What is employee experience?
As you might imagine, employee experience (EX) is what it says on the tin – an employee’s perceptions about their employment, work life, organisation and their journey through all touchpoints as an employee. The company’s physical workspace, culture and technology are all important components of the employee experience. There are many benefits to your employees having a positive employee experience, many of which can impact your bottom line.
A positive employee experience means more engaged and productive employees. We’re sure you’ve read the scary stats to show the cost to your business of disengaged employees – it’s quite frightening. On the flip side; engaged employees are more productive and willing to work harder and smarter for the business. 
More engaged and productive employees also results in lower absenteeism rates. When employees are disengaged and unhappy, they’re more likely to have time off work, thus also affecting productivity and morale.
Happy, engaged and motivated employees can directly impact the financial outcomes of your business. Research on 250 global organisations found that companies with the best employee experiences had four times higher profits, twice the revenues, and a 40% lower turnover rate compared to those that didn’t score as well.
The days of attracting employees with free lunch, free yoga classes and an early finish on a Friday are long gone. To engage and retain skilled employees, people leaders must work on and personalise all interactions at all touch points throughout the employee journey – from the recruitment process to post-exit interviews and everything in between.
We’re going to dive into the factors that make up a good EX…
5 factors that make up a good EX
1. Trust
Trust is a crucial factor when it comes to employee experience. With trust in place employees are likely to perform at their best level. They expect to be treated fairly, without any bias treatment at play. Management should be armed with the resources to invest in their employees in order to help them grow professionally; this involves the right performance management system in place, one that is continuous with regular feedback, as opposed to the old-school yearly annual reviews.
A continuous performance management system enables employees to work on their shortfalls and be recognised for success – allowing them to grow and succeed. We would advise against directly linking performance to compensation and other benefits; this puts unnecessary pressure on your employees, and could result in them setting goals that are less stretching in order to meet their goals for compensation reasons. Employees look to their management and leaders for direction and inspiration, which fuels the need to reach their potential.
2. Employee health and wellbeing
Your employees are your most valuable asset; it’s vital that you invest in their health and wellbeing. We’ve all heard of presenteeism, whereby employees are at work despite not feeling 100%. By offering support in mental, physical, social and financial wellbeing, your employees will feel more supported. Employees won’t give their all if they feel that their employers don’t care about their physical and mental health. Without the provision for this kind of support, you could end up with unproductive, stressed and unhealthy workers.
Create a company culture that promotes good employee health and provides all employees with the resources they need to maintain their physical and mental wellbeing. Doing so will see progress in their productivity and lower absenteeism, which can be a sign of a positive employee experience.
3. Learning & development
Employees want to continue to grow in their careers. They may have set goals to move into management in X amount of years or to learn a new digital skill to help them perform better in their current role. People love to learn, after all. Creating a culture focused on learning and development can mean holding regular lunch-and-learns, giving people an annual budget for external training opportunities or creating an in-depth education program for future leaders.
Not everyone learns and retains new information the same way; therefore, it’s important to provide a wide range of different learning content that’s readily available to employees to enable them to undertake self-directed learning and own their personal development.
4. Reward & recognition
Reward and recognition go a long way to increasing an employee’s experience. We all like to feel appreciated. It can be demoralising to not receive recognition when you’ve been working hard with little gain. Implementing effective rewards and recognition programs can positively impact your employee engagement and ultimately their overall experience. It can also increase their loyalty to your organisation.
5. Purpose
When divisions work in silos with little to no cross-functional collaboration, it can be difficult for employees to understand how they contribute to the wider organisational goals. The commitment and enthusiasm may be low and employees won’t understand how their work fits into the mission of the business. It’s important for all employees to have an understanding of the overarching business mission and vision to feel connected and have a sense of purpose in their roles. 
Employees can feel frustrated by the lack of direction, and by having clear goal-setting strategies in place this frustration can be eliminated. Transparent goal-setting frameworks like OKRs (objectives and Key Results), are perfect for providing accountability focus and direction.
It is crucial to have all your employees on the same page and to move in the same direction to fulfil one common purpose.
What can you do to look at your EX?
Shifts in the workplace from Covid and the great resignation have pushed workers to reassess their priorities and look at their current employment. They are now empowered to act and move positions for a better employee experience. Organisations must put more emphasis on their most valuable asset – their people! And ensure they are offering the best employee experience to retain their top talent and recruit new talent to their business. The five factors mentioned above can help to build upon the employee experience to ensure a stronger employer-employee connection.
Next steps
It’s clear to see the benefits to your business of a positive employee experience. There are small steps that can be made to improve your employee experience and some bigger shifts you can implement today.
If you could benefit from the help of an employee experience specialist, get in touch to discuss your requirements, and our friendly team would be happy to chat.