Inclusive Engineering with Josee Tremblay

The Employee Experience MBA class that I'm teaching this summer is in full swing, with a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time. One of the things that I emphasize out of the gate is that employee experience is about optimizing the organization for the employee. Or, put simply, treat your employees like human beings, and treat them well. Shocking I know. But there is something about some organizations and business that can be dehumanizing in their own unique ways, as well as in the ways that they can replicate larger social dynamics that exist. Taken together, these elements can be unhelpful when trying to create better experience and more inclusive environments. As a result, the simple idea of treating people as people can at times not be so simple to execute.

Thus for the next 6 weeks we’ll be going over how we can conceptualize, integrate, and execute employee experience. Not that any of this is going to be mastered in six weeks. Mastery isn’t achieved by taking a single course. It is in the doing of work, of applying concepts, of developing experience that we can start to reach the point of mastery. It is through the dedication to the concepts introduced, and the examples presented, that the students can be in the position to make for better employee experiences.

One of the things I enjoy about this course is the way in which it is directly connected to applying the concepts that are learned. We might think of academia as a place where there is a lot of conceptualizing, and industry as a place where there is a lot of doing. It would then make sense, at least to me, that there is more partnership that takes place between industry and academia. But we don’t often see that. Rather, at least in US society, we see more of a divide between academia and industry which precludes this kind of collaboration. 

Luckily, today on Experience by Design, we have someone who can talk about improving organizational culture, employee experience, and academia and industry collaborations. Josee Tremblay has a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering, a certificate in Strategic Decision and Risk Management from the Stanford School of Engineering, as well as other educational achievements. She has worked in the energy industry and is now a Principal at Strategic Decisions Group. In addition, she serves on the Schulich Industry Advisory Council for the School of Engineering at the University of Calgary. So she knows something about integrating industry and academia.

Also, she has written a book called Us and Yet and Yet.  It is a fascinating examination and discussion of gender in the workplace. Her focus was on genders in nontraditional roles. Think male nurses, female engineers, and the like. In her book, she shares her experiences of transforming organizations through leadership, removing biases, and nurturing a positive multi-gender environment. Her goal is to give people a roadmap to collaboration and working together. 

We talk about all these elements in our conversation, along with the key message of no matter your background, you are bringing in a contribution which is essential. The role of leadership is to create an environment to bring that out. 

"Us and Yet and Yet" - https://usandyet.com

Josee Tremblay LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/josee-tremblay/