The Companies That Win Will Feel Easier to Work For

Nathan Bricklin
Jul 30
3 min read

The Consumerization of Work (Part 5)

For years, organizations competed on things like compensation, office size, location, and perks.

Those things still matter, but increasingly, I think another factor is becoming just as important:

How easy the company feels to work for.

Easy in the sense that employees can move through the workday without constantly fighting unnecessary friction, while still operating in high-performing environments with clear expectations.

Priorities are reasonably clear. Technology works consistently. They can find information quickly. Decisions don’t get trapped in endless approval loops. Processes support the work instead of slowing it down. The workplace feels navigable instead of exhausting.

In a lot of ways, this is the same shift that happened in consumer industries.

The companies people became most loyal to were often the ones that reduced effort. Ordering became easier. Navigation became easier. Support became easier. The experience felt intuitive and responsive instead of complicated and time-consuming.

Workplace expectations have been moving in the same direction.

Employees increasingly notice how much effort it takes just to get work done inside an organization. They notice how many systems they have to navigate. How difficult it is to get decisions made. How much time gets consumed by avoidable friction.

Over time, those experiences shape how people feel about the company itself. That’s one reason workplace experience has become much bigger than office design.

It now includes the operational systems, leadership behaviors, communication patterns, technology experiences, and support structures that shape how work actually feels day to day.

Organizations sometimes think improving employee experience requires massive transformations or highly visible programs. In many cases, the biggest improvements come from simplifying the environment employees already operate within.

Clearer priorities. Better coordination between teams. Faster support. More consistent experiences. Fewer unnecessary approvals. Better communication around decisions and expectations.

None of these things sound particularly groundbreaking on their own. But together they influence whether employees feel supported or constantly slowed down by the organization around them.

Hospitality organizations learned long ago that people remember how easy or difficult an experience felt overall. The same principle increasingly applies to work.

Because increasingly, employees are evaluating organizations the same way customers evaluate brands.

Not just on what the company says. But on how the experience actually feels.

Nathan Bricklin

Senior Consultant, Global Workplace Experience

Helping enterprise leaders close the gap between executive intent and lived employee experience at scale.

Email Nathan

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