In this episode of the HR Digitalization Podcast, we meet Linda Tinnert, Co-worker Experience Transformation Leader at Ingka Group (IKEA). Together with Linda, Anna Carlsson and Emira Blomberg explore how IKEA works both strategically and practically with what they internally call “co-worker experience” – a framework that spans over 170,000 employees in 30 countries.
Linda shares how IKEA builds the employee experience using tools like journey mapping, structured feedback, and cross-functional collaboration. By systematically mapping each part of the employee journey – from the first day at work to daily tasks – they lay a foundation for measurable and concrete improvement.
The conversation highlights how Linda connects experience work to business goals and organizational development, and how the use of data enables fast identification of needs and actions. The focus is on real challenges and solutions, such as making digital tools easier to use or adjusting onboarding based on employee feedback.
The episode concludes with practical advice for organizations wanting to start working more systematically with employee experience – regardless of size. A valuable reminder that it’s often the simple, foundational improvements that make the biggest difference.
An episode for anyone wanting to understand how structured development of the employee experience can become a driver of success across the entire organization.
Note: This episode is in Swedish. A translated transcript is available below.
Transcipt:
Anna Carlsson: Today, Emira and I are meeting Linda Tinnert. She is Co-worker Experience Transformation Leader at Ingka Group, that is, at IKEA – Linda is one of the few people in Sweden who truly works both strategically and practically with the area of Employee Experience, or simply put, the employee experience.
I was so inspired by IKEA’s work when I visited them last year. They were hosting a workshop for a number of international companies who share IKEA’s focus. It became clear to me what value a systematic focus on employee experience can create – not just for the individual, but for the entire organization’s development and even financial results.
We talk about how EX can be defined very differently by HR, vendors, and organizations – and how IKEA has chosen to structure its work through its cross-functional approach.
Linda shares how IKEA works with the topic, what effects they see for both employees and the business, and what concrete initiatives are driving value.
We also discuss how EX can be measured, what challenges exist, and at the end, you’ll also get tips on how to get started if you want to work more systematically with your employee experience.
Anna Carlsson: Welcome to the HR Digitalization Podcast, Linda!
Linda Tinnert: Thank you!
Anna Carlsson: So great to finally, finally sit down and talk to you. This is a topic I’ve followed for several years, and I had the opportunity—I think it was a year and a half ago—to visit you at IKEA, and several of us talked about Employee Experience, or EX. And since then I’ve discussed it in different contexts, but I realize that the knowledge about the area in Sweden is quite limited. It’s not really taking off, and I think people don’t fully understand it. There are different interpretations, among other things. So it’s going to be great to dig into this. But let’s start with who you are, Linda—you get to introduce yourself.
Linda Tinnert: Yes, absolutely. My name is Linda and I work at IKEA. Or rather, I work at Ingka Group, which is the largest retail operation under the IKEA brand. We have 400 stores in about 30 countries. I’ve actually worked there for just over 25 years.
Anna Carlsson: That’s a long time!
Linda Tinnert: Yes.
Anna Carlsson: What is your background for working in this area?
Linda Tinnert: Well, as I mentioned, I’ve worked at IKEA for quite a while and have held different roles. I’ve worked in communications—particularly with internal communication and internal communication channels—and after that I moved over to the digital side at IKEA, where I worked with the digital workplace and all the tools we use every day to do our jobs. From there, I transitioned into the People and Culture HR division at IKEA, where I’ve been for the past five to six years, I believe.
Anna Carlsson: So no... sorry, Emira.
Emira Blomberg: No, I was just going to ask—could it be a metric, maybe even for employee experience, how long someone stays and how they move around like you have?
Linda Tinnert: Yes, I think it could be. It probably shows that there are always new things to learn and opportunities to work in different areas within the company, which gives you a pretty good experience of work life. You learn something, you contribute something, and you bring knowledge into other parts of the organization. You feel that you are both developing and contributing at the same time. And I think that’s a very important part of experience, actually.
Anna Carlsson: I love that. It was like that when—I spent many years at IBM, which gave me a background in digital, and there you also had the opportunity to move around. You get to try things out, and that’s what we talk a lot about today too—this thing with skills. You look at what skills you have, where they could also be useful, and how you can contribute with your experience.
Linda Tinnert: Yes, I think that’s a very important part. I think it’s really important to feel that you’re actually adding something. That’s a pretty human need, but it’s a big part of what a good experience is.
Anna Carlsson: But HR or People and Culture? No formal education in that area—it's more communication, right?
Linda Tinnert: Yes, exactly. I have a marketing education at the base, I guess. But I never really worked in that area. I slipped into communication, which then became digital, and then evolved into HR-related work. So essentially, I know a bit about quite a lot—but maybe not really a specialist in anything, you could say.
Anna Carlsson: But that’s how it often ends up over the years too.
Linda Tinnert: Exactly.
Emira Blomberg: But maybe that’s actually a good thing now, in the age of AI. It feels like the “fluffy” stuff is harder to replace.
Linda Tinnert: Maybe.
Anna Carlsson: Good point. But could you tell us a bit about the company—IKEA or Ingka Group—or how we should frame what we’re talking about?
Linda Tinnert: It's probably easiest to just say IKEA, so people recognize it. But as I said, we’re a company that sells home furnishing products through IKEA stores, among other things. I think that’s where people most recognize the IKEA brand—and of course our products. As mentioned, we operate in 30 countries and have 400 large stores. But we also now have several other ways of reaching coworkers or customers. For example, through the website and the app. We also have smaller stores or meeting points that are now located in city centers. We actively work to find new ways to create a better customer experience and meet the customer where they are—based on how customer needs and expectations are evolving, and also based on how the world is changing. So that’s who we are. As I said, we’re in 30 countries, with around 400+ stores. And then we operate with a central organization that consists of group functions like HR, Finance, Communications, and others. Then in each country, there’s a main office as well—we call it the Service Office—and they work directly with all the units and stores. So we have a fairly simple structure in that sense: there’s a global level, a country-specific level, and a store level, you could say. That’s a very simplified version of how we work.
Anna Carlsson: And how many employees are we talking about?
Linda Tinnert: Right now, I’d say around 160,000–170,000 employees.
Anna Carlsson: Wow! That’s amazing. It’s kind of overwhelming. There’s such a difference between the various organizations we talk to here. But just having that many people—it also creates the opportunity to work at scale, especially when you think about digital solutions. But what we’re here to talk about—you call it “co-worker experience,” right?
Linda Tinnert: Yes, yes, we do.
Anna Carlsson: So...
Linda Tinnert: We don’t say “employee,” we say “co-worker.” But it means the same thing.
Anna Carlsson: And you use that in all communication? That it’s “co-workers”—does it make a difference if someone is a direct employee or has another type of relationship with the company?
Linda Tinnert: I think that depends a bit on the relationship. Of course, there are consultants who may work as if they were co-workers. But in general, we say “co-worker” to mean employee.
Anna Carlsson: Most are employed directly.
Emira Blomberg: Is it part of your employee experience—or co-worker experience—to use the term “co-workers” instead of “employees”?
Linda Tinnert: Yes, I would say it is, and it goes quite far back. I’ve been told that they started calling us co-workers because they wanted everyone to feel like they truly were part of the team. We’re employees—we’re here together and we do it together. It’s not about hierarchy—where you’re the employee and there’s a boss. We’re co-workers, working together. That was the direct translation—“co-workers.” So that intention has been there way, way back.
Emira Blomberg: Is HR called HR at your company?
Linda Tinnert: No, it’s called People and Culture.
Emira Blomberg: Yes, that’s really interesting. Is it important, in an experience context, what things are called?
Linda Tinnert: I think to some extent it is quite important, as long as there’s clarity—as long as the meaning is the same for the sender and the receiver. I sometimes think that it matters if it means the same thing to both sides. Then it’s important. But if the sender has one intention and that’s not received correctly, then it loses its purpose. I think the key is finding those words that really work—so everyone knows what we mean when we say them. I believe we as a company have succeeded with some of our terms. They truly mean something to us. When you feel a strong connection, when we all see the same thing in it—it’s value-based. But imagine using a word that completely misses the mark—that can also have an unintended effect.
Anna Carlsson: Perfect segue into my next question—what does Employee Experience actually mean, when the term is used by vendors and in many organizations where they don’t talk about co-worker experience? I think co-worker experience is much easier to understand. But when you start using the term Employee Experience, all kinds of vendors pop up offering different things. So what do you think it really is?
Linda Tinnert: Yeah, that’s a really great question, actually, and I agree that there are different definitions. I’ve come across that over the years I’ve worked in this area. When I first started working on it, about four to five years ago, that was actually one of the first questions—what do we mean by employee experience, and what does it entail? And as you know, it became a trend. People were talking about it for a few years—saying it’s the next big thing, it’s so important, and so on. But we also had that question: what does this mean for us? Because, really, I’d say that the experience an employee has—a work experience or the experience of working at a specific company—is something you already have. The word “experience” is subjective, you can’t take that away from the individual. But ensuring that everyone has a good experience—that’s something companies have been working on for many, many, many years. And I’d say we at IKEA have been doing that for many years too. We actively worked to make people feel seen and heard and to have good development opportunities—all those things that contribute to a positive experience. So when this trend emerged, it wasn’t that we hadn’t done it before—it was more about, as I see it, finding a systematic way to work with the experience in a slightly different way than before. And for me, the penny really dropped when people started talking about it in the same way as customer experience.
Anna Carlsson: Absolutely.
Linda Tinnert: For me, it came to mean something quite specific—but that definition isn’t what every company uses. And it’s definitely not the same definition that all vendors use. I’ve noticed some have essentially taken the old concept of engagement and just rebranded it as experience. I don’t think that’s quite right. And then I think some people imagine it means a small team going around creating great experiences for employees. I don’t see it that way—especially coming from a large company. Who could even do that? It’s not possible. Who can create an experience for someone else? For me, it became really clear when we started talking about a systematic way of describing the experience from the employee’s perspective—making it tangible. Something you can improve, change, or adjust. And by gathering information about what people think about these things—by describing how it should look, feel, be experienced, and what it should be—you can also start talking about how it could be different. What should be better, simpler, easier? And if you can measure that in some way and work with it systematically across a large organization, then suddenly you have a tool that lets you effectively target efforts where needed—or let good things stay good. It becomes a tool to help the entire organization get better at working with something they were already doing—just in a much better way.
Anna Carlsson: But perhaps not as structured. I want to return to this—this difficulty in understanding the term. And maybe what people are trying to get at. Because, I mean, you could call an employee survey an employee experience survey tool in a way. But then we had a meeting—I run a network with several HR tech leaders from different organizations—and there was a request: “Can we talk about Employee EX Platforms?” And I had to start the meeting—or maybe it was just before, I forget—but I said, “You have to tell me what that means.” So I gave them a list of different options. And it turned out everyone had a different idea of what it actually was. And then we started aligning around this shared understanding that it’s not about what a platform can do. You have to dig into: What do we mean internally by an employee experience and a good employee experience? And then take it from there.
Linda Tinnert: Yes, exactly. That’s right.
Emira Blomberg: Yeah, good—because I think it must be hard to find inspiration, like you said, from customer experience. Because there are so many types of customers. There’s B2B and B2C, physical stores, SaaS subscriptions like Netflix… there are all kinds of customer experiences. It must be quite difficult. I imagine it’s easy for it to get fuzzy—and therefore hard to show value. What you said about making it tangible must be key to even getting support for working on these things. Because… where do you draw the line? I imagine work environment is part of employee experience—and also culture work, and so on. What is the platform we’re standing on, and how does it connect to everything else we’re doing? I imagine that’s hard, right?
Linda Tinnert: Yes, it probably is.
Emira Blomberg: But I’m really trying to get a grip on this—if you work with employee experience, what do you actually do? What is the work?
Linda Tinnert: Well, exactly. The way we’re working with it at IKEA right now, what became very clear to me is this: when working with customer experience, there are already well-established tools that have been used for 15–20 years in that field. To deliver a better customer experience, you need to describe the reality and the customer’s perspective—and one of the most used methods for that is journey mapping. There’s a method that allows you to map out journeys and describe what you want the customer to experience during those journeys—when they’re deciding to buy, while they’re buying, when they seek support, etc. You describe that reality based on how it should feel, be experienced, what they’ll interact with, and so on. That method is generic regardless of what kind of customer you’re talking about. The content, like you said, can vary greatly—but the strength is that the method stays the same, and that’s the easy part. The hard part, of course, is describing what a good experience actually is. How do you describe a good experience when a customer walks into a store or decides to make a purchase? But all of that was transferable to the employee context. You can say this: an employee also has a first day. How should that feel? What should that experience be like? Employees have daily tasks they need to perform—how should that feel? How should that be experienced? So we could use the same method. And that’s what I felt—this is something we can bring back and offer as a tool to those who are already working every day to define experiences. Because it’s not done by one person—it’s done by everyone. I’d guess that if you talk to anyone in a large company who contributes to processes that help people do their jobs, feel good at work, be seen and heard, get paid, have development opportunities, train, educate—everyone is already working with the employee’s best interest in mind, but maybe only within their own process. What becomes powerful is when you introduce journey mapping as a shared tool—suddenly, you have a common way to talk about the experience, no matter where in the company you sit. But you’re all contributing to the same experience. So for me, the strength was finding that shared tool that simplifies the conversation about different "customers" in different situations. But you can define and describe it in the same way. You map out the everyday reality of the employee. You describe how it should feel, how it should be experienced—step by step from the employee's point of view. It didn’t make it easy—but it made it easier.
Emira Blomberg: Yeah, I get it. So this is about taking the framework and applying it. That gives you a completely different understanding of what it’s really about. And then I wonder, like you said, the feelings it’s supposed to evoke and so on—where does that input come from? From workforce planning? From cultural work? Where do those ideas come from—how someone should feel?
Linda Tinnert: Exactly. So you can use this tool to, first of all, describe how things are today. You can do that by talking to employees. You don’t need to talk to all of them—just a few to get a sense. Then as a company, you also have a position on what you want—frameworks and policies that say what you want to achieve. And you describe that from the employee’s point of view. Then you get a description of a journey—"this is how this journey should look" from the employee perspective. They should feel and experience all of this. And you might have a vision—"this is the dream version." Then you can either say: yes, that’s how it is. Or you can ask employees: is that how it really is? And that’s the next step in the method we use—once we’ve described the reality and the employee’s perspective, the feelings, the experiences, the tools and everything that should be part of that experience, we ask the employees: “Is this how you experience it?” And then you get immediate feedback on whether you’re delivering the experience you intended or not. And the most important thing is that the person responsible for creating that experience gets that feedback as soon as possible—so they can start tweaking, changing, improving immediately. Like, if people say it wasn’t easy to log in to a certain portal—can we do something? Can we improve it within two weeks? Great! Then follow up and see if that has changed the experience. So it becomes a systematic approach to working with data.
Anna Carlsson: And then I think immediately—when you start talking about what the employee actually experiences on that first day, it’s not just People and Culture anymore. Suddenly, a lot of other departments are involved. How do you handle that? Now we’re getting into the “how you actually do it.”
Linda Tinnert: That’s why I think journey mapping is such a helpful tool—it brings in all the aspects. Because mapping a journey means seeing it from the employee’s perspective. And that includes everything. Take onboarding, for example—the first day. It includes everything from when you park your car, to when you arrive, to getting your badge and computer, meeting your manager and coworkers. You have to find the cafeteria, know what your tasks are, what trainings you need to take, and so on. If you look at which functions contribute to that—it’s a lot. Facilities, your manager, the digital team, and so on. But when you map it out—from a journey perspective, as a sequence of moments or steps—you describe the world regardless of who delivers it. People and Culture isn’t responsible for solving every part, but we can coordinate. We can be the ambassador for the employee and say: if we discover we need to work more closely together in certain areas, we can take the lead and bring the right people together. I really think journey mapping is an extremely effective way to bridge across departments and responsibilities. Because the common focus is the employee. Everyone wants that first day to go well. We know what the employee is supposed to go through. We know what the “product” or “service” is supposed to be: you feel good, it’s enjoyable to be there. Everyone contributes. Just like with a customer, where logistics, the company, and the product all contribute—someone just needs to pull it all together and make it happen. And I think People and Culture can choose to take that lead—be the ambassador on behalf of the employee.
Emira Blomberg: I might be getting super nerdy now, but—do you define what people should feel? What you want them to feel? Or do you also talk about what you don’t want them to feel?
Linda Tinnert: We don’t really do that right now, actually. And I should also admit that what we’ve focused on is the tools and methods. I don’t often go in and place a value judgment on what the experience should be—because that’s something else. There are people employed specifically to deliver those trainings or those digital experiences, and they spend a lot of time thinking about that. So when I look at it—or when our team looks at the bigger picture—we might notice things that could be done differently, but I don’t personally...
Emira Blomberg: Right, I get it. That’s not your responsibility.
Linda Tinnert: No. But the employee might be the one who raises that issue—perhaps through their feedback. And then, when you go back and revise a journey or a moment and look at the data, maybe it would be valuable to talk about both what you want the experience to be, and what you don’t want it to be. And the employee will often express that quite clearly when you ask.
Anna Carlsson: What’s your specific role? What do you do?
Linda Tinnert: Well, what I do... My colleague and I have defined the system, or setup and structure, and we make sure it’s clearly defined as a concept. This is how you work with journey mapping. This is how we do it across the organization. We also touch on governance—how, who does what, why you do it, roles and responsibilities. We’ve also made sure we have a way to measure things and ask employees for feedback. We collect data and make sure that data is available to everyone who contributes to delivering that experience. And then we’re available for trainings, workshops, coaching, helping people get started and begin working with it. We focus on areas where we see it’s needed. And then—if people have questions about how to read or interpret the data, what actions to take—can we do something with it? We’re kind of like a support function.
Emira Blomberg: If I had hired you, what would be the absolutely crucial skills someone like you needs? What are the most important skills?
Linda Tinnert: That’s a great question. I think, for what I do—and the way we’ve chosen to work at IKEA—the important skills are having a sense of structure and a mindset for standardization, globally. Thinking about how to scale ways of working quickly in a large organization, so you can see results and get many people working in this way. You need methods, structure—that kind of thinking. The other skill is maybe what I’d call networking skills. Trust. Who should be involved? Do they know each other? Can we find some other people here? Where do you start looking? Who’s the right owner, the right contributors? Understanding the company, knowing how to navigate it. And I think another good skill—maybe there isn’t a name for it—is being able to work both long-term and short-term. Because right now, it’s very much about being able to quickly show that something has had an impact. That someone benefits from the work we do, someone can use it, someone can act on it pretty quickly. I’m speaking from the perspective of a large company—so it’s also important to think about where we want to be in 2–3 years. Because everything does take time—quite a long time—to fully integrate and become a part of everyday work. It’s so easy for it to remain at a program or project level. But where do you want to be in 2–3 years? Maybe you want this to be an integrated part of how you work every day. Everyone sees experience as crucial. Everyone sees the employee experience as what defines whether we’re doing well or not. The data we use—we use it in our decisions, in our priorities, and so on. You want to work with this in an integrated way. So you have a long-term vision—but you also show short-term wins for those working on this. That’s maybe the balance.
Anna Carlsson: Do you also need to know data—data and analysis? Because I feel like...
Linda Tinnert: Yes.
Anna Carlsson: It sounds like a lot of data and analysis—constantly having tools that listen to what’s happening, and then being able to adjust.
Linda Tinnert: Yes, I think so. I think it’s really important. I didn’t know much about it when I started, but I’ve learned a lot, and I’d say it’s very important. There are so many ways to use data, and you need to understand—what is it? How can you use data in a way that drives the behaviors you want in order to reach your goal? There are many ways to use data, and if you don’t understand different types of data—without some basic analytics or someone you can ask for help—I think you can end up a bit off track.
Anna Carlsson: I was thinking about how you started with this at IKEA. As I mentioned earlier—not many people take this perspective. There might be a will, I mean, people care about employees. But what I see with you is that you make the connection not just to the People side and that first-day experience—it’s something that runs through everything you do. Every day, it should continue to be easy to do your job. I often present it like this: it’s something everyone wants. People want to be able to perform their work in a simple and smooth way. But getting to that point—and having that kind of focus, with people like you—how did that start? Do you know the background of this work?
Linda Tinnert: As I said, I think that as a company, we’ve always worked toward giving people a good experience and making IKEA a great place to work. We have a business idea that says we want to create a better everyday life for the many people. That vision also applies to our workplace—we want people to come to IKEA and have a good work experience. We didn’t call it “experience” back then, but about 5–6 years ago, we started asking: what does experience really mean to us? What does experience work look like for us? And like you said, I saw there were different paths to take. One was to actively work with the experience itself, and I know many big companies have done that—they’ve created focus groups and initiatives to improve certain parts of the employee journey. But what we chose to do was work with methods and structures that support everyone who’s already working to improve the employee experience—making that more coordinated, standardized, and systematized, using data. But I’ve also seen companies do it very differently. I don’t think there’s just one way. Maybe in time we’ll see a few main approaches to experience work emerge.
Anna Carlsson: I don’t think there’s just one either. It’s kind of like looking at organizations—every one is different. So you need to approach this area differently depending on your context. Just like with recruitment—depending on who you're hiring and where, the approach needs to be different. There are tools and ways to tackle it, but it all depends on where you’re starting, what the culture is like. There really isn’t one right way.
Linda Tinnert: No.
Emira Blomberg: For organizations that don’t really work with this yet—are there risks? I mean, it’s still quite new, right? Even though it’s been talked about for a while, it’s still fairly new. I can’t think of many examples of companies doing this really well. It’s not the dominant narrative right now—that we should focus on improved employee or co-worker experience. So what risks do you see if you don’t work with this? Or why did you even start? Did you see a problem? What triggered it?
Linda Tinnert: I think… even today, people believe that engaged, loyal, and motivated employees are more productive and contribute better to the business. There’s some basic logic there. I think almost all companies think, “Of course we want engaged, motivated employees—that helps the business.” There are different ways to engage people, though. I think of experience as the environment the employee exists in. And that environment should be as good, simple, and enjoyable as possible—so I feel I can do my job, feel seen and heard. That drives motivation. That’s what I’d call experience. Then you have another side of it too—working directly with the individual: the relationships, emotions, and interactions. That’s more about personal interaction, I guess. But by working on experience, you can indirectly make people more engaged. If you only focus on the individual directly, that’s great too, but it’s a bit slower, has different dynamics and tools. Working with the surrounding environment and interactions gives you a tool that can drive faster results and affect more people at once. So if you don’t work actively with experience in this way—by improving the environment around people—then there’s a risk it just takes longer. I think all companies want the same outcome: engaged employees. But how fast you get there, and what method or area you focus on—that varies. For me, experience work is one more tool. Traditionally, we thought of this as a team-based thing—focused on team dynamics, relationships, perception. And we should keep doing that. But now we also have this other tool. And with digital tools, it’s easier, faster—it brings a different kind of improvement potential. If you use both, you might create greater impact and have more engaged, motivated employees. The risk is, if you only choose one or the other, you won’t get the same result.
Anna Carlsson: So you mean more practical stuff. Do you have any examples of something you identified and were able to say, “This needs to change”?
Linda Tinnert: Absolutely. Let’s take onboarding. You want employees to learn about the tools, the company, how things work. That training is needed across the board. But it can be delivered in different ways. In some countries, it’s digital. In others, it’s classroom-based. By asking employees about this, I know that some countries shifted from classroom to digital—because that’s what people wanted. Others kept classroom training, but changed how it was delivered. These are small, quick improvements that had a positive impact on the experience. That’s just one example. Another would be doing your everyday tasks—maybe people want the digital tools to be super easy to log into. Can we do something there? Can we make it faster and simpler? These are practical changes that can tangibly improve the experience.
Anna Carlsson: This is super interesting. When I started in HR—this was 15 years ago—I worked with employee surveys, and those focused on engagement. We looked at both how people felt, and whether they had the ability to perform. You’d combine those: how you feel, and whether you can actually do your job well. And engagement scores were higher when you also had that ease—when work is smooth. If it takes ten steps to complete a task, it becomes exhausting. But pointing that out—those things often don’t get flagged. Now there’s some focus on the digital work environment, which is where these issues should come up. But following the whole journey—like, it might be there are no parking spaces. You have to drive to the office. Things like that can really impact your experience—and even cause someone to leave if it doesn’t work. I just heard about a company that decided to change from requiring people to be in the office 50% of the time to 60%. That kind of shift hits hard. How do you capture that? Is it even relevant? What’s the impact on engagement and performance? For some it might be great—for others, not at all. Investigating that and making changes based on the experience and the results you want—not just because a few people didn’t show up at the office—that’s what matters.
Linda Tinnert: Exactly—yes, exactly.
Anna Carlsson: So interesting. I’m wondering—since not many work with this the way you do, both practically and strategically... I think many in People and Culture focus on feelings—how people feel, their relationship with their manager, those things. But do you collaborate with other organizations that are also working on this? Do you have a network, or are you kind of out there on your own, figuring this out internally?
Linda Tinnert: Yes, actually—both internally and also with some other large companies. I think there are definitely other big companies starting to think along these lines as well. Especially when it comes to connecting experience to actual work tasks. What is the work experience, really? I’ve seen many companies become more interested in exploring that. When you look at onboarding, for example, it’s not the HR process that’s unclear—that part is usually well defined. But maybe people don’t know exactly what they’re supposed to do in their job. That’s not always something anyone has clearly explained—what the role involves, what training is required. So it ties back to how the work gets done, the execution. I’ve had conversations with several big international companies about this. We’re asking: is this where we should focus—to better understand what makes a great work experience? That might be the area where we can create real engagement impact. So yes, I try to stay tuned to what others are doing and thinking about.
Anna Carlsson: Do you know any companies who are out there talking about this? I remember at HR Tech Europe last year—not this year—they talked about Schiphol Airport and how they had worked a lot on their employee experience. It was fascinating how they stopped thinking in silos—hence my question about whether you only have employees or also other types of workers. At Schiphol, they started thinking about the airport as a whole experience—where everything should be smooth for visitors. And they eliminated distinctions between different kinds of workers, no matter who paid their salary. They looked at the full employee journey in relation to the traveler’s journey.
Linda Tinnert: I’m not sure the companies I’ve talked to would want me to name them. But I do think many are reflecting on what “experience” really means. Is it employee experience—or people experience? That’s another thing many companies are thinking about. What I find interesting is that the whole view on how we approach HR—or the areas HR is responsible for—is shifting. Things like rewards, development, recognition… the boundaries are starting to change. Is it just for employees? Or for more people? Does it stop at the process level—or go into the work itself? Who traditionally owns that? These borders are becoming a bit more fluid, which is exciting—but also tricky. There’s strength in clarity—knowing exactly who does what. But to deliver a truly great experience, you have to collaborate. Otherwise, it’s really hard to deliver something meaningful. That’s what I find valuable in this employee- or co-worker-centric approach—we’re trying to see the world from a slightly different perspective. And let that perspective help us make better, faster decisions—and deliver better experiences. But yes, it does blur some lines. Just like your Schiphol example—you start viewing the experience from a totally different angle than before. It’s quite exciting, actually. I’m not sure how far we’ve come yet, but the trend is interesting.
Emira Blomberg: Totally. I’m sitting in a co-working space right now—and you and Anna are talking about experience—and here it becomes almost meta. Because you can’t really take full responsibility for the work environment when you're dependent on an external party. Like this morning—I arrived at 9:10 and breakfast is served until 9:30. But the bread and eggs were already gone. There are only eggs two days a week. And it’s like—ugh! This ties into what you said earlier: what you don’t want to happen. Engagement is a huge challenge, and we still don’t have many concrete answers on what actually drives it. Research isn’t even aligned on how we define the terms. There’s a lot of talk about Self-Determination Theory. Which brings me to: do you work with research in your framework—like theory-based insights—or is it mostly surveys and data? Do you work with things like ambiguity in onboarding processes? Because, of course, clarity should be a given.
Linda Tinnert: I can’t say we work with research in a structured way. But I do think most of the experts in their areas stay informed. We try to stay up to date with developments. Of course, the world is changing, new research emerges, different factors come into play. Things are more unpredictable. But that’s also what I like about our approach—if you have a system or framework that’s stable, but allows you to adjust the content as the world changes, then you can stay flexible. That’s how I think about it. As for research in this area—I try to keep in touch with external consultants and other companies to hear what’s going on. But I’m not sure there’s a huge body of research or material on this just yet.
Emira Blomberg: Isn’t that one of the biggest challenges now too? Connecting things to business outcomes. Every function has to fight for its right to exist, especially during cutbacks. Look at DEI—it’s facing a backlash, maybe partly because it failed to demonstrate value. But also because the pendulum has swung. It’s not “in” anymore. You hear about this anti-woke movement and so on. It’s super important now to link things to business goals—without making it feel forced.
Linda Tinnert: Yes, I totally agree. That’s absolutely essential. It needs to be connected to business goals—but it also has to feel genuine, real, and valuable. And I think that’s something you can’t decide on your own. You have to build that together—what really is valuable? The strength of an experience-driven approach is that it puts the employee in focus. When you do that—look at what they should experience, ask what they do experience—you get the truth about what they actually need. But then you also have to be ready to act on it. Sometimes what employees tell you is exactly what you expected. But sometimes fixing the basics is the hardest part.
Emira Blomberg: Absolutely. And I see a parallel to candidate experience. Like Anna said—my area is recruitment. There’s been so much focus on making the candidate experience look shiny and positive—lots of balloons and glitter. But if you over-optimize that metric, you risk ending up with a very happy candidate… and a less happy employee. That metric can even become counterproductive. We usually say the most important thing in candidate experience...
Linda Tinnert: Yes, exactly.
Emira Blomberg: ...is transparency. Give feedback all the time. Don’t let candidates wait and wonder what’s happening for one, two, three weeks. And we also say: apply the golden rule. Give back as much as you ask for. If you only asked for a basic CV—maybe an automatic reply is enough. But if you asked them to come in for interviews, do multiple cases or assessments—then you owe them a proper, thoughtful response. Those are just golden rules. But it’s also just common sense. Think how you’d want to be treated.
Linda Tinnert: Exactly.
Emira Blomberg: Yeah.
Linda Tinnert: I think that’s what I see too. What we get from the feedback shows that it’s actually the basic things that matter. It’s not the balloons—it’s timely responses, respect, and authenticity. That’s what delivers the best results. It might not always be flashy or exciting, but it’s what actually creates the biggest impact. That’s what I think working systematically means: putting the employee at the center, using data and input from employees as a tool that helps the company focus on what really matters. Yes, the process might exist—but maybe it’s more important to go through the steps correctly, in the right order, at the right time. That adds more value than bringing in an event agency, for instance. Across all the journeys, the pattern is clear—it’s often just basic needs people want met.
Anna Carlsson: I saw—when we’re recording this—it was just last week that Mikael Dahlén was on morning TV talking about the link between happiness and business performance. He brought a report that really emphasized how important that connection is. So we’re back to engagement being linked to business results. I’ll try to find that report again—I have the link—and I’ll share it in the podcast notes so everyone can see it. It was a new one. I used to refer to an older study. But do you see that at IKEA too—like, if you have a store where people are doing well, does that store also perform better?
Linda Tinnert: Yes, absolutely—we can actually see that. Where we see high engagement, performance is also better.
Anna Carlsson: Maybe that’s why you still have your job and get to keep doing this work, right?
Linda Tinnert: Haha, maybe so. Exactly. But yes, absolutely—it makes a difference. It matters how people feel. It matters what kind of work they do.
Anna Carlsson: I think people are sometimes afraid to stand up and say that—to push for this kind of initiative. If you’re not completely sure it will have an impact, you might hesitate. But all the studies—external ones too—confirm the link. I was really happy to find that report, so I’ll share it. But I think it’s time to start wrapping up. Do you have any final advice for listeners—how can they get started if they want to do what you’re doing?
Linda Tinnert: Yes, I’d say the first step is to decide what it is you actually want to do. Every company has different conditions and needs to focus differently. So step one is: do you want to work directly with improving the experience? Or, like us, do you want to focus more on the tools and methods that help the whole organization improve the experience together? That’s the first decision—what’s your actual focus? Then I’d say, no matter what, it’s always good to work both long-term and short-term. Like I mentioned earlier—have a long-term vision. What do you want this to look like? Is it going to be a tool that everyone uses in their daily work four years from now? Or is it a one-off program? At the same time, look for quick wins—can we show something that delivers results now? Maybe it’s increased knowledge, or available data, or employees saying things have improved. Find good examples and work in both dimensions. Since I come from a big company, I know things take time. You have to commit and stick to it over time. You can’t expect to come in and work for six months and have it all locked in.
Anna Carlsson: That won’t work.
Linda Tinnert: Probably not. You need to think a bit longer-term. And also—you just have to make decisions. Decide on something. The decision might be good or bad, but at least you can reevaluate. But don’t waffle too much. I know that in big organizations it can be hard to communicate global decisions clearly—but that makes it even more important to stay consistent. And sometimes, you just have to take smaller decisions locally when needed. Just make a decision.
Anna Carlsson: Dare to decide.
Linda Tinnert: Exactly. Be bold—dare to decide.
Anna Carlsson: Thank you. That’s a great takeaway—some concrete advice on how to get started. And maybe people can reach out to you if they need help.
Linda Tinnert: Absolutely. I’d love to connect with others working in this space and exchange experiences. Very much so!
Anna Carlsson: Do you have anything else on your mind?
Emira Blomberg: I always appreciate practical, concrete advice. I also like having frameworks to lean on. I’m definitely taking journey mapping with me from this.
Anna Carlsson: Super interesting and such important work. Thank you so much for today!
Linda Tinnert: Thank you! Thank you so much for having me.
Anna Carlsson: And thank you as always, Emira.
Emira Blomberg: Thanks.
