Employee experience

What is employee experience?

Employee experience encompasses the full array of a person’s activities, interactions (both physical and digital), and general impressions at work. Just as companies focus on optimizing customer experience so as to retain their customer base and minimize their churn rate, businesses are increasingly applying that mindset internally, focusing on giving teams the best employee experience possible in order to keep them engaged, satisfied, and thriving in their workplace. 

What are different ways to gauge employee experience? 

There are a variety of means available for managers and human resources teams to gauge employee experience. Some of these involve gathering qualitative feedback. Companies may, for example, institute a system of regular check-ins between managers and their direct reports. They can also solicit employee feedback around some given aspect of the workplace–be it a best practice, a new piece of software, an element of company culture, etc.–either in-person or through a digital feedback management system.

Managers can also measure employee experience quantitatively. For example, product analytics provides insights into how employees are experiencing and engaging with software. Usage data can shine a light on both the time individuals and teams are spending within apps and the workflows in which they are taking part. In assessing this data, managers may see particular areas in which employees are struggling. They may also see workflows vastly different from the company’s documented best practices. Depending on how the data looks, in-app guidance or some other form of intervention may be needed to improve the employee experience around a certain app or process.

How can one improve employee experience? 

A digital adoption solution (also known as a digital adoption platform) is a great tool to improve employee experience. On the front end, a digital adoption solution lays on top of another software product, app, or website, guides users through key tasks, and provides contextual information as users navigate the product. The best digital adoption solutions offer customizable guidance and segmentation, so that managers can get the right information to the right employee at the right time. 

On the back end, the best digital adoption solutions provide robust analytics from which managers can glean real insights about employee experience and how to improve it. In order for company leadership to be able to truly understand how employees are behaving at work, a digital adoption solution should offer not just mere data around individual apps at truncated points in time, but rather let managers understand the full flow of work across time.

What is employee satisfaction?

Employee satisfaction is one aspect of employee experience. It refers to the level of happiness and fulfillment people find at their workplace. Maintaining high levels of employee satisfaction is crucial in order for a company to draw in the best new talent and to minimize employee churn.

How does one measure employee satisfaction?

Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is a popular metric for gauging employee satisfaction. Similar to the customer-focused Net Promoter Score, eNPS asks employees to rate how likely they are (on a scale of 1 to 10) to recommend their employer as a good place to work. Employees who rate their company 9 or 10 are promoters; those who rate it 7 or 8 are passives, and those who rate it 6 or below are detractors. Managers can calculate their company’s eNPS score by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.

Although a useful metric to get a basic understanding of employee satisfaction, eNPS gives limited insight into what is animating sentiment–be it positive or negative. In order to gain a deeper understanding of employee satisfaction and how to improve it, a digital adoption solution is the ideal tool. Not only can robust analytics indicate pain points that may be driving satisfaction down, but the comprehensive feedback management that a digital adoption solution provides allows change managers to see how well guides, trainings, and apps themselves are serving the needs of employees. With access to this important feedback, managers can then optimize their internal toolset to make sure that employees are growing, thriving, and drawing meaning from their work.

Where can I learn more about employee experience?

For those looking to learn more about employee experience, Pendo has published information on how to navigate the shift to the digital workplace and how digital adoption solutions help employees thrive.