lose faith in the company. (Source: Think with Google)
More than 80% of users expect a flawless experience on all devices. (Source: Resource Techniques)

More traffic, more “whys”

UX statistics like those can seem daunting. “Flawless” is a high bar without endless resources at your disposal.

Here’s the great news: Understanding the behavior of just five users might be enough to find 85% of your site’s issues, according to a study from the NNGroup. But this takes really understanding them: seeing every action users take to identify where your site isn’t meeting expectations.

Attempting to understand experience through exit pages and bounce rates tells only part of the story. If you want to provide an e-commerce experience that works for your visitors, you must have all the data points that contribute to each customer’s ultimate behavior.

Often, it’s a simple, fixable UX mistake that causes frustration (such as these 10 UX mistakes). Maybe your stylish navigation is confusing site visitors, keeping them from the information they expected to find and causing them to leave your site without it. Maybe users click on your main call to action, but always hit the back button when it goes to nothing but your contact form.

The future of e-commerce is about more than testing elements to find the path of least resistance for the greatest number of visitors. It’s being able to create an experience that provides value to each visitor.

Our data at Glassbox shows that there are more than 1,000 elements that contribute to a single customer session, and every single one is an opportunity to win or lose the conversion.

Incorporating session replays and journey mapping into your UX process

Digital journey mapping is an essential tool in your arsenal, telling you which paths lead to conversion and where you lose potential customers. Journey mapping becomes even more actionable when paired with data that helps you understand ‘why,’ such as session replays, voice of customer (VoC) sentiment and technical performance data (as with Glassbox’s Augmented Journey Map™, pictured below). With real-time journey insights, you can:

Prioritize the most valuable visitor journeys. Session data is constantly updated to identify journeys that hold the greatest value, those that have the greatest untapped potential or the struggles that inhibit them. Combining it with historical data lets you focus on and monetize the journeys that drive digital performance.
Identify frustration. Sentiment and behavioral data connect the dots so you can see exactly where you lost a visitor, what they tried before they left, how much it cost you and where you can reduce friction in each session.
Personalize better. Visitor behavior will tell you almost everything you need to know about what they want. Journey mapping shows you more opportunities to offer a personalized experience and content recommendations – which consumers expect more than ever.

Leverage data you already have to provide new value

Growing scrutiny on how brands use consumer data – both from regulators and consumers themselves – means behavioral information collected on your site is one of your most valuable resources in a first-party future.

The more you know about your visitors, the better you can serve them. The bad news is that brands are in a bit of a blind spot when it comes to web visitors’ expectations of personalization: Surveys show brands think they’re much better at providing personalized experiences than consumers do.

You can learn about their habits through actions taken on your site, of course, but really chasing your biggest opportunities means understanding those actions not just as large trends, but as a series of decisions made by real people. You need deeper insights to gauge each individual’s tolerances, preferences, frustrations and expectations.

Use UX insights across your business – and reap the (literal) profits

Smart use of data can help you increase conversions and decrease abandonment, but digital experience insights can help you evolve your digital operations even further. For example, session replay enables your sales and support teams to review a customer’s exact experience and pinpoint what went wrong, reducing time spent resolving web and app issues. Similarly, anomaly detection and automated alerts eliminate the need to test and hunt for issues by quickly notifying IT and engineering about critical errors and bugs, drastically reducing troubleshooting and QA.

Data is the key to fixing problems faster across your digital operations, from technical support to customer relations. Optimizing your revenue starts with collecting the greatest amount of data about each visitor – then using it to drive frictionless, personalized digital journeys. When you truly understand why website visitors behave as they do, you have the power to deliver an optimized experience that leads to maximum revenues, generates greater profit, and nurtures happier customers.
Learn more about how digital experience analytics from Glassbox power differentiated web experiences.

About Glassbox

Glassbox empowers organizations to create frictionless digital journeys for their customers. Glassbox’s digital experience analytics platform works in real time, across mobile apps and websites, to accelerate customer loyalty and business growth.

For more information, visit: https://www.glassbox.com/