Originally published May 2022, updated June 2023
Throughout the early 2020s, the pandemic paired with social upheavals and shifting worker priorities led to climbing turnover rates. As companies across all industries struggled with retention, more were forced to care about their employee experience (EX). While many organizations have long understood the importance of their client and customer experience (CX), less realize how essential their EX is to success—and slacking on EX is growing riskier.
Why? Unengaged employees can harm your ability to deliver positive CX. And declining retention rates can lead to low morale and instability among your workforce. Winning at EX stabilizes and engages your workforce while increasing your chances of scoring a great CX.
3 Tips to Get Data and Feedback on Your Employee Experience
To begin, get a solid understanding of where your EX currently stands. Identify what you’re doing right, where you have space to improve, and where your biggest risks lie. By capitalizing on what you do well and learning how you can improve from your employees, you can improve engagement, boost employee wellbeing, and better support DEI initiatives. Do this by gathering both objective quantitative data (rating numbers) and subjective qualitative employee feedback (comments).
One of the simplest, fastest and most sustainable ways to obtain essential EX data is an employee survey program. Use these three tips to execute an employee survey that maximizes its positive impact on your firm:
1. Don’t go too general. Do get specific with your questions.
Vanilla questions yield vanilla feedback. Go deeper. Invite feedback on specific aspects of your EX, including opportunities for growth, benefits and perks, and your firm’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. DEI plays a major role in EX and engagement. Research shows that inclusive companies are more likely to coach people for improved performance and to identify and build leaders—both factors contribute to better retention rates. So include questions that help assess your firm’s DEI performance and ask for specific feedback on how you can improve these efforts. Then be prepared to act on your employees’ feedback.
2. Don’t ask for names. Do keep things anonymous.
When you launch an employee survey, you want real, honest feedback—right? Well, you’ll be more likely to get it if you keep responses anonymous. This gives your employees the freedom to give candid feedback without fear of retaliation. In fact, studies have shown that anonymous surveys “promote greater disclosure of sensitive… information compared to non-anonymous methods.” Plus, employees who typically don’t like to draw attention to themselves are more likely to share, generating higher overall disclosure rates and more accurate results. When you give your staff peace of mind that their feedback is anonymous, you’ll likely see an increased response rate and more honest feedback—two elements that go a long way in transforming your EX efforts. Working with third-party survey providers can both ensure that anonymity is protected and help your employees feel more comfortable sharing their feedback.
3. Don’t overcomplicate EX reports. Enable ongoing tracking and unlock clear comparisons by keeping it simple.
Implement an employee satisfaction metric like Employee Net Promoter® Score (eNPS) that can be tracked over time and compared across teams within your firm. Keep in mind that a simple metric doesn’t keep you from segmenting data to gain valuable insights. On the contrary, it makes slicing and dicing data easier, giving you the ability to compare eNPS scores by department, office location, or demographics like gender, race, and age. Segmenting data groups can help you identify and learn from bright spots as well as draw out insights on exactly where you need to make improvements. It also unlocks the ability to more easily compare your organization’s EX against industry benchmarks to see how you measure up and why you might be leaking talent to competitors.
If ever there was a time to invest in EX, it’s now. Internal employee engagement and retention are more essential than ever in maintaining stability within your organization and delivering an outstanding CX that keeps you competitive for the long term.
