Whether you run a hybrid model or employ even a single remote worker, you need an employee experience strategy made for 2025.
It’s four years since the Great Homeworking Experiment. But many companies’ instinctive concept of working is stuck in an age when everyone sat in one room at the same time.
That’s because they’ve not thought through the appropriate design of their employee experience in the 2020s. Nearly 80% of business leaders recognise the importance of employee experience, linking it to key performance indicators like employee retention and overall company performance.
If you’ve never heard this term, it’s time to get acquainted. Your staff, whether they’re office-based or fully remote, will thank you for it.
What is the Employee Experience?
Employee experience encompasses every interaction an employee has with your company, from recruitment through to departure. It’s a holistic view of what it means to work at your organisation, influencing everything from engagement to productivity.
Employee experience surveys are essential for understanding employee sentiments, improving retention and engagement, and refining experience management strategies.
The employee journey continuum
Employee experience is the sum of all touchpoints throughout the complete employee lifecycle:
- Pre-employment: Candidate experience, recruitment process, interview interactions
- Onboarding: First impressions, integration activities, early learning experiences
- Development: Training opportunities, career pathing, skill acquisition
- Day-to-day work: Physical workspace, digital tools, workflows, processes
- Workplace culture: Leadership interactions, team dynamics, recognition practices
- Benefits & wellbeing: Compensation, health initiatives, work-life balance support
- Offboarding: Exit process, alumni relationships, knowledge transfer
The experience operates across several key dimensions.
- Physical environment: Is the workplace environment conducive to productive work? Is it well-situated to avoid gruelling commutes?
- Technological support: Digital tools, platforms, systems integration, tech support
- Cultural qualities: Are the employer’s values aligned with those of its staff? Are there systems to listen to employee concerns that ensure employees feel valued and psychologically safe?
- Emotional: Do employees have a daily sense of purpose, recognition, challenge, and fulfillment?
- Social: Do employees have healthy relationships with colleagues, managers, and leadership
It gets overlooked, but the way your employees experience your company isn’t just good for them – it’s good for business. The beneficial impacts extend across the business lifecycle, from hiring to customer service.
Employees who feel valued and supported become advocates and ambassadors for your brand. Motivated staff who are prepared, voluntarily, to sing your praises are a valuable differentiator in a cut-throat job market for top talent. Positive public testimony helps ensure that the best talent chooses you over your competitors.
Those same employees will demonstrate their satisfaction through the magic of discretionary effort – a level of commitment to work that exceeds the minimum level of effort they need to do their job. That means creating exceptional customer experiences that make your name in the market. Greater productivity, profitability and sustainable growth are the typical results.
A great experience doesn’t just happen; it needs to be designed. That means thinking from the perspective of the stakeholders.
Stakeholders in the Employee Experience
The key stakeholders include:
- Employees: The individuals at the heart of the experience.
- HR and Global Mobility Teams: They design and implement policies and processes that directly impact employees. Understanding how employees perceive their interactions within the company is crucial for HR teams to enhance employee experience strategies.
- Management: Leaders who set the tone and culture of the organisation.
- Third-Party Providers: Companies that supply tools, services, or programs that enhance the employee experience.
The Components of a Positive Employee Experience
A great strategy is the sum of various elements that all contribute to an employee’s overall satisfaction and engagement. These are the core components to stay aware of:
- Work Environment: This includes both the physical and digital workspace, where employees need comfort, efficiency, and access to the necessary tools.
- Career Development: If you give employees opportunities for growth, learning, and progression within the company, they’re more likely to stick with you. It’s crucial to use key performance indicators to evaluate the impact of career development on employee experience, ensuring that these opportunities lead to measurable improvements in productivity and retention.
- Work-Life Balance: Flexible working hours, remote work options, and wellness programs contribute to a healthy balance.
- Company Culture: A culture that promotes inclusivity, respect, and alignment with the company’s mission enhances the employee experience.
Why a Great Employee Experience is Good Business
It’s intuitive really – creating an environment that people love to work in creates a virtuous cycle that’s borne out on your bottom line
When employees are content, it leads to higher levels of customer satisfaction, directly enhancing the customers’ experience.
Enhancing retention
Engaged employees are more likely to stay with a company, reducing turnover rates and the associated costs of hiring and training new staff. It’s much cheaper to retain a good member of staff than to lose them.
Boosting business performance
A positive employee experience keeps business booming. Satisfied employees are more productive, innovative, and customer-focused. Companies that prioritise the employee experience attract and retain better talent who serve customers more effectively – all the things that help businesses achieve their goals.
Gaining a competitive advantage in the global market
The war for talent is truly global, wherever you are in the world. Now that so many companies hire remote workers from abroad, word of a great working environment now travels across borders. Why not become the employer of choice for a global labour market?
Avoiding the pitfalls of disparity
Let’s think of this through an example. Imagine you’re a remote worker in Portugal, employed by a company based in London. You log in each day and join your office-based colleagues on video calls. But you get the gnawing sense that they have greater access to the boss’s ear, a better feel for the promotional opportunities on offer, and more of a sense of collective identity and unity. It’s never fun to be sitting on the outside while everyone’s having a good time.
This is where an employee experience strategy becomes essential. Every employee needs to feel engaged, valued, and aligned with the company’s mission, regardless of location. Ensuring employees feel valued is crucial in avoiding the pitfalls of disparity.
These disparities can lead to disengagement and a drop in productivity, whether it’s differences in benefits, access to resources, or career development opportunities. A consistent employee experience strategy addresses these issues by standardising key aspects of working life. This will help ensure that all employees feel they are part of the same organisation, regardless of their physical location.
Strategic planning for a global workforce
A successful employee experience strategy requires thoughtful planning that accounts for the real needs of a diverse workforce. This involves understanding the cultural nuances, legal requirements, and market conditions of each location while ensuring that the core values and objectives of the company are consistently communicated and upheld.
Strategic planning also includes regularly measuring employee experience through surveys and feedback mechanisms, allowing companies to make informed adjustments and continually improve employee experience. Employee experience surveys are essential for gathering valuable feedback at various stages of the employee journey, which helps in refining experience management strategies and contributing to a positive work environment.
The Challenges of Creating a Great Employee Experience
All this comes with some hurdles. The biggest challenge modern companies face is fostering a sense of belonging and community, especially in a global or remote setting. Wherever they’re working from, your staff need to feel connected to their team. Otherwise, expect morale to dip.
Companies too often overlook the professional development piece. Nobody likes to feel like they’re stagnating, so employees need clear career paths and training opportunities, otherwise they’ll go elsewhere. Open communication and feedback mechanisms should be attuned to employees’ concerns about their progress.
Staff, especially younger ones, are increasingly conscious of their work-life balance. Companies should bear this in mind and offer flexible work arrangements and wellness programs to avoid overburdening their teams.
Effective performance management and recognition systems are necessary to acknowledge and reward employees’ hard work and contributions.
It’s obvious, but competitive compensation and benefits packages are crucial for attracting and retaining top talent.
How Technology Helps Remote Employees
Technology can bridge the gap between geographically dispersed teams. Digital employee experience platforms can help maintain a unified company culture by offering the same tools, communication channels, and resource access across all locations.
The Tech You Need
- Onboarding Platforms: A digitally enhanced onboarding process will help new employees integrate smoothly, no matter where they are.
- Performance Management Systems: Use technologies that analyse data and create positive feedback loops
- Communication Tools: Tools like Slack, Teams, and Zoom ensure that remote and dispersed teams remain connected and engaged.
Employee Experience in a Global Context
An effective employee experience strategy should give you greater flexibility to adapt to economic and geopolitical changes. When the world changes, you need to ensure your people are equipped to move with it.
Moreover, focusing on employee experience not only enhances employee satisfaction but also directly correlates with key performance indicators (KPIs) such as productivity and employee retention, ultimately resulting in better business outcomes.
Adapting to regulatory changes
Global Mobility teams and HR leaders must stay ahead of changes in immigration laws, labour regulations, and compliance requirements.
Keeping up with a changing workforce
As workforces become more global and diverse, HR strategies must evolve to reflect this. You need to adapt to cultural differences and varied expectations around work-life balance, and provide localised career development opportunities.
Ready to improve your employee experience? Get started by reassessing your current strategy, incorporating global best practices, and embracing our award-winning HR tech to craft a workplace that truly supports your employees.
How to Create a Great Employee Experience Strategy
So what’s the best course of action? Crafting an exceptional employee experience strategy is a holistic task, modelled to fit every stage of the employee journey and aligns with the company’s culture.
This sounds daunting, but it’s simpler than you think. Here are the key practical ingredients of a successful strategy:
1. Understand Your Employees
Begin by gathering insights into what your employees value and need. Conduct employee experience surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews to collect feedback. Understanding employee concerns and expectations is crucial for designing a strategy that resonates with them.
2. Set your framework
Outline your company’s ideal shared purpose across the entire employee lifecycle – what values do you want to live out – and work from there.
3. Define clear objectives
Identify the goals of your employee experience strategy. Whether it’s improving employee engagement, reducing turnover, or enhancing productivity, having clear objectives will guide your efforts and help measure success.
4. Map the employee journey
Construct your sense of the complete employee lifecycle, from recruitment to offboarding. Identify key touchpoints and interactions that influence the employee’s experience. This mapping will help pinpoint areas for improvement and ensure a seamless journey.
5. Work on your culture
Cultivate a workplace environment that reflects your company’s values and promotes inclusivity, respect, and collaboration. A positive workplace culture that brings out the best in people is the most important asset you’ll ever have.
6. Build in systems
Use technology judiciously to streamline processes, enhance communication, and gather data-driven insights. The right digital tools can provide employees with the resources they need to thrive and contribute effectively, particularly when you’re managing global teams who can’t all collaborate in the same space.
But just implementing a new tool and forgetting about it won’t help. You need to train your employees to use it, and monitor the success of your tech stack to know whether each element is actually serving its purpose.
6. Provide development opportunities
Offer career development opportunities and training programs that align with employees’ aspirations. Supporting ongoing development not only boosts job satisfaction but also contributes to business success.
7. Implement recognition and rewards
Recognise and reward employees for their contributions and achievements. Implementing a structured recognition program can boost morale and motivation, leading to increased engagement and retention.
8. Keep it compliant
As companies expand, they must navigate varying regulatory environments. A strong employee experience strategy ensures that compliance with local laws—be it immigration, labour laws, or payroll taxes—is seamlessly integrated into the overall experience.
9. Continuously evaluate and adapt
The work of an HR manager is never done. You should continuously assess the effectiveness of your employee experience strategy using key performance indicators. Be open to feedback and willing to adapt your approach to meet changing employee needs and market conditions.
By following these steps, you can create a great employee experience strategy that lifts up employee satisfaction and engagement, directly delivering better business outcomes.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on Employee Experience
What is employee experience?
Employee experience refers to the sum of all interactions an employee has with their employer, from the hiring process through to their exit. It encompasses the physical environment, cultural qualities, technological support, and emotional and social aspects of their work life.
Why is an employee experience strategy important?
An employee experience strategy is crucial for enhancing employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention. It helps create a positive work environment that aligns with the company’s culture and objectives, leading to improved business outcomes and a competitive advantage in the market.
How can companies improve employee experience?
Companies can improve employee experience by implementing comprehensive strategies that include continuous feedback mechanisms, leveraging technology, fostering a positive company culture, providing development opportunities, and recognising and rewarding employees.
What are the benefits of a positive employee experience?
A positive employee experience leads to higher employee engagement, increased job satisfaction, reduced turnover rates, and improved productivity. It also enhances customer satisfaction and contributes to overall business success.
What role does technology play in employee experience?
Technology plays a significant role in employee experience by providing digital tools and platforms that streamline processes, enhance communication, and gather valuable insights. It helps create a connected and efficient work environment, regardless of employees’ physical locations.
How can employee experience platforms help?
Employee experience platforms offer comprehensive solutions for managing and improving the employee experience. They provide features such as engagement surveys, performance management, recognition systems, and learning and development opportunities, all of which contribute to a positive work environment and business success.
How do you measure employee experience?
Employee experience can be continuously measured through pulse surveys, feedback mechanisms, and key performance indicators (KPIs) that assess aspects such as engagement, satisfaction, retention, and productivity. Regular evaluation and adaptation of strategies based on these metrics are essential for continuous improvement.
What are the challenges in creating a positive employee experience?
Challenges in creating a positive employee experience include fostering a sense of belonging, providing growth opportunities, balancing work-life demands, addressing diversity and inclusion, and managing employee turnover. Overcoming these challenges requires a strategic approach and ongoing commitment to employee well-being.
