Employee Engagement

A positive employee experience (EX) is the beating heart of business performance. Successful companies need dedicated, productive employees to ensure better business outcomes. And those employees need their leaders to value their efforts and nurture a constructive work environment.

If you're not sure where your company stands, take a moment to reflect. Do your employees feel valued, supported, and motivated to do their best work? Or are they just going through the motions, counting down the hours until they can clock out?

As an HR leader, you know the former is worth its weight in gold. But it can sometimes be difficult to make your case for EX resources when other leaders don't fully understand why employee experience matters.

That's where we come in as your trusted sidekick. We put together a list of the top eight reasons why companies should place more importance on employee experience and how to reach the EX pinnacle.

What is employee experience?

We're witnessing big shifts in the labor market and global economic landscape this year. With this, top talent in various fields realize they have more freedom than they thought regarding job choice. To attract and retain employees, managers and team leaders play a critical role in prioritizing employee experience.

So, what exactly is employee experience? Put simply, employee experience encompasses every interaction a person has with their organization at every stage of their employee lifecycle. From the initial hiring process to their exit interview, an employee's experience shapes their perception of your company and may reflect the current condition of your work environment.

Several factors make a great employee experience, including physical space, company culture, learning and development opportunities, relationships with their managers, and more. By investing in the employee journey, you can set your team up to succeed at critical moments.

Identify important moments during employee experiences that affect your people and business outcomes by learning to map the employee experience journey (psst: we included a template and example to help you out).

8 Reasons why employee experience is important

Creating a positive employee experience requires time and effort, but the payoff and employee engagement you'll get out of it are worth it. Statistics on employee experience show that an engaged workforce can lead to increased productivity, improved employee well-being, and superior customer experience. Unsurprisingly, your business benefits from having happy employees!

Read on to learn why employee experience is important for your company's growth and long-term success.

1. Attracts top talent

People are thinking more carefully than ever about how they choose employment. Above average salaries might attract some job seekers, but it'll no longer be the main reason top talent flock to your door. Instead, many individuals will look to employee satisfaction rates, company culture, and ambassadorship levels to determine whether a role at your company is right for them.

In short, a great employee experience gives you an edge in the job market by making your organization stand out in a sea of employers, and by retaining these new hires in the long run. More on that later!

2. Boosts productivity

Individual and team productivity are top of mind for leaders these days. Organizations need their employees to do great work and contribute towards broader goals. But productivity shouldn't be taken for granted. Leaders and organizations play a big role in helping employees be and stay productive.

Fostering a constructive employee experience is key. It motivates employees to do their best work, leading to improved individual performance. And it doesn't stop there. A solid employee experience also makes collaboration flourish, resulting in better communication and shared problem solving — both of which do wonders for improving team productivity.

3. Fosters great team relationships

Employee experiences founded in trust, communication, respect, and recognition are the most conducive to sparking positive relationships at work. When you start prioritizing these 4 pillars of employee relations within your employee experience, you'll unlock a slew of benefits for each team and the company as a whole.

Employees who trust each other and work well together are more likely to address challenges more effectively and bounce back from setbacks more quickly. They're also better at generating creative ideas collectively and finding innovative solutions together.

Great employee experiences create 5-star teams that are resilient and adaptable, and drive everyone around them forward.

4. Improves employee well-being

HR leaders everywhere recognize that most employees' mental health influences if and how they show up to work. However, well-being in the workplace is increasingly difficult to manage because of how entangled work currently is in our personal lives. Most of us still work in the same environment where we eat, sleep, relax, and spend time with our loved ones. Because of this, organizations need to be extra intentional about how they address wellness in their employee experience.

Companies that prioritize flexibility, psychological safety, work-life balance, and employee autonomy, for example, are more likely to have a workforce full of employees who feel their best and give their best at work. That's because these key employee experience factors give employees the support they need to flourish creatively and feel more engaged in their work.

😓 Has someone on your team fallen victim to burnout? Help get them back on track and protect the rest of the team's well-being with a psychologist's tips on how to manage burnout.

5. Improves customer satisfaction

Have you ever been served by a waiter who was clearly having a bad day? We can bet their demeanor or subpar customer service clouded your experience. Even when it's controlled, it's hard for people to avoid letting their mood impact their behaviors. It's simply human nature.

The same way an unhappy waiter can kill the vibe of an otherwise good dinner, disengaged and unhappy employees can negatively impact a paying customer's satisfaction. And when the customer is dissatisfied, the business suffers.

On the flip side, engaged employees who have favorable experiences at work are more likely to produce better quality work, foster better client relationships, and positively represent your brand. Like a domino effect, you can ensure a better customer experience by collaborating with your team at every step in the employee journey.

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6. Strengthens employer brand

Businesses these days have to consider the possibility of employees speaking negatively about them online. We know this is stressful, but on the bright side, the reverse is also true. Accounts detailing positive experiences at your organization can establish a good reputation for your brand and encourage others to join you. This applies to word-of-mouth, too! Happy, engaged employees are more likely to speak highly of their workplaces and strengthen their employer brands.

Look at these two online reviews for instance:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Great team culture and lots of room for growth

I've been working at Zebra company for 3 years now, and I'm still loving my experience! I have a great relationship with my managers, and they're always looking to improve collaboration and communication at work. Since joining, I've also had the chance to take on a new role, do stretch assignments, and sign up for relevant trainings.

⭐️⭐️ Long hours and lack of direction from leaders

I used to love working at Tiger company, but lately the management team is super unorganized and it feels like no one is aligned. There's always a false sense of urgency, which makes employees work longer hours than necessary. I don't feel valued and my work-life balance is terrible.

Now, which of these two describes a better employee experience, and which do you think is more likely to boost your employer brand? Case closed.

7. Increases employee retention

When you create a fantastic employee experience, you send the message that you're invested in every employee's journey. You're telling your team that you want them at your side, and not just for the time being. If you're figuring out how to improve employee retention, you can start by tackling two great places in the employee experience: feedback and career advancement options.

More honest feedback from your team will give you the insights you need to make adjustments moving forward, so you can create a virtuous cycle of employee experience and retention improvement. Likewise, giving your employees the opportunity to learn new skills and consider internal mobility shows that you're invested in their future. As a result, they'll feel more invested in the company and their position. And they'll be more likely to see a future with your organization in it.

Gather valuable feedback to tackle retention at its core with these 20 employee retention survey questions.

8. Decreases absenteeism and presenteeism

In most cases, a positive employee experience also leads to less absenteeism and presenteeism at work. In other words, employees are less likely to take time off for reasons other than vacation, and those who are present are less likely to be mentally checked out. That's because employees who feel fulfilled at work and genuinely enjoy their workplace have a stronger sense of commitment and motivation towards their work.

When employees are absent from work, they can miss important tasks, meetings, or deadlines, which can cause delays and avoidable added stress for their colleagues. Similarly, when employees are present, but mentally elsewhere — usually due to stress, poor mental health, or lack of motivation — the team's global productivity and employee engagement levels can take a hit.

In the end, everyone wins when you create a supportive and engaging work environment.

What is a positive employee experience?

A positive employee experience is one that people feel a strong sense of connection to and satisfaction with. Looking at it in more detail, the employee experience is shaped by 11 key pillars, each of which should be given care and attention.

Identifying where you stand with each pillar is the first step towards building a positive employee experience. However, as workplace expectations change, it's important to regularly reassess what your employees need.

Fine-tuning your approach will take some practice, but in the meantime, here are some factors to consider:

• Tools and office space: Do your employees have everything they need to do their jobs well? This includes technology, support from managers and team members, and adequate resources. Likewise, having both private and collaboration spaces provides employees with appropriate work areas for team projects and individual tasks.
• Company culture: Whether in their personal lives or at work, everyone wants to feel included, respected, and valued. This is why it's necessary to build an organizational culture that's human-focused and able to adapt to individual needs. Establishing a positive workplace culture is also where tools like team-building activities come in.
• Communication: Frequent, open communication organically develops trust between team members and managers. Even better, it ensures that everyone is on the same page and inspires more productive and effective collaboration.

Ultimately, the objective of improving employee experience is to engage people and provide them with the psychological safety they need to voice thoughts and feelings. Taking an iterative approach to employee experience rooted in feedback and communication is the best way to keep employees happy and the business thriving for good.

How to improve the employee experience

Struggling to improve employee experience at your organization? Don't worry. Below, we've compiled a list of simple ways you can get the ball rolling.

Create stellar onboarding

One of the easiest ways to improve employee experience from the jump is to create a stellar onboarding process.

A person's onboarding is their official introduction to their new work environment and colleagues. It sets the tone for the rest of their tenure at a company, so it's important to make those first moments count.

Remember that the onboarding process should smoothly integrate new hires into your midst. This means helping them bond with the team, personalizing their onboarding activities, and introducing them to your company's values.

Ensure role clarity

A common concern for employees is not having a clear understanding of their roles. It drives confusion, decreases accountability, and demotivates employees. That's why clearly identifying each team member's role and responsibilities is key to improving your employee experience.

Once each employee understands their role, you can then set goals they can work to achieve. It's helpful to have one-on-one meetings whenever possible to clarify roles and responsibilities.

Use employee feedback loops

By creating a regular feedback loop, you can better understand how employees feel about their work environment, job responsibilities, relationships with peers and managers, and company culture. In other words, you can uncover their needs and they can understand your expectations.

Feedback loops help spot areas of improvement on all ends, giving employees, managers, and HR leaders tools to enhance the over experience at work.

Make employee well-being a priority

It's a simple fact that happy people perform better and have higher employee satisfaction. On the other hand, elevated anxiety, burnout, and stress in the workplace can be a recipe for disengagement.

To improve the employee experience, you'll need to get a clear sense of your team's well-being. The best way to do so is to conduct an employee wellness survey.

These employee surveys open up a line of communication between you and your team members and give you the insights you need to make necessary changes. Depending on the answers you receive, these changes could be implementing more flexible scheduling, moving to a hybrid work model, or expanding employee benefits.

Make time for team building and strengthening connections

For communication to be effective, it's necessary to establish a sense of trust between your employees and management.

Team-building exercises show your employees that you value their perspective and presence. At the same time, coworkers can form meaningful bonds, which lead to improved collaboration, communication, employee engagement, and overall productivity. When people feel a strong connection to their workplace, the employee experience naturally increases.

Trust is one of the most essential ingredients to a team's success. Make your team trust rock-solid with these 5 strategies to build trust and collaboration.

Start creating an outstanding employee experience

Investing time and effort in the employee experience is no longer optional for businesses that want to succeed in the modern world. As we outlined above, creating a well-rounded and carefully crafted employee experience can help companies attract top talent, increase employee performance, and keep clients happy, among many other benefits.

As an HR leader, you play a critical role in shaping the employee experience at your organization. The best practices we shared are a great starter pack to initiate your employee experience strategy. And if you need a tool to help you along the way, Officevibe's intuitive employee experience platform can measure your team's employee engagement and show you how to take action to improve it.

You got this! All you need to do is start. Your team and business will thank you for it.

This article is an excerpt from Vibe: Inspiring people leadership. The second edition of the Zine focuses on engagement, retention, and profitability. Grab your copy.

It’s no secret that the world of work as we know it is evolving — and fast. During significant change, we often look to our leaders for guidance and support in anticipation of what’s to come. Earlier this year, the Josh Bersin Company, one of the leading authorities on corporate talent, learning, and HR technology, published a set of predictions for the world of work in 2023 and beyond. Here, they explored the directions in which the professional world will go and shared ways organizations can get ahead of the curve and lead their teams to success despite challenging times. 

We turned to our steadfast leadership members to hear their thoughts and points of view on these intriguing predictions from Josh Bersin. Read their takes on these hot topics, from productivity and recruitment to talent intelligence and performance management. 

{emphasize}Leadership views on the current and future state of work 

• People analytics will evolve into talent intelligence
• HR organizations will move to a new operating model: systemic HR
• Productivity will become an essential measure of employee success
• New models of performance management will take hold
• The role of recruiters is increasingly important
• Further reading to inspire people leaders{emphasize}

People analytics will evolve into talent intelligence

By Martin Gourdeau, General Manager  

Efficiency vs. effectiveness is taught in most management studies but is unfortunately forgotten by many as soon as they enter the corporate world.   

There are many reasons for this, but at the end of the day, it mostly comes down to the alignment of interests. Efficiency is fundamentally “profit-driven,” while effectiveness is a “checkmark” concept. The vast majority of employees are hired, reviewed, and promoted on “checkmarks.” Was X accomplished? Check. The presence of this phenomenon is, unfortunately, directly and linearly correlated to the size of the business.  

However, now and then we witness a global turn of events that shifts the collective focus on efficiency. The brutal economic correction the tech industry went through in 2022 was one of the most drastic in recent history. The unprecedented cash injection from most of the central banks in developed countries, in response to projected COVID economic repercussions, led to years of abundant capital. But human nature kicks in; abundance can lead to complacency, and complacency means a broad focus on effectiveness vs. efficiency.  

Want to grow into a new market? --> Hire. 

Want to deliver an ambitious project? --> Hire more.   

Meta roughly doubled its headcount between 2019 and 2022, while revenue was up about 65% during that same period.    

So here we are. The music stops, and the pendulum swings the other way. The news is full of companies undergoing layoffs. The business elite has completely changed their narrative. All we hear about now is sustainability, strong fundamentals, unit economics, and free cash flow. Companies need to do the right things and do things the right way. It’s no surprise that a few engaged, clever, and complimentary A-players will outperform a team that is 5 or 10 times larger if that second team is dysfunctional.  

What if you could engineer that first team consistently? Enter the next chapter in people analytics: talent intelligence.   

The macro-economic context has created a catalyst to fuel the next generation of HR tech landscapes. The most important asset in any company is people, and the technology to unlock their full potential will be invaluable moving forward. History shows us that technology isn’t a threat but an opportunity. Organizations that fully learn to leverage talent intelligence tools will have an unfair advantage over all the others. In this market, businesses should take all the unfair advantages they can get. 

Insights into action
Without tools to help you measure and act, your employee experience falls behind. The best employee experience software not only enhances your employee experience but offers actionable insights as well.

Get executive buy-in for your employee experience tools by following the five steps outlined in our comprehensive Buyer’s Guide.  

HR organizations will move to a new operating model: systemic HR  

By Anaud Ganpaul, VP of Product 

Traditionally, human resources leaders have been key players in addressing internal and external changes that drive and support their organization’s business strategies.  

However, HR leaders and C-suite alike are recognizing that traditional siloed HR models no longer meet the demands of today’s workforce. They are now turning to a new operating model called systemic HR — a holistic approach to HR management that emphasizes how different HR processes impact overall business strategy.  

This operating model involves:  

• breaking down silos 
• promoting cross-functional collaboration 
• considering the entire employee lifecycle 
• creating a seamless employee experience aligned with business goals 
   

A key feature of systemic HR involves incorporating data-driven feedback and decision-making more efficiently with integrated strategies. This concept can benefit companies of all sizes but requires building a strong talent intelligence data and applications layer in their HR tech stack. Once implemented, a systemic HR model will provide feedback on these strategies’ effectiveness and can shed light on employee engagement, productivity, recognition, coaching, recruitment, skills, and help identify any learning gaps. Now that’s impressive!  

Managing multiple software components to get employee feedback can take time for overextended HR teams, managers, and employees. Bersin has coined the term “mid-market talent intelligence suites” to recognize the new breed of software providers that integrate these capabilities into a single platform. By leveraging this feedback, organizations can make informed decisions that drive better business outcomes.   

Systemic HR represents a significant shift in how organizations operate. With this holistic approach, HR leaders can drive organizational success by aligning their strategies with business goals. By leveraging talent intelligence to focus on employee engagement, development, and performance and adopting modern HR technology, organizations can create a seamless employee experience that leads their businesses to success.  

Insights into action 
  
Setting efficient goals is essential to the success of any business. Lead your team to the finish line every time with clearly outlined objectives at the individual and organizational levels.  

Productivity will become an essential measure of employee success  

By Jean-Luc Brisebois, Former Chief Revenue Officer  

Talking about productivity can often be uncomfortable for many managers; it can evoke images of the stereotypical evil businessperson putting the bottom line above all else. But in this current economic reality, dictated by stock markets and weakened by labor shortages, we must be more judicious when allocating our time and resources. We all need to do more with less, meaning productivity must take center stage.  

But there’s a line that can’t be crossed: while extra efforts will be required all around, you can’t just add more to people’s plates and expect great results. This is where the power of “no” comes into play; saying no to projects that fall lower on the list of urgencies to make room for initiatives with higher potential ROI. 

To me, one of the most important steps a leader can take is to align your team around the notion that resources are limited. Engagement will skyrocket if you: 
1. Are clear on your rationale around what needs to be put aside (and why). 
2. Combine this with concrete data to prioritize initiatives.  

At the end of the day, your team wants to know that their work contributes to the bigger picture. As leaders, we empower people to reach their objectives and guide them on their professional journeys to reach collective organization goals.  

Insights into action 
Even the highest-performing teams may hit productivity blockers. But equipping you and your managers with the right strategies to prevent and overcome them makes all the difference in the long run.

Learn how you can tackle the four most common roadblocks in the workplace.

New models of performance management will take hold 

By Umbreen Tapal, Former Director of Product Management

HR leaders are facing a unique challenge; on the one hand, there is more pressure than ever from the C-suite to demonstrate how people management practices are enabling teams to deliver results and ultimately drive organizational performance. On the other hand, HR leaders must keep employees engaged in a tight labor market where you can’t hire your way out of a talent gap. 

We’ve been spending a lot of time listening to and understanding the context of our customers. One of the key emerging themes is that although we’ve been talking about what is broken with traditional performance management for years, this moment feels like we are seeing a critical mass of organizations that are ready to move towards continuous and agile performance management.   

Another key theme we keep hearing about (and this is closely linked to the company performance results that the C-suite is looking for) is organizational alignment around goals. Goals need to be adapted and adjusted in a fast-moving business context. So, we see enabling behaviors around reflection, adjustment, and alignment on team and individual goals as a critical thread that connects the new continuous performance and people development process.   

This does not really come as a surprise as there is strong data indicating that high-performing organizations focus on goal alignment and clarity. When employees rally around common goals and have a clear vision of success, they are more likely to feel connected to their work and organization. Your employees must be motivated to reach collective goals to achieve high performance and satisfaction. Start prioritizing goal setting and regular progress check-ins and watch your retention rates soar.  

Insights into action  
Organizations that prioritize and actively work towards increasing employee engagement are proven to retain people who consistently do their best work.

Read on to learn more about why it pays to invest in your people.  

The role of recruiters is increasingly important 

By Jonathan Berlinski, Director, Talent Acquisition  

Truly understanding what it takes to fill a role within an organization goes far beyond a list of skills in a job description: you must consider the managers’ needs, technical and soft skills, culture fit, etc. Finding great people is a challenging skill to duplicate with any tool or piece of technology.  

Relationships and ambassadorship remain core to the recruitment function. It certainly helps to have an outstanding employer brand. Still, it takes skilled recruiters to: 

• amplify that message,  
• actively engaging with the right talent in the market at the right time,  
• champion the brand, and  
• provide a first-hand experience of what it is like to work within a truly great company.   

Building a distinctive employer brand goes hand in hand with candidate experience. First impressions are lasting, and every touchpoint with a candidate is an opportunity to create a relationship. Fostering that experience is a little extra work, but it’s well worth the investment.

I also think we’ll see internal mobility becoming a trend in 2023. As many companies look to scale down external recruiting in the current economic context, they will invest in the growth and upskilling of their employees. Internal talent mobility also provides external candidates with a clear message that opportunities for growth and progression exist within this company — a powerful recruiting tool and stance. 

Organizations need to support their recruiters by equipping them with the latest tools and technologies and helping them keep up with the latest trends. It’s equally important for recruitment units to collaborate closely with other teams, such as legal, marketing, and HR, to maintain awareness of what’s happening within the organization. And make sure they’re in sync with company objectives. 

Insights into action 
In the age of digitization, constant change, and a cautious economic landscape, workforce planning is becoming mission-critical. No longer can leadership rely on guesstimates or instincts alone. They must adopt a new mindset that puts data (and the priorities it uncovers) over politics.

Learn more about the future of workforce planning and what to use to make data-driven decisions. 

Further reading to inspire people leaders

The workplace has seen fundamental changes over the last several years. And there are no signs that it's slowing down. But change can be profoundly cathartic. It can even act as the catalyst for resiliency and growth during disruptive times.

The second edition of VIBE: Inspiring people leadership aims to lift the fog on how HR teams can boost their people strategy by supporting their managers. It features thought leadership articles like this one, tips on how HR practitioners can strengthen engagement and improve employee retention, a look at the real cost of turnover (and how you can prevent it), and much more. Grab your copy and learn more about the deep connections between engagement, retention, and profitability. 

The Great Resignation we recently experienced put employee retention on the radar for many companies. With 3 to 4.5 million employees voluntarily leaving their jobs every month, it is a sobering reminder that people will seek out other professional opportunities if they are not satisfied with their current positions.

High employee turnover and employee retention issues can be devastating for organizations. Gallup estimates that it costs businesses one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary to replace them due to hiring costs, training fees, and lost productivity.

Most of the reasons employees quit are things that employers can address head on. Competitive salary, job security, development opportunities, and frequent feedback are all things that managers can have a hand in to improve the overall employee experience.

Addressing these challenges also keeps employees engaged and motivated, which can dramatically improve team morale and productivity. Unsurprisingly, Gallup has reported that engaged employees are 18% more productive than their disengaged counterparts. Further, companies with a highly engaged workforce are 23% more profitable. Let's explore the importance of employee retention along with some of the main employee retention challenges companies are currently experiencing (bonus: we'll walk you through how to address them!).

Why is employee retention important?

For starters, employee retention refers to a company’s ability and effort to keep its people year-over-year and prevent them from looking for opportunities elsewhere. Employee retention is crucial to any organization's success. When members of a team start leaving an organization voluntarily, it can take a toll on productivity, increase unhealthy stress on remaining employees, and add hefty expenses. On the other hand, when employee retention rates are high, you also experience:

• Higher employee productivity: Long-term employees are more efficient in their organization. They know the company processes and have the experience necessary to do their job effectively and accurately.
• A more developed workforce: Employees who have been at a company for longer periods of time become subject matter experts and contribute to the collective wealth of knowledge. Experienced employees can attend to more creative and complex endeavors rather than spending time getting acquainted with company values and organizational goals.
• A healthier company culture: High retention rates are typically a great indicator of a thriving company culture. When employees are happy with their roles and teams, they are more likely to stick around for the long haul and contribute to an overall more positive employee experience.

Need another reason to aim for high employee retention at your company? We'll give you 10. Read more on the benefits of employee retention.

The cost of employee turnover

Earlier in this blog, we briefly touched on some of the tangible costs of employee turnover. These costs include:

• Benefit costs
• Hiring costs
• Offboarding costs
• Onboarding new hires
• Training new employees

Though the hard costs above are more obvious and immediately felt, the soft costs of employees quitting can have heavy ramifications for a company. These more subtle but equally important costs can include:

• Lower employee morale
• Added stress
• Weakened employer brand
• Decreased quality of work
• Lost knowledge

In today's tough economic climate, even the most successful of organizations can't afford to see their people leave for other job opportunities. By actively working toward improving the employee experience, employers can watch their retention rates soar.

When you know where your employee turnover rate stands, you can focus on improving things for your team. Read on to calculate employee turnover at your organization.

6 Challenges of employee retention (and how to address them)

As the landscape of the modern workplace continues to shift, HR leaders and managers are facing several challenges in retaining employees. If management can tackle these challenges swiftly and efficiently, they will be poised to improve employee retention rates and watch engagement and productivity rise with them.

Let's examine some of the most common employee retention challenges and how leaders can address them using people-first strategies.

1. Hiring the wrong candidate

Intuitive HR leaders know that hiring the right person for a position is a holistic endeavor. Not only does the candidate need to have the appropriate technical skills, but they should ideally be aligned with the company's mission, vision, and values. This is where many go wrong in the recruiting process; a candidate seems perfect on paper, but management may quickly realize that the disconnect between the company and the candidate is too strong.

Find the best fit (culturally and technically)

A canditate should always meet the minimum technical requirements for a position, but recruiters shouldn't disregard applicants with fewer years of experience just based off that criteria alone. Hard skills can be learned with time and mentorship, but finding a candidate that makes your team feel complete is easier said than done. Recruiters should always consider cultural fit when looking for the best person for any position.

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2. Overlooking employee recognition

It's human nature to seek acknowdgment and recognition for our efforts, especially if we give it our all. If an employee feels like their work is going unnoticed, they may begin to disengage not only with their role, but with the organization at large, and look to take their talent elsewhere.

Make recognition a part of your company culture

Research shows that recognition can goes a long way in boosting employee motivation, improving performance, and reducing attrition. An organization can retain top talent by expressing gratitude for employee contributions and recognizing great work regardless of outcome.

✨ Check out these top tips for increasing recognition in the workplace to retain employees.

3. Setting unclear or unrealistic expectations

Team alignment can have a pretty big impact on an organization's performance and productivity. A disconnect between management and employee expectations can cause conflict and even create a rift in team dynamics. Without clear communication on collective objectives and company values, employees may find it challenging to stay engaged with their work.

Emphasize team alignment

Employees that are clear on what is expected of them are more likely to stay motivated and engaged with their work. Leaders should provide clear expectations, both for long-term and short-term goals, while providing regular feedback on the team and employees' performance. Remember, teams are at their best when they know what they're working toward and why, and can rally around shared goals.

4. Overlooking professional growth opportunities

Employees want to know that there is room for growth at their organization. A top performer may soon grow listless in their role if not given the chance to spread their wings and take on new challenges. Without professional development opportunities on the horizon, a company make experience lower employee retention rates.

Nurture employee career development

For young professionals today, opportunities for professional growth is non-negotiable. If organizations want to retain their valuable and talented employees, they must nurture their teams internally with career planning sessions, skills mapping, mentorship, and training and development programs. A great way HR leaders can help their teams grow is by having honest career development talks to explore future opportunities.

💪Empower people-first teams to map their skills, develop their talents, and accelerate their growth to create more fulfilling and productive workplaces with Talentscope.

5. Neglecting employee well-being

A sure-fire way to keep talented employees disengaged is by putting the bottom line before their well-being. According to Officevibe data, 47% of employees regularly feel overwhelmed at work. A business that pushes its people over the edge for the sake of profitability will watch their top performers walk away for better opportunities where they can enjoy a more sustainable work-life balance.

Prioritize health and wellness in the workplace

As the saying goes, health is wealth. Companies that support a sustainable work-life balance will be able to foster a much happier and more positive employee. By offering employees a more flexible workplace, they will be more engaged with their work and more likely to stick around for longer. Prioritizing well-being, offering generous benefits, and supporting mental and physical health will do wonders for retaining employees.

Employee wellness surveys can provide keen insights into what matters most to your people. Use these templates and surveys to get the conversation started.

6. Providing minimal or no feedback

With only 25% of employees feeling like the feedback they receive is frequent enough to help them understand how to improve, it's no wonder many workers feel unsteady in their roles and seek out other employers. When an employee has no clear idea of how they are progressing or how they can adapt, they may become frustrated and disengaged with their roles.

Make feedback second nature

The best way to get to the heart of what your people need is to ask them directly. Managers and HR teams can gather honest employee feedback by using anonymous feedback tools that allow people to express their concerns openly. But if you ask for feedback, it's imperative that you act on it and respond to it. Keep retention rates on your team high by creating strategies backed by employee feedback.

How employee engagement solutions help with retention

Employee retention is about meeting employee needs in a longterm and sustainable way. This means having clear lines of communication between the organization and its people to reach collective company goals. If employees feel valued and find their work engaging, they are more likely to stick around for the longhaul.

Employee engagement tools like Officevibe offer organizations a plethora of resources dedicated to improving the employee experience by boosting retention, engagement and productivity. By leaning into what matters most to your people, you can actively work toward fostering a healthy and positive work environment.

We're living in a very different professional era than just a few years ago. And with this change came a shift in what it takes to keep top talent onboard. Remember when ping-pong tables and unlimited coffee were synonymous with great company culture? Well, people are rightfully asking for more thoughtful employee experiences. Band-aid solutions of the past aren't making the cut anymore.

Employees want to feel heard, appreciated, and supported. To do that, managers must stay attuned to how people feel at work so that they can put real change into play. The key to nailing retention is to be proactive at all times, instead of only reacting when turnover is on a hike.

Don't wait to act until you're handed a letter of resignation. If you sense your team is struggling (or if they simply aren't thriving), remember: there's always something you can do to help. Ready to get started? Read on to learn about top strategies to keep employees engaged and happy at work.

{emphasize}Implement these top retention strategies to keep your employees engaged

• Why is employee retention so important?
• 13 Employee retention strategies for an engaged workforce
• Implement and assess employee retention strategies
• Increase employee retention with an employee experience solution{emphasize}

Why is employee retention so important?

Before we take a look at what the most effective employee retention strategies are, it's important to understand why employee retention is so crucial. It goes without saying that it's good for business, but what exactly are the benefits of employee retention?

It helps your bottom line

Companies that keep their workforce going strong can reinvest the money they would've spent on hiring new employees. And when you consider that each departure can cost around a third of an employee's annual salary, the potential financial gain is significant.

Losing an employee is costly in more ways than one. In fact, the business impact happens both on the financial and on the human side (which can still impact your profitability down the line).

It increases engagement

Employees who remain engaged with the organization tend to be more motivated and have higher levels of satisfaction. So much so that engaged employees are 23 times more likely than disengaged employees to recommend their organization as a great place to work, according to Gallup.

Numbers like this reflect a workplace that continuously prioritizes employee retention within its engagement strategies, instead of tackling them separately.

It cultivates better customer service

Did you know that there is a direct and positive correlation between companies that retain their best employees and those that also retain their best customers? It's simple, really. Happy, engaged employees who have great experiences at work are more likely to relay their positive sentiments to their customers, ultimately creating a better experience for them as well. This situation is a clear win-win for everyone.

It supports greater efficiency

It comes as no surprise that when employees get to focus on their roles and gel with their team, they're ultimately more efficient. When employees leave the company, it can cause a real disruption for others.

From having to train new employees to asking others to cover tasks that may not necessarily be their responsibility, it can definitely throw off the momentum of the rest of the team.

It fosters a better workplace culture

Solid relationships are worth their weight in gold. Maintaining professional and personal bonds with fellow employees over time fosters a better workplace culture. Employee retention strategies play a big part in this as they create opportunities to build these relationships, foster camaraderie, and keep everyone aligned and motivated.

13 Employee retention strategies for an engaged workforce

While the costs and impacts of employee turnover are evident, the good news is you can minimize or even avoid them altogether. There are plenty of effective employee retention strategies you can implement to keep your entire workforce feeling engaged, valued, and wanting to stay for the long haul.

Did you know? Gallup found that 48% of American workers are actively looking for new job opportunities. The silver lining? That same study highlighted that 52% of voluntarily exiting employees felt their manager or organization could have done something to prevent them from leaving.

From defining core values to presenting a clear career trajectory, to showing your employees that they matter on both a professional and personal level, these effective employee retention strategies can make the world of difference:

1. Think about retention from the start

Retention strategies shouldn't only kick into crisis mode after a wave of employee resignations. If you want long-term success, it's important to focus on employee retention from day one. Just because an employee joined your team doesn't guarantee they'll stay long term. Your onboarding process is what makes them stay past the 90-day mark.

A great employee onboarding experience sets the tone for a person's time with the company. When planned with care and intention, employee onboarding plans help new team members feel valued and connected to the team. This is key to ensuring retention because it boosts their engagement and commitment to the organization.

2. Clearly define your mission and values

When employees feel a sense of purpose within the company, employee retention also tends to increase. And having a sense of purpose starts with defining your company's mission and values. Not only does this give employees something to get behind as a collective, but it also helps attract talent that shares these values.

Having everyone on the same page helps set standards, guide actions, and encourage alignment (which we'll get to next!).

💡Try this: Make your mission and values clear and concise, introduce them from the beginning, and explain how they translate into concrete actions.

3. Get aligned on company objectives

Much like defining your mission and values gives employees a sense of purpose, so does aligning on company objectives. Every employee should understand why their work matters and how their contributions are pieces of the puzzle.

When people work towards common objectives together, team synergies become more powerful, and great things ensue. True alignment encourages employees to collaborate as a team, have effective communication, and respect what each person brings to the table. This makes your company feel like a well-oiled machine with greater momentum and sense of purpose for all.

4. Set clear expectations

Setting clear expectations for each employee is also key. That includes deciding what success means to you and sharing it with your team. This helps clarify each employee's role and responsibilities and enables them to set attainable goals. Not only does this lead to better performance and employee confidence, but it also paves the way for career growth.

When employees feel they don’t have a clear outline of their role, a path for their professional development opportunities, or expectations in the way in which you'll evaluate them, it can cause frustration and a lack of purpose. If ignored for too long, these feelings can cause people to start looking for a new job elsewhere.

Align expectations and make sure employees feel satisfied at work by booking a one-on-one to clarify roles and responsibilities.

5. Provide fair pay and compensation

Great talent is valuable, so employee compensation should reflect that. If employees are considerably underpaid compared to fair market rates, your turnover will likely rise. While it isn't the primary motivator of retention, salary is the main reason employees seek new opportunities in the first place. And it's especially the case in today's competitive labor market.

It's important to pay your employees well if you want them to stay and grow with your company. If they feel undervalued, they’ll undoubtedly find a company that will compensate them fairly.

6. Come to the table with competitive benefits and perks

As we've already explored, pay alone doesn't make for satisfied employees, and it won't make an employee stay with your company. Benefits, time off, and other forms of compensation are all part of the mix, too.

These days, the non-negotiable staples include:

• Quality health insurance
• Ample vacation time and sick days
• Paid parental leave
• Retirement savings plans

If you want to kick it up a notch, you should also include benefits like tuition reimbursement, flexible schedules, health and wellness budgets, and other financial incentives (like stock options).

Employee well-being is a crucial part of an employee retention strategy. So if you can enhance it with your benefits package, your team is sure to appreciate it.

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7. Prioritize healthy work-life balance

Saying that work-life balance is important would be an understatement. Now more than ever, it should be an absolute priority. Gone are the days of neglecting one's well-being for the sake of their job. Today's climate has put the focus back on physical and mental health as well as personal and family time. And employees expect their employer to be respectful of that, and even accommodating.

In fact, a study by Oracle revealed that 88% of employees said their meaning of success has changed since the pandemic, with work-life balance (42%), mental health (37%), and workplace flexibility (33%) now top priorities.

Work-life balance benefits both the employee and the company. When employees feel stressed or lack a sense of balance, they tend to become disengaged. This can lead them to make more mistakes, miss work, or even quit their job, which is exactly what every company wants to avoid.

How does your team rank on the wellness front? Find out and uncover valuable insights with these 30 wellness survey questions.

8. Equip employees with the technology and tools they need

In the spirit of revolutionizing the way we work and communicate these days, we must remember that technology plays a huge role.

Having the right technological tools in place from day one can shape an employee's experience from the jump. Technology can help employees ease into processes, feel in control of their work environment, and enable them to feel empowered, independent, and productive.

This is especially true for remote work. Having the most advanced equipment and tools sets employees up for better performance. When you fail to do so, you're setting them up for frustration, wasted time, and even failure.

9. Train managers to be leaders

Great managers understand the role they play in employee retention. They build trust with employees, provide support and mentorship, encourage career development, and most importantly, know how to lead the pack. Training them to be capable of this to their best ability is pivotal.

When managers and employees have healthy communication, everyone feels part of the team, rather than isolated individuals. It makes for a healthier team that's more committed to the company’s long-term success.

Managers can significantly improve their team's engagement levels with the right leadership tools and listening mechanisms. They'll be equipped to act on pain points straight away, lowering the risk of employee unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

10. Give employees a voice and make them feel heard

If you want to know how your employees feel or what they need to feel better and more productive at work, ask them! Giving employees a voice and frequent opportunities to share their feedback is worth its weight in gold. Not only do they feel heard, but it also gives managers and employers valuable insights into what is and isn't working within the company.

Encouraging employees to share their thoughts — whether it be about the work environment, management styles, communication, or anything else — fosters a positive feedback culture and creates a feedback loop. By acknowledging the feedback, creating and communicating action plans, and acting on them, managers can build stronger relationships with their employees. This leads to higher engagement and better employee retention.

Thirdbridge fully revamped its employee experience by centering its people strategies around employee feedback shared on Officevibe. Read their full success story to learn more.

11. Foster positive work relationships

They say that your vibe attracts your tribe, and the workplace is no exception! Just like with any friendship or relationship, communication is key. Communication builds trust, and trust is essential for longevity and retention.

For employees to have great relationships with each other, it's important for managers to encourage open communication, build trust within their team, and encourage collaboration.

With today's remote and hybrid options, it's even more important to foster these relationships and keep connections strong, even without physical social interaction.

Does it smell like team spirit at work? Use this quick team spirit assessment template on Officevibe to find out.

12. Nurture a unique company culture

Great company culture isn't something you can force into existence. But it is something you can cultivate, nurture, and grow with the right mindset, values, and approach. Building a unique and positive culture requires consistency and initiative — and it's worth the effort!

Everyone contributes to company culture, so if you want to reap the benefits, be sure all employees feel included. You can foster a positive culture by embracing diversity and open-mindedness.

At the end of the day, your people make your company a success on both a professional and a personal level, so putting a focus on human-generated culture is key.

13. Celebrate successes

There's nothing worse than working hard day-in-day-out with little to no acknowledgment. It makes people question why they do what they do, and if they should start looking elsewhere.

But it doesn't have to be like that. Recognizing people's successes at work and sharing kind words doesn't need to take a lot of effort. And remember: it's not just the big wins that deserve all the shine. Little victories call for recognition too, and they have the power to make someone's day.

Big or small, employee recognition is a powerful tool to make people feel valued. And when people feel appreciated, they're more likely to stay on board.

✨ Add a little sparkle to a star employee's day with one of these eight tips to increase recognition in the workplace.

Implement and assess employee retention strategies

While these are all great methods worth implementing to help increase employee engagement and retain employees, you must remember that no employee retention strategy is one-size-fits-all. It's up to HR managers and leaders to craft the right retention strategy for their company and employees.

The best way to get the ball rolling is by collecting feedback through employee retention surveys, one-on-one meetings, stay interviews, and exit interviews. The data gathered is a powerful tool for recognizing what needs improvement, and taking concrete actions to help everyone feel aligned and engaged, with the ultimate goal of increasing employee retention rates.

Calculating employee retention rates

In addition to having a great employee retention strategy at play, it's also important to calculate, understand, and keep a pulse on your employee retention rate. Here's a simple way to crunch the numbers:

Step 1: Divide the number of employees on the last day of the given period (usually one year) by the number of employees on the first day.

For example: 23 employees at the end of the year ÷ 20 employees at the start of the year = 1.15.

Step 2: Multiply the number you got from step one by 100.

For example: 1.15 × 100 = 115% retention rate.

While there is no magic number, it's good to know that a good employee retention rate is considered to be 90% or higher — or, in others words, the employee turnover rate is 10% or less. A high retention rate is a great sign that your employee retention strategies are effective and that your employees are happy and engaged.

Increase employee retention with an employee experience solution

The strategies shared in this article are sure to help you increase retention if you're just getting started. Once you've implemented them, or if you're more mature in your HR practices, you can take it up a level by building a retention game plan unique to your business.

Tools like Officevibe's employee experience platform can help you get there by allowing you to gather feedback regularly, measure the effectiveness of your retention strategies, and adjust them as needed. By creating a data-driven approach to employee retention, you can continually improve your efforts to retain top talent and create a positive work environment.

Employee engagement and employee experience (EX) are popular terms in the HR space, though many people — incorrectly — use them interchangeably. EX covers all touchpoints an employee has in their role, while employee engagement measures how they feel about their physical environment, co-workers, managers, company culture, and more. A healthy employee experience encourages engagement and can provide your team and business with a bounty of positive benefits.

Understanding how employee experience and engagement relate can help you create a more positive work environment filled with a productive, engaged workforce. Below, we discuss the key elements of employee experience and employee engagement for increased retention and happiness that support positive business outcomes.

{emphasize}Learn the key elements of employee experience and employee engagement

• What is employee experience?
• What is employee engagement?
• Employee experience vs. employee engagement: What is the difference?
• Tips for creating a positive employee experience{emphasize}

What is employee experience?

The employee experience is every step an individual takes with your company, from their initial application submission to their exit interview to everything in between. A number of internal and external factors influence what employees experience during each lifecycle phase.

Let's paint a picture: imagine you work a job for 10 years, and someone asks how you felt about your role. To answer the question, you’d consider your daily life in the position, the workplace culture, each growth opportunity you received, the physical workplace, how your managers treated you, your work-life balance, your financial well-being, how connected you felt with co-workers, and so forth. All of these factors contribute to the overall employee experience.

Employee lifecycle phases

Understanding the different employee experiences in every lifecycle phase can help you understand how workers engage with their roles throughout their journey with your company. The primary employee experience phases include:

• Recruitment and hiring: In this stage, a potential hire has gone through the application process and has been in contact with the hiring team. They've maybe even met their future teammates and have gotten a better understanding of what their work-life will be like. The final step is reviewing and accepting an offer.
• Onboarding: Proper onboarding sets the stage for the rest of the employee life cycle. The way in which you train and prepare your new hire plays a huge part in their employee satisfaction and shapes their views on their role and team moving forward.
• Engagement: Employee engagement is a crucial step in any professional journey. Managers and HR leaders must work together to spark motivation and engagement in their teams. Helping people understand how their roles fit into the bigger picture and setting meaningful goals are some of the best ways to develop highly engaged teams.
• Development and growth: Your team of highly creative and skilled employees wants to feel challenged in their roles. If they don't feel there are adequate opportunities for growth within the organization, they might look elsewhere. Ask for feedback from your people to know how you can help improve their experiences and keep them around for the long haul.
• Offboarding: If an employee leaves your organization, the way you navigate this stage is just as important as any other in the life cycle. Conducting exit interviews will unlock key insights into their employee experience and could potentially help improve certain elements in the team for future hires.

Developing a healthy employee experience is multi-faceted, but it doesn't have to be scary. Dive deeper into the importance of a positive employee experience.

Employee experience factors

Creating an integrated experience across the lifecycle phases involves many factors. Employees want to feel supported by their managers with the equipment and training necessary to succeed and to feel connected with workplace culture.

The key pillars influencing a positive employee experience include:

• company culture and values
• empowerment and autonomy
• recognition
• communication
• well-being programs
• resources and technology
• training and career development opportunities

There are 11 key pillars to the employee experience. Read on to learn more about each one.

Why the employee experience matters

The employee experience directly impacts business success. According to Gallup research, teams with an increased focus on a positive experience can boost company profitability by 23%. Glassdoor data show that 77% of potential hires say the employee experience is a deciding factor.

A poor employee experience affects productivity, profitability, company reputation, talent acquisition, and much more. When employees experience top-notch encouragement and support throughout their journey, they work harder to see the company succeed.

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is a key element of the employee experience. Highly engaged employees who feel passionate about their work generally enjoy a positive employee experience. When you increase employee engagement, you can improve the entire employee experience across each major touch point.

Employee engagement primarily measures how enthusiastic and emotionally invested workers feel toward their position and their organization. Is your team giving 100% every hour because they're aligned with the company's mission and values, or are they just going through the motions of the 9 to 5?

Employee engagement factors

Many factors contribute to fostering an engaged workforce and engagement scores can come from various internal and external factors. Some of the most critical employee engagement drivers include:

• Meaningful work: When employees feel aligned with company values, engagement levels rise. Help your people rally around collective objectives and see how they contribute to the bigger picture.
• Employee recognition: It's crucial that your employees know they are valued not only for their work contributions but for who they are as people. Recognizing your employees’ dedication keeps them engaged and illuminates their value to the team.
• Psychological safety: It's of the utmost importance for employees to feel safe and secure in their work environment. Workplace psychological safety refers to a state where employees will not feel afraid of consequences for speaking up or sharing ideas.
• Work-life balance: There's nothing wrong with giving 110% in all your tasks, but employees need to feel comfortable unplugging at reasonable hours. Create an environment that allows for rest so that your team feels refreshed when they log back on in the mornings.
• Role clarity: It can be extremely frustrating for an employee to not understand the goal or intention behind a task they're performing. By emphasizing role clarity, managers can work with employees to create well-defined game plans for their short and long-term professional aspirations.

👀 Discover the other 10 key drivers of employee engagement.

Why employee engagement matters

Disengaged employees move many organizations backward. According to Gallup research, a lack of employee engagement caused businesses to lose a total of $7.8 trillion in wasted productivity. Engaged employees can increase company sales by 18%, performance rates by 202%, customer loyalty by 10%, and profitability by 23%.

Employee engagement provides many benefits for your business, including:

• better team performance
• increased employee productivity
• lowered workplace stress
• decreased employee absenteeism
• higher retention rates

The benefits of boosting employee engagement are countless. Check out these tested strategies to improve engagement on your teams.

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Employee experience vs. employee engagement: What is the difference?

The primary difference between employee experience and employee engagement is how they influence each other. Employee engagement directly contributes to the employee experience. While the employee experience covers every interaction between employees and the company, the engagement metric includes how passionately employees dive into their work.

To understand the difference between employee experience and engagement, let’s look at an example. Say you recently hired 10 employees who all went through identical hiring, training, and onboarding processes.

In this scenario, only half of the group has the opportunity to provide their managers with feedback and are recognized for their contributions. They are allowed to share thoughts during one-on-one meetings and have honest conversations about where they want to take their careers.

The other half, unfortunately, do not have the same deeper connections with their managers and members of leadership. They will inevitably lack a feeling of belonging to the organization and may complete tasks in a listless and dispassionate way.

Of the 10 employees, it is clear that the latter half of the group is actively disengaged from their work environment. If their employee experiences continue to go unnurtured, this organization will see employee turnover rise.

High employee engagement relates to lower turnover rates, increased retention, improved productivity, and boosted employee satisfaction, all leading to an excellent employee experience. Companies with strong employee experience and employee engagement rates enjoy more than double the performance levels of those who ignore these strategies.

Engagement during the employee experience journey 

Every touchpoint along the employee journey offers engagement-boosting opportunities. In today's competitive labor market, creating an excellent employee experience is what will set you apart from the rest.

Here are a few tips on nurturing engagement during every stage of the employee experience journey:

• Recruitment and hiring: Make expectations crystal clear during the initial recruitment and hiring phase. If candidates have questions, make sure you provide them with honest answers about what awaits them if they are offered the position. Even if the candidate decides not to accept the offer, if you're genuine and kind to them it will do wonders for your employer brand.
• Onboarding: Starting a new job can be a nerve-wracking time for some people. Ensure your new hire has the resources they need to get started and provide them with a list of people they can direct their questions to. You can even set up quick "coffee chats" for them with key teammates to break the ice.
• Engagement: Schedule regular check-ins with employees to gauge their engagement levels. During these one-on-one sessions, remind them that they are always welcome to share feedback on how they can improve their experience.
• Development and growth: Onboarding should not be the only time employees receive training. You can engage your teams with regular training and growth sessions that allow them to expand their skills and career with your organization. Promoting internal mobility is a great way to keep your employees engaged with the company at large.
• Offboarding: A person's relationship with an organization does not end the moment they hand in their resignation. If you want your people to leave on a high note, make sure to have the important conversation with them about their time at the company. You might be clued into invaluable insights on how to improve the employee experience for future hires.

👋 Need a hand in curating the perfect employee engagement strategy? Start by mapping out a typical employee journey at your organization with this template.

Tips for creating a positive employee experience

Improving the employee experience doesn't have to feel like a colossal task. Thankfully, you can incorporate a few simple day-to-day strategies to improve how your people feel about their roles and the company as a whole.

You don’t need to reshape your entire management strategy to create a positive employee experience. Instead, you should listen to what your team wants and take action. We recommend the following tips for creating a successful employee experience built on engagement:

1. Build trust: Trust is one of the most fundamental keys to any relationship. Create a safe space for your people, take accountability for your actions, and promote transparency to see employee engagement climb. When employees trust their managers, they remain loyal and committed. You can improve trust in your relationships with more one-on-one communication and recognition.
2. Give meaningful recognition: It's crucial to celebrate efforts regardless of the outcome. Create a culture of recognition by acknowledging your people's hard work and contributions. You can also increase recognition in the workplace by promoting peer recognition, acknowledging milestones, and recognizing efforts, not just successes.
3. Hold regular one-on-one meetings: You may chat with your direct reports on a daily basis via instant messaging or email, but it's important to get regular face time with your employees. Holding regular one-on-one meetings can help create genuine team connections and allow you to uncover any problem areas within your organization.
4. Perform stay interviews: If you get the sense that an employee might be thinking of pursuing a new professional opportunity, sit down with them and chat about their experience so far. Ask them how you could better support them in their daily projects and discuss where they see themselves further down the line in their careers.
5. Collect and act on feedback: Feedback helps you understand your team’s needs. Ask targeted questions, send surveys, and schedule one-on-one meetings to collect honest feedback and really tune into how your people are feeling. Offer transparency by showing your team the feedback results and acting on the desired changes.
6. Support employee mental health and well-being: It's crucial to support your employees’ mental health by offering more flexible scheduling and respecting individual circumstances. Work alongside your HR team to accommodate employee requests and create a healthy space for your teams to thrive.
7. Prioritize communication: Communication is key in all personal and professional relationships. Ensure that all your team members feel comfortable and confident to speak up about their opinions, ideas, and concerns.
8. Encourage diversity: Diversity and inclusion in your organization’s culture create a healthier and more positive environment for employees to thrive. You can use survey questions on diversity, equity, and inclusion to understand how your team feels about your current efforts.
9. Create mentorship programs: Mentorship programs between established and new employees help co-workers develop long-lasting relationships to feel more engaged, confident, and supported. You can try assigning mentors during onboarding so new employees have a go-to support system.

Measure your results! We recommend measuring your current state, then beginning new employee experience or engagement efforts based on your results. You can send out employee experience surveys and track key metrics like satisfaction levels, eNPS, retention rates, and more to see how your efforts improve business and employee outcomes.

Employee engagement and employee experience go together like peanut butter and jelly. You must nurture every phase of the employee journey and life cycle for a healthy, happy, and holistic experience. When employees are engaged and motivated, they are more likely to stay at the organization and can collaborate more productively with their teammates.

Prioritizing the employee experience by engaging your team doesn’t have to be hard. Learn how employee engagement software like Officevibe can take the guesswork out of understanding your team’s needs.

Despite layoffs and economic uncertainty, the stiff competition for talent can be felt across nearly every industry these days. And with reports indicating that we're experiencing an employee market, companies will need to go the extra mile to not only ensure they can attract the right people to fill open positions, but keep their top performers around for the long haul.

The key? Offer a knockout employee experience (EX).

{emphasize}Understand the ROI of employee experience and maximize it with proven strategies

• What is employee experience?
• How does employee experience impact overall performance?
• How to measure employee experience ROI
• How lg2 improved their employee experience with Officevibe
• Strategies for improving the employee experience and maximizing ROI
• Keep your people around for the long haul{emphasize}

What is employee experience?

To paraphrase a famous quote, people may forget what you said and what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. And the same can be true in the workplace.

From the very first interaction an employee has with their employer during the hiring process, to the moment they leave the company following their exit interview, these moments and everything that happens in between shape the way they feel about the organizations they work for.

Beyond a paycheque, employees need to feel connected to their workplace. Do they enjoy the company culture? Do they have a great relationship with their manager? Do they have opportunities to grow professionally? Do they have the tools they need to successfully do their job? Do they have a healthy work-life balance?

What someone learns, does, sees, and feels at each stage of the employee journey contributes to the employee experience. So let's explore why it's so important to have solid employee experience initiatives in place.

How does employee experience impact overall performance?

While a positive employee experience is vital on a human level, it also has a huge impact on a business and its revenue growth.

When employees have a great experience, they're far more inclined to do great work, which in turn reaps better results for the company. Here's how a positive employee experience creates engaged employees and impacts overall performance:

Increased productivity

When it comes to employee productivity, the equation is simple: happy employees are more productive employees. When you enjoy where you work and love what you do, you feel more driven to perform. And the proof is in the numbers: an Oxford University study found that happier employees are in fact 13% more productive.

While increased productivity is obviously great for business, it also has a domino effect on others, helping to create positive employee experiences for all.

Greater customer satisfaction

Speaking of domino effects, positive employee experience and customer experience also go hand-in-hand. When employees are happy, they feel more engaged, and in turn more invested in the company’s products and services.

Gallup research shows that this directly affects the experience employees offer customers, so much so that high employee engagement results in a 10% difference in customer ratings and an 18% difference in sales. Who can argue with numbers like that?

Better business results

Hinging on employee experience and customer satisfaction is your business’s bottom line. So what does a stellar employee experience mean in terms of business performance and profitability? Well, motivated employees are naturally more engaged. The greater the levels of employee engagement, the more the quality of work improves, and this chain reaction can boost profitability by 23%.

Higher employee retention rates

When you put all the pieces together, a great employee experience also results in higher employee retention rates. And the numbers are very telling indeed. A Gallup survey found that teams with higher employee engagement see 18-43% lower turnover rates.

But that's not all. The icing on the cake is that engaged employees are also 23 times more likely to recommend the company to others as a great place to work. Win-win!

There are a number of things that contribute to a great employee experience. It's crucial for companies to factor in the pillars of a great EX which include:

• a comfortable workspace
• regular recognition
• flexibility and a healthy work-life balance
• open and honest communication
• clear alignment on goals
• up-to-date resources and technology

How to measure employee experience ROI

When you prioritize employee experience, you're making a smart investment in your business. And while investing in a great employee experience makes sense logically, it's also important to take a closer look at the value in terms of a return on investment (ROI) for employee experience initiatives — so that they can be even further justified.

Although we already know that a positive employee experience keeps employees engaged, motivates them to do great work, and reduces turnover, we can still look at it through a numerical lens. There are two ways we suggest doing this:

Manually with data

We know that it pays to invest in your employee experience. For one, it can greatly reduce costly employee turnover. Here's how to calculate your employee turnover rate:

Step 1: Add the number of employees at the start of the year with the number of employees at the end of the year.

For example: 20 employees at the start of the year + 18 employees at the end of the year = 38 employees.

Step 2: Divide the total you got from step one in half (by 2).

For example: 38 total employees ÷ 2 = 19 employees.

Step 3: Divide the number of employees who left during the year by the outcome of the first equation.

For example: 2 employees left during the year ÷ 19 employees = 0.105

Step 4: Multiply this final number by 100 to get your employee turnover rate.

For example: 0.105 × 100 = 10.5% turnover rate.

The real costs of employee turnover can be divided into two main categories: hard and soft costs. Hard costs refer to the more tangible and easier-to-measure costs that most people consider when turnover is on the rise. Their impact is more overt and often felt sooner by the team. Soft costs, on the other hand, are largely unaccounted for or unnoticed until they lead to bigger issues.

Read more about the true cost of employee turnover and learn how you can reduce turnover at your organization.

Using a designated calculator

Our simple ROI calculator can give you quick and easy insights into the return on investment of your employee experience. To calculate your future wins, you just need to answer three quick and simple questions:

1. How many employees does your company have?
2. What's your turnover rate (%)?
3. What’s the average salary at your company?

From here, you can start implementing initiatives to foster a happy, engaged, and productive work environment and ultimately save your company money.

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How lg2 improved their employee experience with Officevibe

When lg2, an independent brand marketing agency, was more than doubling in size, maintaining an innovative and positive culture was a challenge.

With this rapid growth, remote distribution, and minimal HR support, lg2’s managers struggled to keep a finger on the pulse of their teams. One-on-one meetings weren’t enough, and town halls elicited little engagement. With Officevibe, lg2’s production team manager was able to engage employees, solicit honest feedback, and build a meeting and recognition structure that solved problems, amplified strengths, and uplifted morale.

Their production team achieved an employee retention rate over 500% better than the industry average. Productive conversations and strong relationships now define this remote team, and the manager loves that it’s so easy to keep his people happy.

Read the full story.

Strategies for improving the employee experience and maximizing ROI

The right employee experience strategy can make all the difference to your ability to attract, engage, and retain high-performing employees. So now let's have a glance at key employee experience initiatives you can begin implementing right away:

1. Have a stellar onboarding process for new employees

An exceptional employee experience starts from the word go. First impressions leave a lasting mark on employee engagement, motivation, and retention, so a simple way to start a positive employee experience off on the right foot is to ask the right employee onboarding survey questions at the beginning of the employee journey.

The employee experience begins even before your new hire logs on for their first day. A great onboarding process can make all the difference in employee retention. Learn why.

2. Promote transparent communication

Great communication is the foundation of every healthy relationship, including those in the workplace. Keeping open channels of effective communication can have a tremendous effect on the employee experience and engagement, and counter struggling employee morale.

The cornerstone of strong employee-leadership relationships is crystal-clear communication. Check out these 10 tips to foster employee engagement with effective communication.

3. Create a culture of recognition

Your employees work hard — that's why you hired them. One of the most sure-fire ways to keep your people happy and engaged is to ensure they're being adequately recognized for their efforts and contributions. While some employees may prefer public acknowledgment of their work, some might feel more comfortable with subtler more private kudos.

Start improving recognition in the workplace with these eight tips.

4. Offer professional development

Every employee needs the opportunity to not just grow in their role, but to grow in their career. So when organizations offer paths to career development, employees feel valued, supported, and more motivated. It all starts with a great career development conversation.

5. Establish a feedback system

Consistent feedback is essential to helping employees feel heard and valued. Company leaders and managers need to take their feedback and demonstrate that they're putting it to good use. An efficient employee feedback system helps you take the pulse of how employees are feeling to assess factors like employee engagement, employee satisfaction, and other metrics.

When a feedback system becomes a part of your culture, you're truly elevating the employee experience for all.

6. Conduct stay interviews

We're all familiar with the exit interview, but did you know that it's just as important to conduct stay interviews as well? While you may not be able to convince your employee from pursuing other professional opportunities, the information you gather from stay interviews can be instrumental in your engagement and retention strategies for active and future employees.

Tapping into employee satisfaction levels by asking the right questions can be eye-opening Use our stay interview template to get the conversation going.

Keep your people around for the long haul

The adage "you get what you give" definitely rings true. If you invest in your people and offer a stand-out employee experience, you will reap the benefits of a happier, more engaged, and more productive workforce. But you don't have to go at it alone. With employee engagement solutions like Officevibe, you can gather invaluable feedback, implement data-driven strategies, and measure your initiatives. These real-time insights will go a long way in reducing turnover rates and improving business performance.

If you ever underestimated the power of employee engagement, here's your sign to pay closer attention to it. It's a key factor in a company's success, and if you take it full circle, it also reflects a well-run organization. And while maintaining employee engagement requires thought and resources, it's a worthwhile investment that pays off in the long run.

Organizations that prioritize and actively work towards increasing employee engagement are proven to retain people who consistently do their best work. So, when only good things come from high employee engagement, making it part of your business strategy is a no-brainer.

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What is employee engagement, really?

When we think about what employee engagement means, the first thing that usually comes to mind is that engaged employees are happy people who feel a sense of purpose and emotional connection with the company they work for. They're invested in their work, committed to their goals, and aligned with the values of their company — and it shows.

The high-level view of employee engagement is straightforward. But what does it really mean and what goes into it? We've been studying it since the beginning of Officevibe, and here are the 10 key factors of employee engagement that portray how employees feel and how invested they are in their roles:

1. Personal growth 
2. Feedback 
3. Recognition 
4. Relationship with manager 
5. Relationship with peers 
6. Happiness 
7. Ambassadorship 
8. Wellness 
9. Alignment 
10. Satisfaction 

When you dive into each, you can uncover the areas of employee engagement that are on the rise, and those that need to catch up. Finding these gaps is the foundation of a great employee engagement strategy and is the first step towards making disengaged employees happier at work and more productive.

A deep dive into the ROI linked to positive employee experiences can revolutionize the way your organization nurtures its human capital

Breaking down the return on investment of employee engagement

Employee engagement contributes to a healthy and thriving company culture, but it's also really great for business. Employees who feel good about their contribution to the company tend to be proud of their work and feel valued, and the impacts of this are felt across the board.

By definition, employee engagement ROI is the financial profit companies gain from investing in employee engagement strategies. Employee engagement ROI can be evaluated similarly to how you calculate any other investment. So simply put, this involves dividing the profits earned on the investment by the cost of the investment itself.

While it sounds simple on paper, there are a slew of employee engagement outcomes that lead to higher employee productivity, and ultimately profitability for the business. From higher employee satisfaction (and a lower employee turnover rate) to the positive effect it has on customer satisfaction and relationships, the ROI of employee engagement matters greatly.

But before we get into measuring employee engagement ROI, let's break it down:

The higher the engagement, the lower the employee turnover rate

When it comes to employee turnover and employee engagement, the equation is simple: engaged employees are less likely to leave their job. That's why it's so important to prioritize employee engagement, satisfaction, and development.

What if your top talent isn't your most engaged talent? When you have disengaged employees, you risk losing them, which can be a huge detriment to your company. An employee who leaves an organization takes the knowledge they gained about your products, brand, processes, and customers with them. And while you may be able to train a new hire, getting them to where their predecessor was will take months, if not years.

High turnover really does take a toll on a business's success. Not only are there many hard costs associated with turnover, but it also heavily impacts the team and their ability to perform. When employees are constantly in and out, it rattles team dynamics and employee morale, leading to lost productivity and a harder time reaching corporate objectives.

Employee engagement efforts can help you retain star employees, and subsequently minimize the heavy costs of turnover. If you invest in your employees, they’ll be more invested in the company and committed to sticking around and doing great work.

💡As much as the world has changed, there’s still a lot you can do to retain talent. Don’t stand on the sidelines until things settle. Try these 5 proven strategies to reduce employee turnover.

Highly engaged employees create greater customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty can make or break a business. So if your customers have great relationships with your company and your employees, you're in a great spot.

When employees are passionate about their work, own their responsibilities, and feel engaged, they’re more likely to go above and beyond the call of duty to deliver great service and ensure customer needs are exceeded. They want your customers to have a positive experience, and your customers feel it.

In fact, engaged employees don't even have to try extra hard to improve customer satisfaction and business outcomes. Research by Oxford University's Said Business School shows that simply being in a better mood does the job, and even increases the likelihood of employees converting calls into sales.

What it boils down to once again is that nurturing your own relationships with your employees is a springboard for business success. In the words of Sir Richard Branson, "take care of your employees and they will take care of your customers". It's a positive domino effect. High employee engagement leads to solid customer relationships, which lead to a stronger ROI of employee engagement and more stable revenue for your company.

Engaged employees are innovative employees

Innovation and creativity are undoubtedly keys to success for any business. What's the correlation between employee engagement and creativity, you might be wondering? Well, when you give your employees the encouragement and opportunity to push boundaries, your company gets the competitive advantage.

Employees who are disengaged are less likely to contribute their ideas to the company, which can result in inhibited innovation and growth. The ability to innovate is an essential factor in staying competitive and boosting the ROI of employee engagement.

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Tracking employee engagement with Officevibe to reduce turnover

Sharethrough, a digital technology company, grew their team from 65 to 160 employees and counting following a merger and strong growth trajectory. With these major changes and a new, fully distributed team, their VP of People & Culture, Natacha Brind'Amour, needed the right tools and processes to keep her team happy, engaged, and productive.

Cue Officevibe. The tool that helped Natacha and Sharethrough gather all the information they needed to truly understand and act on employee sentiment.

"Tools like Officevibe that are 100% anonymous really helped us learn about our teams and make sure that we didn't have any blind spots." - Natasha Brind'Amour, VP of People & Culture at Sharethrough

The result? Sharethrough has been able to maintain a great turnover rate while sustaining above 30% annual year-over-year growth and completing a transformative merger in 2021.

Want to learn more about how Sharethrough used Officevibe to maintain its growth? Read the full story.

Best practices for improving employee engagement ROI

Knowing how important employee engagement is, it may come as a surprise to some that only 21% of employees are engaged at work. While most companies may want an engaged workforce, many of them don't actively do what it takes to get there.

Employee engagement doesn't happen out of nowhere. It starts with a great engagement strategy and requires at least a small investment — be it time, money, or both. And as we explored above, it pays to invest in your people.

It’s important to recognize employee engagement initiatives as a strategic priority and to act accordingly. Things like engagement surveys, regular feedback, individual development plans, and clear expectations on how each employee can progress within the organization should all be part of an effective engagement strategy.

Now that we have a clear understanding of why it's important to invest in your employee engagement, we can take a look at some of the best practices your company can implement to gain momentum and level up.

1. Set clear expectations

Employee engagement stems from how well employees understand their role and team expectations, why their role matters, and how to meet and exceed the expectations put in place for them. When expectations are laid out clearly, employees fully understand what they need to do and how it has a positive impact on the business.

2. Tap into what motivates your employees

Directly asking your employees what motivates them through frequent surveys can help you map out an effective employee engagement program. These surveys can help you establish clear paths for success based on what motivates them to stay engaged and grow.

Once you understand what drives people at work, assigning tasks and projects won't be based on current skill alone. You'll quickly learn that interest and desire to learn are big factors to improve employee productivity and can be the basis of a great professional development plan.

When you're ready to craft a more in-depth plan, you can schedule a career development talk to see exactly where employees envision their future.

3. Lead by example

Leaders should do just that: lead by example. Engagement starts from the top, so if employees see that their leaders aren’t engaged, it will ultimately trickle down and affect everyone else. Managers who don't appear to be engaged themselves can’t expect their employees to be either.

As a manager, it's so important to be the cheerleader your team needs and to reflect the culture you're trying to build. Always remember that highly engaged teams start at the top.

4. Establish a feedback loop

When it comes to keeping employees engaged, consistent feedback is essential. But it's also what you do with it and how you respond to feedback that really matters. As a business, you need to demonstrate that you're taking the feedback seriously and putting it to good use. This will ultimately help you build trust with your employees by showing them that you take their input seriously and are actively working towards addressing their concerns.

Embed feedback as part of your culture, so you can keep a pulse on what is happening, identify what's influencing turnover, and nip it in the bud before it gets ahead of you.

Ready to give it a go? These top strategies to create a feedback loop are sure to create a virtuous cycle of employee engagement.

5. Create a culture of recognition

A quick way to disengage your team is to leave them feeling unappreciated, especially when they do exceptional work. No one wants to feel like their efforts are for naught. It makes motivation plummet, which can have a big impact on employee satisfaction and performance.

The flip side of the coin is that you can significantly improve employee engagement (and reap all of its benefits) by recognizing and celebrating employees with intention. Recognition is a powerful thing in the workplace, and in life in general. It satisfies our fundamental human need to feel valued, while instilling pride and purpose. So if increasing employee engagement is your end game, you shouldn't skimp out on building a culture of recognition.

Employee recognition can be embedded in all aspects of work. With these tried-and-true tips to improve recognition in the workplace, it'll never be an afterthought again.

6. Conduct exit and stay interviews

Like we touched on before, the more engaged employees are, the less likely they are to leave. While it's routine for most organizations to do exit interviews when people leave, it’s just as crucial to perform stay interviews with employees who are still actively with the company.

The information you gather from the stay interviews is valuable for your engagement and retention strategies. Before employees become dissatisfied and look for opportunities elsewhere, tap into what matters to them and leverage the information to keep employees engaged and retain top talent.

Psst: Avoid getting to the exit interview stage by checking in with regular stay interviews. Guide the conversation with these six stay interview questions, so you can uncover what's keeping employees committed to their jobs, or what's causing them to feel disengaged.

Putting specific actions into play

Successful employee engagement strategies are constantly in motion. To identify what’s working and where there's room for improvement, you need to measure and assess engagement with your employees, and you must do it consistently.

Officevibe's employee engagement solution offers comprehensive tools for gauging current levels of engagement and employee productivity, which are vital to help you identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.

The employee engagement software can help you implement these best practices, build an effective engagement strategy, maintain a highly engaged workforce, and prevent employee turnover. It opens the door to frequent, honest feedback from your employees so that you can increase the ROI of employee engagement. Progress and business success are in your hands.

Time for the question of the hour: how much can you really save by investing in employee engagement? Try our brand-new employee experience ROI calculator to find out.

Employee experience (EX) is at the heart of business success, impacting everything from customer satisfaction to business performance. The experience your employees have at work is as important as your customer experience, annual goals, and employer brand — in fact, it has a direct impact on all of those success factors. Not to mention, it also affects your employee's engagement, commitment to their work, and likelihood to stay at your company.

Research shows that strong employee engagement increases profitability by 23% and reduces turnover rates by 59%. That's why modern companies make employee experience management a priority, creating personalized experiences designed to improve engagement and employee retention.

As we all move into the ever-changing future of work, employee experience trends for 2023 continue to show the importance of a human-centric workplace. Read on to learn the ins and outs of employee experience, and ways to manage and improve it.

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What is employee experience?

Employee experience encompasses all interactions a person has with an organization throughout their employee lifecycle, from their first application email right through to their exit interview. The employee experience includes the physical environment, digital technology, company culture, manager-employee relationships, career development and growth opportunities, and more.

While human resources have a role to play in shaping the employee experience, it's often a person's direct manager and immediate team that have the biggest impact. Talent management is a team effort, so you want to be sure to have the right players in the right positions — from business leaders to middle managers to individual contributors.

Assent Compliance: Revolutionizing employee experience with a feedback-driven culture and dedicated initiatives

Take a look at Assent Compliance, a company that understands the value of prioritizing employee experience.

As Assent experienced rapid growth, they recognized the importance of enhancing the work environment for their employees. To achieve this, they formed a dedicated Employee Experience team committed to creating a positive and supportive workplace.

Putting the employee journey first

Assent leveraged the power of the Officevibe platform to launch new employee experience programs. By actively seeking feedback and insights, they established a feedback-driven culture that fuels continuous improvement. As Andrew Waitman, the CEO of Assent Compliance, puts it,

"Employee experience has been instrumental in our success. Officevibe enables us to foster a culture of collaboration, improvement, and meeting employee needs."

The story of Assent Compliance showcases the transformative impact of prioritizing employee experience, especially during times of expansion.

By investing in employee experience initiatives and assembling a passionate team to drive these efforts, organizations can cultivate a work environment that nurtures employee satisfaction, engagement, and overall success.

The essence of the employee experience: Connecting with our human nature

In the modern workplace, employee experience goes beyond mere job satisfaction. It encompasses the holistic well-being of employees, including their physical, emotional, and cognitive needs. Consider:

• Providing comfortable and adjustable furniture, proper lighting, and ergonomic equipment to prevent physical strain and promote employee health.
• Implementing safety protocols, conducting regular inspections, and promoting a culture of safety to protect employees from workplace hazards and ensure their well-being.
• Offering additional resources such as counseling services, employee assistance programs, and mental health initiatives to support employees' emotional well-being and create a caring work environment.
• Implementing flexible work arrangements, promoting time-off policies, and encouraging a healthy work-life balance to prevent burnout and promote overall well-being.
• Providing training programs, workshops, and mentorship opportunities to help employees expand their skills, grow professionally, and feel challenged in their work assignments.

By recognizing and addressing these factors, organizations can create an environment that supports their employees' overall well-being, enhances the employee experience, and drives productivity. To create a positive and productive workplace, it's essential to consider the ROI from enhancing the employee experience

The role of culture and values in shaping positive employee experience

Organizational culture and values play a pivotal role in shaping the employee experience. To build a culture that works for you, consider:

• Aligning company values with employees' personal values. For example, a company that values sustainability and environmental consciousness can engage employees through initiatives like recycling programs, reducing waste, and promoting eco-friendly practices.
• Encouraging employees to share ideas, concerns, and feedback freely. This can be done through regular team meetings, suggestion boxes, or digital platforms where employees can voice their opinions and contribute to decision-making processes.
• Creating opportunities for teamwork and cross-functional projects. By breaking down silos and encouraging collaboration, organizations can enhance employee engagement and foster a sense of collective achievement.
• Promoting inclusivity, diversity, and equity. This can be achieved through implementing diversity and inclusion programs, training on unconscious bias, and ensuring fair treatment and equal opportunities for all employees.
• Reflecting their values in day-to-day operations. For example, a company that values transparency can involve employees in decision-making by soliciting their input, sharing information openly, and involving them in the planning and implementation of new initiatives.
• Integrating formal recognition programs, appreciation events, or even simple gestures like expressing gratitude for a job well done.

By actively nurturing a positive work environment grounded in shared values, organizations can enhance employee experience, boost engagement, and foster a thriving workplace.

The factors influencing a positive employee experience

True employee satisfaction doesn't just happen — it must be built. But where to start? There are a lot of factors that influence how people feel at work through the entire employee lifecycle.

Work-life balance

The reality is that attracting and retaining top talent requires organizations to prioritize work-life balance and offer arrangements that allow for that. By providing options like remote work or flexible scheduling, companies empower employees to effectively manage both personal and professional responsibilities, which is crucial to the modern employee experience. This fosters a harmonious integration between work and life, reducing stress and boosting overall happiness.

Flexibility

As above, it's no secret that work-life balance is important to employee well-being and performance. But flexibility at work is about more than helping people unwind and disconnect; it's a sign of respect. Employees with the freedom to manage their own workload, work remotely, and take time off or shift their hours when they need it feel more valued by their employer.

Culture and values

Employees want a company culture where they feel valued for not just what they do, but who they are. Beyond that, there should be clarity on what exactly your company culture is. It's important to make your company values clear, so employees know how to thrive at your business and feel they're a part of something bigger than their work.

Work environment

Even in a remote and hybrid context, the importance of a healthy and supportive working environment hasn't gone away. Digital environments are another way people experience work, and just as important to build intentionally. So whether it's at the office or from afar, be sure to make people feel comfortable and welcome.

Technology

In the digital age, people need hardware and software to support their work and enhance their employee experience. Make sure employees have access to the tools and resources they need to work effectively. Keep in mind that workplace tools are meant to work for you, and not against you. Do regular audits of the tools your teams are using and how effective they are. Don't be afraid to try new software or get rid of an old clunky one that's slowing your team down.

Communication

Communication is central to employee engagement and the employee experience. How people are given feedback, how their ideas and suggestions are received, and how goals and objectives are shared all come down to communication. It's important for business leaders to be strong communicators, but it's also important that teams have effective communication norms and that people of all levels are encouraged to speak up.

Workload and job demands

Achieving a sustainable workload is crucial for employee well-being and success. Organizations must align job demands with individuals' capabilities to ensure manageable tasks. By preventing excessive stress and burnout, companies promote a healthy work environment and enhance productivity. Striking the right balance between responsibilities and workload is essential for fostering a positive workplace culture.

Employee recognition and rewards

Hard work shouldn't go unnoticed, and increasing employee recognition is a low-cost, high-impact way to improve your employee experience. Each and every team member plays a role in the company's success, and people should feel valued and appreciated for their hard work. Recognition can be given as real-time feedback, through peer recognition, in one-on-one meetings, and throughout the performance management cycle. The important thing is to actively build a culture of recognition at your organization.

Leadership and management style

Leadership can make or break an employee's experience. By fostering trust, leaders create a positive work environment where employees feel valued and supported. Clear communication is essential in ensuring that expectations are understood and in providing guidance and feedback. Supportive management practices, such as coaching and mentoring, contribute to employee growth and development.

Workplace connections

People spend a third of their time at work. The relationships they build there are meaningful — and they have a big impact on their engagement level and happiness at work. Human connections are at the heart of building team trust and fostering strong collaboration. Make time to build genuine connections on your teams.

Autonomy

People want to feel a sense of purpose at work, but it can be challenging to achieve that when they're being micromanaged. Giving employees the autonomy to manage their workloads and navigate challenges independently shows them they're trusted. And the thing about trust is that it goes both ways — employees who feel trusted to do their best work are more likely to trust their leaders in return.

Career development opportunities

Offering training and career growth opportunities is an investment in your people. And, ongoing development is one of the most important factors in employee engagement and retention. When people see that they have a future with the company, they're more likely to do their best and stick around.

Why a rock-solid employee experience strategy is important for your competitive advantage

In today's competitive landscape, organizations need a strong employee experience strategy to gain a competitive advantage to achieve high employee engagement, better employee retention, and attract top talent, as well as improve the customer experience.

Enhanced employee engagement and satisfaction

Impact of positive employee experience on motivation and commitment

A positive employee experience creates a ripple effect, driving motivation, job satisfaction, and commitment. When employees have a positive experience at work, they feel more engaged and invested in their roles.

The link between engagement and productivity

Engagement is the fuel that powers productivity, and an effective employee experience plays a crucial role in fostering higher levels of engagement. When employees feel supported, valued, and satisfied in their work environment, their productivity soars, resulting in increased efficiency and improved performance.

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Improved employee retention and attraction of top talent

The role of employee experience in attracting and retaining high-performing employees

In today's job market, a great employee experience is vital for attracting and retaining top talent. Candidates prioritize organizations that value their well-being, growth, and development. By fostering a culture that aligns with employees' values, organizations attract skilled and motivated individuals, creating a stronger workforce.

The cost of employee turnover and its impact on organizational success

Employee turnover carries substantial costs, including recruitment, onboarding, and training expenses. A negative employee experience leads to higher turnover rates, resulting in the loss of valuable talent and decreased team morale. Investing in a positive employee experience reduces turnover, retains top talent, and fosters a thriving workplace for success.

Positive impact on customer experience

The employee experience directly affects customer satisfaction

Positive employee experiences result in excellent customer service, as satisfied and engaged employees interact positively with customers, leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. So basically, investing in your employees is investing in your customers too, which is good for ROIs and other business outcomes. An exceptional employee experience is ultimately a win-win-win!

Employees as brand ambassadors and the impact on customer perception

Positive employee experiences create passionate brand ambassadors. How come? Employees who feel good about their employee experience are happier employees all around. Their enthusiasm and dedication shine through in customer interactions, positively shaping the brand's perception. Valued and supported employees naturally project a positive company image. Brands with a strong employee experience framework gain customer trust and connection, enhancing their reputation and perception.

Employee experience at every stage of the employee journey

It's easy to think of the employee experience existing solely while employees work for you. But the truth is that the employee experience extends to every stage of the employee journey, from before they join your team to after they leave.

Pro tip: You can use employee journey mapping to get an overview of the employee experience of potential candidates, current employees, and past employees.

The stages of the employee experience journey include the following:

• Recruitment and hiring: What's the first impression your company gives to prospective employees when they see a job opening at your business? The recruitment and hiring process includes how potential hires find the application process, their communication with the hiring team, what interviews are like, and how they receive their offer.
• Onboarding: Onboarding sets the tone for the entire employee experience. How you welcome, train, and otherwise prepare employees for the job has a big impact on how they'll feel in their role and can shape employee attitudes. Great employee onboarding leads to stronger employee engagement, so it's important to give new hires a warm and supportive welcome.
• Engagement: Once an employee has been hired and onboarded, it's important to drive their engagement at work. Employee engagement is closely tied to their relationship with their manager, and enabling managers is key to improving engagement. Helping people understand the role their work has in the bigger picture and setting meaningful goals is one of the best ways to create highly engaged workers.

• Development and growth: Employee development is critical to retention and engagement. If people don't feel they can learn and grow at your company, they'll look for other opportunities where they can. This is why it's essential for managers to provide feedback in ongoing performance management and career advancement conversations with their employees.
• Offboarding: How people leave your company can have as much of an impact as how they join it. You want to have guidelines in place for employee departures, both voluntary and involuntary, to make the transition as smooth as possible. And of course, perform an exit interview to collect feedback that might help you spot signs of disengagement in the future and stop turnover before it happens.

A framework for creating a better employee experience

An employee experience strategy is not a guessing game. To create a world-class employee experience for each of your staff members, human resources and executive teams must work together on the following:

Establish a supportive and inclusive culture

Fostering open communication and transparency

This is essential for creating a company culture where employees feel comfortable expressing their ideas, concerns, and feedback. This can be done through:

• Regular updates and communication about company goals and strategies
• Open-door policies for managers
• Routine feedback surveys

Encouraging open dialogue allows for the free flow of information and promotes a sense of inclusivity within the organization. This is also a key component of feedback loops and continuous improvement which is central to a continuously evolving employee experience strategy.

Encouraging collaboration and teamwork

This is crucial for fostering a work environment that values cooperation and collective effort. Think about:

• Providing collaboration tools and platforms
• Creating cross-functional teams
• Facilitating knowledge sharing
• Creating team-building activities

Allowing employees from different teams or departments to work together and share their knowledge and expertise creates a cohesive collaborative culture all around.

Championing diversity and inclusion

This is essential for creating a workplace that values and respects individuals from all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Some approaches include:

• Supporting inclusive hiring process and practices
• Providing diversity and inclusion training
• Creating employee resource groups
• Promoting diverse leadership
• Conducting diversity and inclusion audits
• Encouraging open dialogue
• Providing equal opportunities for growth and advancement

By promoting a diverse and inclusive environment, organizations recognize the unique contributions and talents that individuals bring to the table.

Provide opportunities for growth and development

Offering training and development programs

Investing in continuous learning and professional development opportunities demonstrates a commitment to supporting employees' career growth. This could be done by providing access to:

• Training workshops
• Seminars
• Online courses
• Mentoring programs
• Attendance to industry events

These not only contribute to an individual's personal and professional development but also benefit the organization by fostering a culture of learning and innovation.

Creating clear career paths and advancement opportunities

Studies show this is a must for employee retention. By establishing transparent career paths that outline the steps and skills required for progression within the organization, employees gain clarity and a sense of direction in their professional growth.

Advancement opportunities can look like:

• Promotions
• New challenges or project
• Leadership responsibilities and roles

This not only contributes to an employee's personal and professional development but also fosters a culture of continuous learning and innovation within the organization.

Prioritizing work-life balance and well-being

Flexible work arrangements and policies

Supporting employee well-being and promoting a healthy work-life balance is non-negotiable in today's workplace. Implementing policies that support employees in managing their workload and maintaining a healthy work-life integration further enhances their overall employee experience.

These policies may include:

• Clear guidelines for setting boundaries
• Providing resources for time management
• Shorter work days on Fridays

This also acknowledges and accommodates the diverse personal needs and responsibilities of their employees, allowing employees to better manage their work commitments alongside personal obligations.

Wellness programs and initiatives

In today's fast-paced work environment, programs and initiatives that support employees' physical and mental health demonstrate an organization's commitment to the well-being of their employees and create opportunities for them to prioritize self-care. This can be achieved through:

• Fitness classes
• Meditation sessions
• Resources for mental health support

Promoting a culture of well-being also involves encouraging breaks, healthy habits, and fostering a positive work environment, achieved through:

• Encouraging employees to take regular breaks
• Providing healthy snacks or meals
• Creating spaces for relaxation

An exceptional employee experience framework not only considers the professional side of experiences but also the personal ones.

Recognizing and rewarding employee contributions

Implementing a fair and transparent recognition system

As part of performance management, recognizing and appreciating employee contributions creates a positive employee experience. This involves establishing a system that acknowledges and appreciates employees' achievements, efforts, and contributions. Recognition can take various forms, such as:

• Verbal appreciation
• Written commendations
• Formal recognition programs

Tailoring rewards to align with employee preferences and motivations

By taking the time to understand what motivates each employee, organizations can design reward programs that cater to their specific needs and preferences. This may involve offering a variety of rewards, such as:

• Monetary incentives
• Additional time off
• Opportunities for professional growth

When employees feel their preferences and motivations are taken into account within their employee experience, they are more likely to be motivated, productive, and committed to the organization's success.

Measuring employee experience: KPIs and continuous improvement

In order to create a thriving employee experience, it's essential to measure and assess key metrics that reflect satisfaction, loyalty, engagement, and overall well-being. Here are the most essential:

4 Key metrics and indicators to assess employee experience

Employee satisfaction surveys

Gathering feedback through surveys allows organizations to understand employees' satisfaction levels across various aspects of their employee experience. This includes factors like the work environment, leadership, communication, and career development.

By listening to employees' voices, organizations can address concerns and make informed decisions to improve their employee experience.

😎 Over 30,000 Officevibe users around the world answer a Pulse Survey featuring questions related to key employee engagement metrics every day!

Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)

Implementing eNPS surveys helps measure employees' likelihood to recommend the organization as a place to work. This metric provides valuable insights into overall employee loyalty and satisfaction.

A high eNPS indicates that employees are advocates for the organization, which is a strong indicator of a positive employee experience. Implementing eNPS surveys to measure employees' likelihood to recommend the organization as a place to work.

Absenteeism and turnover rates

Companies that invest in their culture see a 41% reduction in absenteeism and a 17% increase in productivity. So high rates of absenteeism and turnover may signal potential issues with the employee experience, highlighting the need for improvement.

Performance metrics and productivity measures

Did you know that companies that cultivate a positive work culture could see up to 400% in revenue growth? Analyzing performance metrics and productivity indicators such as sales figures, project completion rates, or customer satisfaction scores can reveal the effectiveness of the employee experience in driving business outcomes.

The importance of ongoing feedback and continuous improvement

By actively listening, analyzing feedback, and taking action, organizations can cultivate a workplace that values employee input and continuously evolves to meet their needs.

Below are ways to ensure you're getting the most out of your feedback approach to leverage within your employee experience strategy.

Regular pulse surveys and feedback channels

Implementing regular pulse surveys allows organizations to collect real-time feedback on specific aspects of the employee experience. These surveys provide valuable insights into employee perceptions, satisfaction, and engagement.

In addition, creating feedback channels such as suggestion boxes or anonymous feedback mechanisms fosters a culture of open and honest communication. Employees feel empowered to share their thoughts and ideas, contributing to a continuous feedback loop.

Using employee feedback to identify areas for improvement

Analyzing employee feedback is crucial for identifying trends or patterns that highlight areas within your employee experience that could benefit from improvement. By carefully examining this feedback, organizations can gain valuable insights into the experiences and expectations of their employees.

Engaging in dialogue with employees through focus groups or one-on-one conversations allows for a deeper understanding of their perspectives and provides an opportunity to gather specific suggestions for enhancing the employee experience. This collaborative approach helps ensure that organizational changes are aligned with employee needs and aspirations.

Create a memorable employee experience

The value of engaged employees can't be overstated. Investing in meeting not just customer needs, but employee needs will be a determining factor of success for businesses that want to thrive in the modern era of work.

It all starts with a better understanding of your employees, their expectations, and what's driving their engagement.

🌟 Try our effective employee experience strategies designed to help your team succeed.

Remember, the best way to keep employees happy, engaged, and dedicated to your company mission is by showing them they're valued.

There was a time when employees commonly spent their entire careers at one company. While these days are long gone, organizations still strive to retain employees for the long run. And with good reason. Companies don’t want a revolving door of employees, and employees want to feel happy, fulfilled, and motivated in their jobs. When both sides have each other’s interests at heart, great things ensue.

When the opposite happens and issues in employee experience fester, employee turnover (especially voluntary turnover) rises. High employee turnover often stems from ineffective leadership, lack of career development opportunities, toxic work environments, dissatisfaction with annual salary, or a mix of it all. And when you’re blind to how employees really feel at work, it’s easy to lose sight of these factors and how to remedy them.

Once you realize the true cost of employee turnover, it’s hard to ignore. We’re here to break it down for you.

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What is employee turnover and why does it matter?

Employee turnover looks at the changes in your company's workforce during a given timeframe, particularly the number of employees who quit an organization (or are asked to leave), and are replaced by new employees.

But if this is a normal phenomenon for any company, why does employee turnover matter? For starters, the cost of employee turnover is significant, and we don't just mean financially. While that is a major factor, it's also costly on the human front: lower employee morale, lost productivity, and a negative impact on the employer brand. While a certain level of employee turnover is expected at every company, retaining top performers is key.

Types of employee turnover

Understanding the different types of employee turnover can provide valuable insights into the reasons behind employee departures and help in developing targeted retention strategies. There are two main types:

• Voluntary turnover: When employees choose to leave the company of their own accord. They may be seeking better opportunities, career growth, improved work-life balance, or a more positive work environment. Voluntary turnover highlights factors that may be driving employees away and provides an opportunity to address those issues.
• Involuntary turnover: When employees are terminated or laid off by the organization. This type of turnover can be a result of poor performance, company restructuring, or other reasons that lead to the employer's decision to end the employment relationship. Involuntary turnover can indicate where performance management, employee development, or organizational process improvements can be made.

By distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary turnover, organizations can gain a clearer understanding of their employee retention challenges and tailor strategies to address the specific drivers of turnover.

Star employees don’t up and quit out of nowhere. Learn how to spot signs and symptoms of disengagement, and what you can do to prevent your best people from leaving.

The real cost of employee turnover

Employee turnover costs can be split in two main categories: hard and soft costs. Hard costs are the easier-to-measure costs that most people take into account when turnover is on the rise. Their impact is more overt and often felt sooner by the team. Soft costs, on the other hand, are largely unaccounted for or unnoticed until they lead to bigger issues. Let’s dig a bit deeper.

Hard costs of employee turnover

• Offboarding costs mainly include the resources and time spent on administrative tasks, like updating HR files, conducting exit interviews, removing employee accesses, and collecting IT equipment. In rare cases, these costs can also include severance pay and even legal fees.
• Hiring costs are the most obvious costs of high turnover. They include resources spent on job posting services and advertisement, applicant screening, interviews, and background checks.
• Onboarding costs are similar to offboarding ones, as they encompass the administrative resources needed to set new employees up. This includes the prep and shipping of a new hire’s computer, and all the IT and HR support they’ll need in their first few weeks.
• Training costs include the time senior employees spend teaching new hires the ropes, as well as resources associated with putting the trainings together. These are especially costly for technical positions where training timelines are longer and more rigorous.
• Benefit costs can also rack up when turnover is on a hike. If your company offers employees competitive perks like tech and furniture budgets, for example, you can expect to spend more when an employee leaves.

Soft costs of employee turnover

• Opportunity cost of employees’ time. Every cost mentioned above has the common denominator of time. Looking at the hard cost is simple. You take the hourly wage of the people involved in setting new hires up, and multiply that by the hours spent doing so. The soft cost is a bit harder to measure. It looks at the cost of what employees could be working on instead and the value you’re missing out on.
• Lower employee morale.When a team member leaves, team dynamics are likely to shift and can make remaining employees feel uneasy and unmotivated.
• Added stress. Hiring, onboarding, and training a new employee is a lengthy process. And to make sure productivity doesn’t dwindle too much, the rest of your team often takes on larger (usually unsustainable) workloads to compensate.
• Lost productivity. An employee’s value appreciates with time. The longer they stay with your organization, the more autonomous and productive they are. It takes time, sometimes years, for new employees to make up for this lost productivity.
• Lost knowledge. Similar to the point above, the longer a person works at your company, the more they know about your products, brand, processes, and more. And while some of this knowledge can be documented, it’s hard to replicate years of experience-based learnings.
• Weakened employer brand. Losing employees — especially losing a lot of employees over a short amount of time — can be jarring for the rest of your team and can also deter potential new recruits. That’s because turnover is a great indicator of what it’s like to work at your company. The larger the number, the bigger the hit on your employer brand.
• Decreased quality of work. It’s only normal for people to make mistakes, especially when they’re new on the job. And while a certain degree of error is accepted, quality control can become a bigger issue when employees are continuously replaced.
• Lower customer satisfaction. When quality fumbles, those who usually pay the price are your customers. It’s also more difficult to nurture positive client relationships when your team is constantly changing.

While the exact cost of employee turnover is based on many factors, like those mentioned above, research by the SHRM estimates that each departure costs about a third of that employee’s annual salary. Of this cost, it’s estimated that 33% covers hard or direct costs, while the remaining 67% accounts for soft or indirect costs.

Some experts, like Edie Golberg, founder of Californian talent management company E.L. Goldberg & Associates and SHRM Chair, believe the cost of replacement can be as much as four times the departing employee’s salary.

Whether your personal cost of employee turnover is 30 or 300%, or anything in between, it’s not negligible and can really hurt your business’s success. But do not fret. We’re here to help you figure out where you stand and how you can drive your company forward by prioritizing its people first.

How to calculate and understand your employee turnover rate

Before putting a strategy into play, it’s important to learn how to calculate employee turnover and understand your turnover rate. Once you have that down, you can lay out the steps needed to improve your retention rate.

How to calculate your employee turnover rate

It's actually quite simple, so get your calculators out and follow these four steps:

Step 1: Add the number of employees at the start of the year with the number of employees at the end of the year. For example: 20 employees at the start of the year + 18 employees at the end of the year = 38 employees.

Step 2: Divide the total you got from step one in half (by 2). For example: 38 total employees ÷ 2 = 19 employees.

Step 3: Divide the number of employees who left during the year by the outcome of the first equation. For example: 2 employees left during the year ÷ 19 employees = 0.105

Step 4: Multiply this final number by 100 to get your employee turnover rate. For example: 0.105 × 100 = 10.5% turnover rate.

Voluntary turnover in particular speaks volumes about employee satisfaction and employee engagement. When employees quit by choice, it’s often because there hasn’t been enough prevention. A recent Gallup analysis revealed that 52% of voluntarily exiting employees say their manager or organization could have done something to prevent them from leaving their job.

Let’s take a look at the retention strategies that are most effective in helping to reduce turnover.

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How to reduce employee turnover: 15 Proven retention strategies

In order to put together a solid employee retention strategy, we first have to understand the main reasons why employees decide to leave their company. While there are many possible reasons to quit and find employment elsewhere, these are some of the most common ones:

• Lack of career advancement opportunities
• Not enough flexibility or work-life balance
• Lack of feedback and recognition
• Poor management (or a bad manager, in particular)
• Feeling disrespected at work
• Toxic company culture
• Low salary (and finding higher pay elsewhere)
• Not allowing remote work
• Burnout

Luckily, there are several ways to address these reasons and improve employee engagement and retention, ultimately reducing employee turnover. This is part of good human resource management.

1. Hone in on employee engagement

Employee engagement is a key ingredient for happy and committed employees, leading to better retention rates. When employees feel engaged, they are connected to their work, motivated, and dedicated to their role.

Several factors drive engagement, including:

• Meaningful work: Employees thrive when they find purpose in their work and see how it makes a difference. When their tasks align with their values, they feel fulfilled.
• Clear goals: Setting clear and achievable goals helps employees know what they should focus on. When they understand their objectives and how they contribute to the organization, they feel a sense of direction.
• Clear roles and responsibilities: Employees need clarity about their roles to perform well. Knowing their specific responsibilities and how they fit into the bigger picture gives them a sense of ownership.

There are several strategies you can implement to drive engagement up, like fostering a positive work culture, providing growth opportunities, encouraging work-life balance, engaging in feedback loops, or establishing a strong recognition program.

Try our employee engagement strategies designed to help employees feel valued, motivated, and committed.

2. Make people feel valued

There’s tremendous value in recognizing great work. Every employee deserves to feel appreciated and acknowledged for their efforts and contributions to the organization, so regular recognition should always be part of the plan, and even made a priority. When employees feel valued, they also feel more engaged, motivated, and more likely to perform.

Recognition at work benefits everyone — both the employee and the company. In fact, SHRM survey findings show that 68% of HR professionals believe recognition programs positively impact retention, and 56% say it also facilitates recruitment.

Make every person feel appreciated in your organization with these 5 steps to create a culture of recognition at work.

3. Create a feedback loop

Much like employee recognition, a continuous feedback loop is another powerful tool in keeping employees, well, in the loop. We’re talking collecting opinions, suggestions, and comments from employees on a regular basis. Tap into their insights, get people on the same page, and most importantly, enhance engagement.

Two-way communication is king, and feedback is important on both sides. Giving and receiving feedback helps keep the momentum going, gets everyone involved, and acknowledges the value that everyone brings to the table. It can also help build team spirit. When team members continuously give each other feedback, it gives everyone the opportunity to learn and improve.

Creating a feedback loop can feel like a real head-scratcher if you don’t know where to start. Luckily, these 10 tips can make giving and receiving feedback an effortless part of your company culture.

Officevibe research shows that a fifth of employees do not feel that the feedback they receive helps them grow in their role, so there’s definitely room for improvement. Remember that engagement and employee development help reduce turnover — which leads to our next point.

4. Keep professional development top-of-mind

In order to not feel stuck or stagnated in a role, employees need to have the opportunity to grow. Career development helps them build and work towards professional goals, but getting there isn’t a solo mission. It’s up to the organization to create opportunities to learn and develop new skills, and mentorship can have a real positive impact.

1 in 4 employees feel they do not have the opportunity to grow within their organization.

Officevibe Pulse Survey data

Having a workplace mentor can help give employees a more solid direction in which to go. Employee development can strengthen engagement, which has a direct impact on employee retention, helping to reduce employee turnover.

Need to check in with your employees on professional development? Use our template to start a conversation about career development in your next one-on-one meeting.

5. Prioritize work-life balance and well-being

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is essential in today's professional world. It recognizes the significance of mental and physical well-being, benefiting both employees and organizations. Imbalances and high stress levels can lead to disengagement, absenteeism, and even resignations, whereas employees with a positive work-life balance are happier and 12% more productive.

Promoting well-being and work-life balance through various initiatives, such as flexible work arrangements, limits on job-related communication, and family-friendly programs, allows employees to balance personal commitments with work responsibilities. You can also implement wellness programs that focus on physical and mental well-being, including fitness challenges, mindfulness sessions, and health seminars.

Offering employee assistance programs provides confidential counseling services and resources for personal and work-related challenges. It's also important to ensure sufficient time-off policies for employees to rest and address personal matters, considering additional paid leave or extended weekends. Lastly, providing stress management support through workshops or training sessions will equip employees with effective coping techniques and empower them.

Prioritizing work-life balance and employee well-being reduces turnover, enhances productivity, and fosters engagement. A healthy and happy workforce contributes to organizational success!

Assess your team's levels of stress, workloads, and work-life balance through an employee wellness survey to identify underlying issues and provide appropriate support.

6. Build your employer brand and attract top talent

Your employer brand is a key factor in attracting and retaining top talent. It reflects your organization's values, culture, and reputation, making it appealing to job seekers.

To build a positive employer brand, you must define your employer value proposition and clearly communicate what sets your organization apart as an employer, like benefits and career development opportunities. Enhancing your recruitment practices to create a seamless and positive candidate experience will also set a good first impression. You can also leverage employee referral programs to encourage your employees to refer qualified candidates. They can serve as powerful brand ambassadors, attracting like-minded individuals and contributing to a strong company culture.

Also, you can't underestimate your online presence, so ensure your website is optimized and leverage social media channels to reflect your employer brand. Fostering employee advocacy by encouraging employees to share positive experiences on professional platforms, like LinkedIn or through online reviews, will amplify your brand's reputation and credibility, too.

By investing in your employer brand, you create a magnetic pull for talent and establish a competitive edge in the job market. It's a strategic approach that pays off in attracting and retaining the best talent for your organization.

7. Nail the onboarding process

While it may not be the first strategy that comes to mind, companies should really think about retention from the start. That includes creating a lasting first impression with a great onboarding process.

Why is this so important? The onboarding process gives employees a glimpse into the company culture and shapes their perception of their new workplace. A good first impression impacts their desire to stay, while a negative impression can lead to turnover even sooner.

Tools like Softstart can help companies structure, automate, and measure the onboarding process. It helps new employees understand the company, get a taste of the culture, train for their new role, find documents, install their tools, meet their teammates, and so much more, creating a stellar onboarding that engages new hires from day one.

8. Support and engage your remote employees

In the era of remote work, it's crucial to prioritize the needs of your remote employees to ensure their satisfaction, productivity, and retention.

To effectively support these employees, foster remote engagement through regular virtual one-on-ones and team-building activities. Enhance communication channels and promote collaboration by providing tools that facilitate efficient remote teamwork and knowledge sharing, such as instant messaging platforms and project management software. Cultivate relationship building through virtual coffee chats and informal meetings to foster personal connections within the remote team.

Regularly seeking feedback through surveys can provide valuable insights on how to cater to the unique needs of remote workers and create an inclusive environment. Find 30 remote work survey questions specially designed for that.

9. Compensate your team with fair pay and benefits

It’s no surprise that a higher annual salary (or better pay for hourly employees), benefits, time off, and other forms of compensation are motivating factors to stay at a company.

In a competitive labor market, keeping up with the market rate and compensating employees fairly is especially important. If you don’t pay your employees well, they’ll find a company that will. The research confirms this: salary is still the top reason why people consider changing jobs. But while an employee’s salary is enough to make them leave, salary alone won’t make them stay. It’s crucial to complement fair compensation with other positive factors in the employee experience.

10. Conduct stay interviews regularly

There’s something to be said for staying a step ahead. Remaining proactive at all times is a great way to prevent employee turnover. We all know that when employees leave, you conduct exit interviews to better understand the reasons behind their departure. But rather than waiting until it gets to that point, having stay interviews with current employees is a great way to better understand what’s actually keeping them at your company.

When building your retention strategies, the insights and knowledge you gather from stay interviews can really help you tap into your employees’ needs.

Not sure where to start? Here are 6 stay interview questions that are sure to give you the insights you need to have your employees stick around for the long haul.

11. Learn from departing employees with exit interviews

By leveraging exit interviews, organizations can learn from departing employees and improve their retention efforts.

These interviews enable candid feedback, allowing exiting employees to openly share their thoughts and reasons for leaving, providing valuable insights into potential issues and areas of improvement within the organization. Capturing departing employees' feedback also helps retain institutional knowledge and expertise for process improvement and information sharing.

Exit interviews enable organizations to learn, make informed decisions, and create a more supportive and engaging work environment to retain the current (and next generation) of top talent. They show you care about your employees' experiences throughout their journey at the company and demonstrate your commitment to continuous improvement.

12. Pay close attention to your company culture

Creating and maintaining a positive company culture not only helps you retain current employees, but it also plays a big role in attracting new ones.

Employees are more likely to enjoy their jobs and stay long-term if their environment is pleasant and constructive. And while workplace culture can’t be created, per se, a great culture can be fostered with the right care and mindset. Involving your team in the process is always a good idea, since they’re the ones that contribute to the vibes day-in-day-out. Encourage team bonding (even if it’s simply eating lunch together), try new engagement activities, and celebrate people’s milestones and achievements.

We’ve said it before: employee turnover lowers morale. So creating a workplace culture that promotes healthy relationships, great collaboration, and a little bit of fun can have a significant impact on business outcomes.

The distributed work reality has shifted what workplace culture means. Check out our VIBE magazine to learn more about human-generated culture in the world of remote-first work.

13. Embrace diversity and foster inclusion

Creating a diverse and inclusive workplace is not only the right thing to do, but it also leads to numerous benefits including higher employee satisfaction, increased innovation, and reduced turnover.

To promote diversity and inclusion, organizations can establish inclusive policies that ensure equal opportunities and respect for all employees, regardless of their background. Embracing diverse hiring practices by actively seeking candidates from various backgrounds and experiences can further enhance inclusivity.

Additionally, providing diversity training programs helps educate employees and leaders on unconscious biases, cultural competence, and the significance of inclusivity. Engaging in diversity and inclusion activities, like encouraging open communication within the organization and breaking down stereotypes, also fosters an environment where employees feel safe to share their unique perspectives and experiences.

Nurturing diversity and fostering an inclusive culture creates a workplace where all employees feel valued, respected, and motivated to contribute their best.

Surveys help assess how your workforce is feeling and offer an opportunity for your organization to improve its DEIB practices. Start with 21 diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging survey questions.

14. Ensure strong leadership and management

Strong leadership and effective management can guide and inspire your team, drive productivity, and create a positive work environment. But what are the key management skills good leaders possess?

First, they communicate clearly and openly, and listen attentively, establishing trust and engagement. They demonstrate empathy, provide support, and understand their employees' needs. These leaders prioritize coaching and development, offering feedback and growth opportunities. They lead by example by exhibiting integrity, accountability, and a strong work ethic, so they can inspire their team and set a positive tone for the entire organization.

Investing in leadership skill development and providing ongoing support for managers will not only benefit the leaders themselves, but also contribute to higher employee satisfaction and retention.

A refresh is always a good thing and brushing up on management skills can ensure you're up to speed with today's best practices. Check out our management skills guide that compiles up-to-date practical and human skills.

15. Listen to your employees through satisfaction surveys

Regularly conducting employee satisfaction surveys is a powerful tool for understanding your workforce, addressing concerns, boosting engagement, and reducing turnover. By asking the right questions, these surveys provide valuable insights into specific pain points, such as workload, communication gaps, or lack of recognition.

By prioritizing areas for improvement and developing targeted strategies based on survey results, you show that you value your employees' feelings and opinions and are committed to creating a positive work environment. Regular pulse surveys also allow you to measure progress over time and evaluate the impact of your initiatives.

Remember to ensure confidentiality, simplicity, and actionable follow-up steps to demonstrate that employee feedback matters and promote higher satisfaction and retention levels.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, use our 10-question employee satisfaction survey template. You can modify or add to tailor it to your company's reality.

Succeed at employee retention

We now know that the cost of both involuntary and voluntary employee turnover is significant, so preventing it by implementing these proven retention strategies is key. Once you put them into play, you can observe their impact by regularly measuring employee retention rates. In essence, the steps to follow are to establish your benchmark, make the strategic changes, and track the results.

Retention strategies are a part of good human resource management. While implementing your employee retention strategies be sure to make good use of employee engagement solutions like Officevibe that can help you boost engagement, offer meaningful recognition, and encourage sharing valuable feedback.

Here’s to creating a successful employee retention strategy!

The customer experience is arguably one of the most important elements for a business to consider and nurture if they want to succeed within the landscape of modern work. While the customer journey cannot be overlooked, organizations must apply the same energy and resources into engaging their workforce if they want to thrive for years to come.

The concept of customer journey mapping is nothing new: you use the mapping process to identify customer pain points and improve upon them. You can use this same concept with the employee journey.

Employee journey maps allow you to identify critical moments during employee experiences that affect your people and business outcomes. By identifying key stages between the recruitment process and potential exit interviews, companies can dive deeper into the employee lifecycle to identify pain points and ultimately create a better work experience for current and future employees.

What is employee experience journey mapping?

The employee journey (also called the employee lifecycle) covers every interaction an individual has with their employer brand, from the first contact to the post-employment interview. Employee journeys differ greatly between businesses, industries, and departments. For example, a new intern with minimal experience beginning a sales role will have a different journey than a seasoned exec switching companies.

The employee journey typically involves the following stages:

• Recruitment: The recruitment stage includes application screenings, interviews, and contract negotiations.
• Onboarding: The onboarding process for new hires prepares them for their role by introducing them to the company's goals, core values, culture, and processes.
• Engagement: Employee engagement happens as new members join their team, connect with co-workers and managers, and become motivated by a common goal.
• Development: As new employees settle into their roles, the development phase includes the first performance review and push toward improvement.
• Offboarding: Current employees may be seeking other professional opportunities. If they've decided to leave, exit interviews and other wrap-ups should be performed in this phase.

An employee journey map creates a holistic view of an employee's journey using simplified visualization to identify issues, plan career progression, and gain valuable insights into experiences at any given stage. To retain your top talent for the long haul, you can build an employee journey map to discover improvement areas in your employees' experience.

So, what does an employee journey map include? Your employee journey map template should arrange data relating to the most important touchpoints, employee stages, and bigger-picture focus areas. Typically, an employee journey map covers the following:

• An employee experience overview
• Employee personas with individual journeys
• Micro touchpoints for each employee persona
• General employee goals and objectives
• Improvement goals
• Employee feedback
• Improvement area insights
• Actionable strategies

The employee journey map should provide a holistic view, critical to creating a positive experience for your team. Let's explore how to include these key elements in your employee experience journey map.

Steps to map the employee experience journey

1. Define goals for your employee journey maps

Before you begin employee journey mapping, you should align your team on the context and objectives of these conversations. What do you want to achieve, and why? Your employee journey mapping goals should be specific, actionable, and measurable so you can use data models to analyze results.

We recommend using a tool to define and track goals throughout the employee journey mapping process. For example, with Officevibe's goals and OKR tool, you can set overarching objectives and then determine realistic steps toward success, for easy progression tracking and better team alignment.

Here are a few goals your company could shoot for:

• Identify the root cause of high employee turnover
• Improve the onboarding experience
• Align other departments with HR initiatives
• Help new employees understand their role in company growth
• Drive revenue growth and increase market share
• Improve employee experience and satisfaction
• Focus on more positive experiences in remote work environments
• Improve employee loyalty and reduce turnover rates

These goals may sound like lofty concepts, though by pinpointing problem areas along the employee journey map, you can develop specific strategies that align with your organizational objectives.

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2. Identify employee personas

Employee personas are invented characters portraying an average team member. You can create and use personas for diving into your employees' mindsets to better understand their problems, desires, and goals. Personas include basic demographics and descriptive details like their personal background, life goals, primary skills, and biggest pain areas.

Identifying employee personas for all major groups within your company is key to understanding employees' experiences. Personas help you appreciate how your employees' journey stages and touchpoints vary. You may have a persona for each company department and skill level.

For comprehensive employee experience insights, you can include the following details with each persona:

• Name
• Job role
• Age range
• Education
• Years of experience
• Location
• Expected income
• Preferred technology
• Career goals
• General worries
• Frustrations with the company
• Skills
• Hobbies

3. Outline the employee journey stages

Now that you've explored the employee experience and understand who your team members are, you can begin outlining their exact journey stages. You should develop a separate employee journey map for each persona since their experiences will be unique. The employee journey map can include bigger-picture concepts, like their professional development or career objectives, the pain points they experience, and the phases they move through with the company.

Follow these steps to outline the employee journey stages:

1. Define upper-level stages: While each persona will have a different employee journey, the upper-level stages will remain the same. Think about the main processes every employee must follow: hiring, onboarding, etc.
2. Add details to each stage: The details within each stage are how you discover improvement areas. For example, for the hiring process, consider the initial contact, screening methods, the job interview, the offer process, etc.
3. Map stages to persona goals: Now that you've created a detailed employee journey map template, you can tailor the information to each persona's goals and expectations. Map the data across each of your personas, contextualizing the details based on their personal needs, goals, and challenges.
4. Locate problem areas: Once you see the employee journey map through the eyes of all your employees, you can see what issues they have. For example, an employee might be struggling to engage in their role after a few months due to a lack of team alignment.
5. Develop solutions: After identifying specific challenges from your journey map, you can develop strategies and solutions. Using the previous example, your solution may be to incorporate more group meetings and collaboration tools to create better alignment with the team.

The above steps can seem overwhelming at first, but they offer resounding positive effects for your employees, teams, and for the overall health of your business. We recommend using an organizational tool to keep all your information in one place for easier mapping and tracking. For example, you can use visual collaboration tools like Miro boards to create and repeat your journey map templates across each persona.

4. Gather feedback on the employee experience

Identifying problem areas by looking at a map will only get you so far. You need to learn from your employees which changes they'd like to see. Employee feedback tools like pulse surveys, anonymous feedback channels, and one-on-one meetings help gather invaluable insights into the employee experience at each stage.

For example, you can use onboarding feedback surveys after training new employees to see how team members feel about that phase in their journey. With targeted questions, open-ended responses, and anonymous settings, you can discover minor pain points you may not have located on the map. For example, a few employees may respond that the software used for training is challenging and requires additional support — which is a fairly simple fix.

You can gather feedback for each stage of the employee journey to measure how your improvement plan performs. By asking the right employee experience survey questions, you can get into the nitty-gritty details of each phase.

At Officevibe, we simplify developing insightful and engaging custom employee surveys so you can take the guesswork out of your employee experience strategy.

5. Take action and measure results

Once you've gathered your feedback, it's time to put the pieces together and spring into action. Establish initiatives with realistic scopes and timelines that can help you improve the overall employee experience based on the problem areas you've discerned. Set milestones and identify key metrics that you can incorporate into your employee experience template to help you measure your team's engagement.

6. Follow up on progress

While it's extremely important to keep tracking trends and fluctuations in your employee experience over time, it's vital to follow up on your initiatives so that you can see if they're worth the time and resources you've put into them. Following up on the progress of your initiatives also boosts transparency and keeps the members of your organization collectively accountable for fostering a better employer brand and improving the employee experience.

Example of an employee journey map

For this employee journey map example, we will use a persona called "Sam." You just hired Sam and they start on Monday. During the onboarding phase, their employee journey may look something like this:

OnboardingObjectivePrepare new hire for their role by introducing them to the company's goals, core values, culture, and processes.Employee expectationsSam expects to meet their colleagues, learn more about their role and team culture, and ensure they're a good fit with the organization.TouchpointsSam will engage with their HR reps, new manager, and colleagues.Action itemsHR and other members of the organization provide Sam with resources to start their role.Pain points/barriersSam may have to take in a lot of information in a short period of time, which may be overwhelming.SolutionsSam can work with HR and their manager to organize the intake of information in a more realistic fashion.Follow-upsHR will check in with Sam after their first week to ensure they have all the tools and resources to dive into their role.

You can answer any concerns and engage new employees by providing the right onboarding touchpoints, motivating content, and measuring tactics. Applications and tools like Softstart help you build a more personalized onboarding experience and shows your new hire that you're committed to their employee experience.

This process applies to all different phases of the employee journey, so analyze each in-depth. You can use this employee journey map template to learn more about the employee experience at your organization.

Build the best employee experience

Employee journey mapping is the best way to develop a successful employee experience strategy. By gathering feedback through targeted surveys, locating problem areas, and measuring results, you can improve each phase in the employee lifecycle and create better experiences for your employees.

Keep making the employee experience a priority at your organization with tools that make it easy to gather insightful employee feedback responses with customizable templates, anonymous surveys, goal alignment, meeting support, recognition tools, and more.

A positive experience is a powerful thing. In any context, it's one that we tend to think of favorably and are happy to repeat. Think of your favorite restaurant for a second. Yep, the one with the cozy ambiance, the waiter that always greets you with a smile, and the fresh food that's second to none. It's the overall experience that keeps you coming back.

The same is true at work. Fostering a positive employee experience attracts the right people and ultimately keeps them at your company in the long run. While competitive salaries and great benefits are important to upkeep, they're easily replicable. The overarching experience your employees have with your organization is what's bound to set you apart.

Having a memorable employee experience is a win-win for all. It makes people happy, motivated, and productive, which naturally increases employee retention, customer engagement, and profitability.

Want to drive your business there? Follow our tried-and-true best practices to foster a positive employee experience and happy company culture.

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12 best practices for enhancing employee experience

The employee experience best practices you adopt can have a huge impact on creating a positive experience, encouraging employee engagement, and boosting job satisfaction. These simple yet effective tips apply to new employees and longstanding team members alike, so being mindful at each step is important.

Keep these 12 best practices in mind when building your employee experience strategy:

1. Make first impressions count

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so making it count off the bat is key. In the workplace, creating a positive employee experience starts with the hiring process. Are your job descriptions representative of the roles you're hiring for? Do you keep a clear and open line of communication with your candidates? Do you share relevant feedback at each stage of the hiring process? Start with asking yourself these questions and tackling the basics.

Your first interactions are also a time to establish fit and connection. It's when you should share your company values, stance on equal opportunity, mission and vision of the future, and all the fundamental elements that make your organization what it is. Making this clear from the get-go ensures alignment from day one and sets your new hires for long-term success at your company.

2. Ensure role clarity

If you're looking for a sure-fire way to put employees on a path to great performance, you need to make their roles crystal clear. Role clarity helps them understand what is expected of them, what tasks they’re responsible for, how their work impacts their own goals and those of the company, and how they can expect their work to be evaluated.

Establishing role clarity and key performance indicators also makes every part of the employee journey smoother. During onboarding, role clarity leads to quick integration and employee engagement. Once team members are in full swing at work, understanding what their main purpose is gives them a sense of accountability, and ultimately helps them be more productive. And finally, in the development phase, clear roles lead to clear career goals and objectives.

Align on goals and expectations with a handy one-on-one template for clarifying roles and responsibilities.

3. Equip and enable managers

A huge part of a healthy employee experience stems from the quality of personal relationships team members establish with one another — and perhaps most notably with their managers.

Ensuring successful, healthy relationships between employees and their managers starts with equipping managers with effective managerial and communication skills. When employees feel respected, supported, seen, and heard by their leaders, it has a significant impact on positive employee experiences.

No matter their level of experience, you should provide managers with the tools they need to effectively engage their employees. The right training, conversation guides, and toolkits can help managers grow their own skills, so they can better provide professional and personal support, give honest feedback, and play a meaningful role in the employee journey.

🔑 This best practice is so key that we recently explored why manager enablement should be a top priority in 2023.

4. Champion internal communications

Good communication is at the heart of the strongest and longest standing relationships. This is true at work, too. For the sake of consistency and transparency, it really pays to standardize processes so that all employees feel included and informed.

We're talking about making important information easily accessible, sharing company announcements in a clear and timely way, and giving employees and managers the tools they need to communicate effectively with each other.

It's especially important that employees frequently feel heard and able to engage in effective two-way conversations with their leaders and peers. This starts with a supportive environment, proper listening (which is something we can all improve on!), and the right tools to enable it.

Advance your employee experience and ignite meaningful conversations with Officevibe's leadership and conversation tools.

5. Promote team collaboration and trust

Without trust at work, your teams won't pass the vibe check. A huge part of employee satisfaction comes from being part of a team you trust and enjoy working with. While building trust does take time, it's easier to foster when it's prioritized from the start. To get there, managers and organizations should encourage collaboration between new hires and their teams to start building trust right away.

Building strong, trusting relationships in the workplace takes a human touch, authenticity, and empathy. When you have these, employee engagement goes up, as do retention and business outcomes.

Create a team culture worth raving about with these 5 strategies to build team trust and boost collaboration.

6. Make employees feel valued

Engaged employees are ones who feel valued, recognized, and acknowledged for doing meaningful work. They not only have great personal experiences at work, but they also give back to the broader employee experience. That's because proper employee recognition contributes massively to employee engagement and a positive workplace culture. Employees who feel valued at work are usually happier, more collaborative, and less likely to search for employment opportunities elsewhere.

Recognition programs offer great outlets for teammates to share a little love and appreciation. From listening and taking action on employee feedback, to sending personalized "thank you" messages, to celebrating important milestones, there are tons of ways to increase recognition in the workplace.

A delightful way to say thanks

Officevibe's recognition features let you reward the little deeds and outstanding successes alike.

With prompts like "Who radiates positive energy?" and "Who's been bringing their "A" game lately?", your team can celebrate real moments, without cloaking it with corporate.

7. Provide a supportive work environment

Remote employees and those who prefer going to the office both need a supportive work environment to thrive. Everyone should have the freedom to work in the way that's best for them, whether they need a comfortable space to collaborate, or the privacy to work without distraction.

A supportive work environment is far more conducive to encouraging employee engagement and creating a positive employee experience. It's a place where employees can feel confident going to their managers with their concerns, and where employees are recognized for their hard work. It cultivates growth and encourages healthy work-life balance, which takes us to our next best practice.

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8. Prioritize health and well-being

Health is wealth, and at the end of the day, nothing is more important. That's why prioritizing employee wellness has become more of a focus than ever before.

Leaders should support employees through consistency in a healthy company culture. This means regularly checking on their well-being, creating a caring environment where employees feel comfortable expressing themselves, and offering schedule flexibility to accommodate their physical and mental health needs.

Employees with healthy work-wellness balance tend to be happier in the long run. And happy employees are more likely to be engaged, take initiative, and have positive interactions with others. Making sure employees have access to the tools, resources, and support they need is a worthwhile investment on both a human and business level.

Take a pulse on your workforce's wellbeing, keep tabs on company-wide metrics over time, and use feedback to develop your wellness programs with employee wellness surveys.

9. Listen to your employees

As we touched on before, employees who feel truly heard and acknowledged have a far more positive employee experience. Employee feedback is beneficial for both sides, so keeping communication channels open is key. You can collect feedback through regular one-on-one meetings between managers and their employees, pulse surveys, and even anonymous channels.

Gathering feedback allows you to understand what your employees really want from their roles, their manager, or the company in general. It can help you understand what inspires and motivates them, as well as the things that are holding them back.

Consistent listening and acting on employee feedback are huge factors in maintaining a great employee experience.

Give your teammates a safe space to share their honest thoughts using an anonymous employee feedback tool like Officevibe.

10. Set a performance management process in place

While the idea of performance evaluations might seem daunting to some, they actually play a key role in employee development and growth. Fair and transparent evaluations can build employee confidence and strengthen manager-employee relationships.

Performance management includes frequent performance reviews to give employees clear benchmarks on their progress. By having performance chats on a regular basis, everyone will be better acquainted with the process and less intimidated by it. Setting clear expectations leaves no room for surprises, as does being properly prepared.

We've put together 10 tips on how to handle performance review meetings with your employees to help you do just that.

11. Provide career development opportunities

If you want employees to be in for the long haul, you need to give them the opportunity to grow. Honing in on each employee's strengths and skills, helping them build knowledge and expertise, and providing ample training improves the employee experience and helps establish loyalty.

Development programs give employees a better vision of their future with the company. So it's important that managers support and guide them in their professional growth. Regular coaching, feedback, check-ins, training tools, and courses should all be available to your employees to make sure they're getting the enriching employee experience they deserve.

Are employees feeling stuck in their roles? Is your organization growing and thinking of opening senior positions? Are people looking for opportunities elsewhere? It may be time for your managers to have the career development talk with their team members.

12. Nurture diversity, equity, and inclusion

Perhaps above all, a positive employee experience comes from feeling truly comfortable, safe, and valued at work, regardless of who you are. When employees' differences are not just respected, but also celebrated, they have the opportunity to shine. A diverse team also offers different perspectives and helps overcome challenges more rapidly, which drives the entire company forward.

Everyone should feel welcome and included, which is why diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and training are non-negotiable in the workplace and a key element of a healthy employee experience.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion surveys give you the feedback you need to inform your DEI policies and initiatives. Pull from these 21 DEI questions so you can regularly take note of everyone's thoughts and sentiment.

The benefits of a great employee experience

The benefits of a great employee experience are abundant for both companies and employees:

Increased employee engagement

Employee engagement is the cornerstone of success, and employee experience is a huge factor in this. A Gallup study revealed that 65% of employees are disengaged, which highlights the drastic need to make employee experience a top priority.

Higher productivity

You hear it time and time again: happy employees are more productive employees. It really is true, though. A study by Oxford University found that happier employees are in fact 13% more productive. It's no secret that increased productivity is great for business, but it also adds to an overall feel-good experience for all.

Lower employee turnover

High employee retention is a reflection of a great employee experience. Gallup surveyed 2.7 million employees and found that engaged teams benefit from 18-43% lower turnover rates. And as an added bonus, they also found that engaged employees are 23 times more likely to recommend the company to others as a great place to work.

Enhanced customer experience

Every business wants to offer the best experience to both their customers and their employees. And the two go hand in hand. When employees are happy, they feel more engaged and invested in the company's products and services, which has a knock-on effect on the experience they offer customers. Highly engaged teams achieve a 10% difference in customer ratings and an 18% difference in sales.

Better business results

We know your business's bottom line is important. The good news is that you can have an impact on it by curating a stellar employee experience that motivates employees and keeps them engaged. The more motivated employees are, the more the quality of their work increases, which can boost profitability by 23%.

The impact of a highly engaged workforce on business outcomes can be staggering. Discover how to effectivelyquantify the ROI of employee experience in our comprehensive blog post.

Improve your employee experience with data-backed software

Embracing and implementing these employee experience best practices should be part of your employee experience strategy. An employee experience platform like Officevibe offers effective tools like pulse surveys, anonymous feedback, and guides for one-on-one conversations to help you keep track and improve your employee experience at all times.

With your busy schedule, and a million and one tasks, every second counts. Let technology take care of capturing your employees' sentiment regularly, so you can focus on building out your employee experience strategies.

Over the past year, Officevibe has been partnering with Oyster HR to bring insightful content to both our audiences. Their expertise in distributed work pairs beautifully with our knowledge of employee experience. We're thrilled to have Kim Rohrer, Head of Employee Experience at Oyster HR, collaborate on our blog to share some of her insights on their transition to a distributed work model and how they maintained their company culture.

With remote and distributed work becoming more common, HR and People teams will need to double down on fostering a strong company culture — especially as companies expand across borders and around the world. How do you create and maintain a common set of values and a consistent experience across geographies, time zones, languages, and cultural norms without a co-located office to serve as a nucleus for company culture?

During the year and a half, I’ve been at Oyster, first as Interim Head of People and then as Head of Employee Experience, I’ve seen our team grow from 75 people in 30 countries to almost 700 people across 70 countries. That kind of hypergrowth is just mind-boggling, but I’m especially proud of the culture we’ve built, guided by our values and a strong sense of mission. Of course, it requires hard work and it hasn’t been without serious growing pains, but the challenges of scaling are all part of the process.

Looking back on the journey, here are some tips and insights I’ve learned firsthand on establishing, maintaining, and evolving company culture as your distributed team grows. 

{emphasize}How Oyster boosted their company culture

• What is company culture?
• What does company culture look like in a distributed environment?
• Handling the growing pains of distributed team culture
• Strengthening trust in distributed teams
• Belonging as a priority in distributed organizations
• Tips for maintaining and evolving culture as your distributed team scales{emphasize}

What is company culture?

Culture is hard to define because it’s something you feel rather than see. In fact, an organization’s culture is made up of all the things you don’t see, but which operate behind the scenes to shape your employee experience.

People sometimes think culture is about the employee-of-the-month award, the perks you offer, or the parties you throw. But those things are merely a reflection of your culture. The real heart of your culture is what determines the actions or behaviors that will be recognized and celebrated as opposed to being questioned or course-corrected. The culture determines how you hire people as well as how you handle terminations. The culture is not the perks or benefits — it’s how you choose the perks and benefits you offer, and all of the intentional (and unintentional) choices you make regarding the way you support people. Of course, all of this is true regardless of whether a company is co-located or distributed. But when you can’t rely on physical proximity to provide visual cues and cultural signals, you have to work a little harder to fill in the gaps.

Creating culture is not the responsibility of People teams alone — every single employee is a carrier and steward of team culture and has the potential to impact the direction in which your culture grows. That said, it’s important to have guideposts and guardrails from management; a company’s culture and values should be fully embodied by its leaders and executives, which will help set the tone for the rest of the organization.

What does company culture look like in a distributed environment?

In an office-based workplace, it’s easier to feel the company’s culture by virtue of being physically together and having countless casual micro-interactions throughout the day. A shoutout in an office meeting might lead to a spontaneous celebration of a colleague, which isn’t possible in quite the same way on Zoom.

In a distributed environment, you have to work harder to make your culture visible since you can’t rely on casual interactions, spontaneous occurrences, or visible artifacts on the office wall. You have to work harder at documenting your culture, celebrating wins, and recognizing strong efforts. The work of building and maintaining culture needs to be much more intentional.

Of course, cultural norms and habits can and do develop organically in a distributed workplace. Whenever human beings come together and interact with each other, a culture will develop based on how they work, how they communicate, how they collaborate, and so on. This will happen naturally whether you want it to or not. But what can (and should) be intentional is choosing the behaviors you want to celebrate and champion versus the ones you want to discourage or adapt. The important thing is to focus on elevating the behaviors and attitudes that reflect your intended culture by making them visible and accessible.

Handling the growing pains of distributed team culture

If a distributed company is going through a period of hypergrowth, it can be quite challenging to maintain the culture. When you add new people one at a time, it’s easier to bring them into the fold and have them adapt to the existing workplace norms and expectations. The new hire absorbs the institutional knowledge held by tenured employees and soon becomes an active participant in carrying out and shaping the culture. Conversely, if you have many new people joining very quickly, then the ratio of tenured to new employees shifts quite suddenly, and it can have a destabilizing effect. It’s harder to thoughtfully train and absorb recent hires into the existing culture when a high percentage of your employee base is relatively new.

When a company is growing quickly, it’s important to keep a close watch to ensure that team subcultures remain consistent with the broader culture you’re trying to uphold. Of course, some variation is normal and healthy, but ideally, it should be consistent within the umbrella of the overall company culture. For instance, if the company encourages work-life balance but a particular team lead expects staff to work unsustainable hours, it can create a disconnect that negatively impacts the employee experience.

So how do you maintain culture during rapid growth? Ideally, team and department leaders should be fully bought into the company culture and values, and actively involved in sustaining the culture and upholding the values as they bring new people on board. By acting as stewards and ambassadors of company culture, they can help ensure coherence and consistency across the organization.

At Oyster, we’ve experienced the growing pains of hypergrowth and sometimes the way a team operates might be inconsistent with the broader company culture and expectations. If that happens, the Workplace team (which looks after traditional People functions as well as the operations and infrastructure required for a successful distributed workplace) gathers employee feedback to understand the discrepancies and then works with the team’s management to realign objectives. This way, we can ensure a more consistent employee experience across the organization.

Strengthening trust in distributed teams

Trust is foundational for distributed teams because when you can’t see your teammates in person, you have to feel confident that your coworkers are each doing their part — and doing so effectively and in line with the company’s values.

As a globally distributed organization, building trust is one of Oyster’s core values. On the Workplace team, earning and maintaining trust is always top of mind. We build programs, products, and processes with a high level of integrity and consistency so that we can continue to build trust both within the Workplace team and from the Workplace to the rest of the organization. We know that a trustworthy Workplace team impacts both the high engagement and strong culture we have at Oyster.

One expression of this is our “Follow the Sun” philosophy. This is our internal process of handoffs and collaboration based on trusting your coworkers to pick up your work and carry it forward while you’re offline. This process has four pillars: project management, handoff, meetings, and connection — all of which help us avoid the “always on” trap that many distributed teams can fall into. 

The people I work with on a daily basis are spread all over the world — I’m based in California and I have colleagues in other parts of the US as well as Scotland, Nigeria, Serbia, Cyprus, and Australia, just to name a few. Sometimes we have no overlapping hours and it’s not possible to have synchronous meetings, yet we are able to work together and collaborate with relative ease — thanks to having a very intentional set of operating principles.  Distributed teams need to have incredibly high levels of trust in order to enable autonomous work, and to allow employees to feel safe and build connections despite the distance and time zones that separate them.

Belonging as a priority in distributed organizations

A common misconception about belonging is that you have to find people who are similar to you and who will understand you innately by virtue of your shared demographic characteristics. In reality, belonging isn’t about sameness; it’s about acceptance. It’s not about having a similar background, culture, hobbies, or interests; it’s about feeling like you are valid and valued, that you are good enough, and treated as a respected member of the team. A sense of belonging derives from being seen, accepted, and welcomed as you are.

As teams grow and expand into different countries and time zones, it’s vital to prioritize belonging and build an inclusive culture. It’s not just about having inclusive policies, but also inclusive practices. This might mean bringing awareness to who you’re naturally inclined to include, and considering how you can expand that to the entirety of your team. It might mean finding people who challenge you or have very different lived experiences from your own and finding ways to bridge those gaps. 

In other words, trying to establish community and belonging across differences, requires an environment of trust, safety, understanding, and acceptance.

Tips for maintaining and evolving culture as your distributed team scales

Let’s explore how can you build a stronger, more connected company culture as your business grows and expands in terms of size and demographics. 

1. Identify what you want your culture to be

Identify and focus on the best parts of your culture, and how you celebrate them in visible and public ways, both internally and externally. How are you reinforcing the things that are going well? And how are you course-correcting when things are not going the way they should? Just as it’s important to celebrate what’s good, it’s also necessary to be accountable to your values if things aren’t going well.

2. Encourage everyone to be stewards and ambassadors of your culture

Culture isn’t created or maintained by People teams alone! Everyone in the organization plays a role in shaping company culture. Encourage and empower people to become active participants so that each individual feels they have something to contribute to making the company the best it can be.

3. Agree on a plan for accountability

It’s important to have a plan for how to hold yourself accountable to your culture and values. The People team can help the executive team figure out what it means to live the company’s values, and then agree on a plan for accountability — how to safely call each other out in a trust-based environment that assumes the best intentions. The details will depend on the culture you’re defining, but the important thing is to make sure there are both celebrations as well as accountability.

4. Measure engagement and seek feedback from your team

How do you know if your culture-building efforts are working? Make sure you put mechanisms in place to measure engagement and get a pulse on the employee experience. Intuitive platforms like Officevibe make it easy for People teams to collect feedback and measure engagement across an organization.

In the long term, building and committing to a clearly-defined culture that’s rooted in your values will help ensure stability, consistency, and continuity as your company grows and expands. It’ll pay off in terms of employee well-being, job satisfaction, productivity, and business success. And it’ll feel good, too.

About Oyster HR

Oyster is a global employment platform that enables companies to hire, pay, and take care of brilliant employees — wherever they are in the world. As a fast-growing company, you need an all-star team to help you reach your full potential. Instead of battling over top local talent, broaden your talent pool with Oyster—the all-in-one global employment platform that allows you to hire compliantly, pay instantly, and provide localized benefits to your team in 180+ countries.

About the author

Kim Rohrer is a passionate people person with over a decade of experience building inclusive, sustainable, values-based company cultures at tech companies and beyond. She is currently the Head of Employee Experience at Oyster and is also the founder of and advisor to OrgOrg, a global community of over 3,500 people operations professionals. Kim believes fiercely in holistic support for working caregivers and is proud to be a part of the movement to create change as a cofounder at TendLab. Her eclectic career has taken her from theater to tech, always with the common threads of community and care.