Over half of workers feel their employee experience is lacking: How is this hurting business?

Businesses can get the upper hand over the competition by focusing on employee experience. Yet just 51 per cent of employees felt that their organisation delivers on the experience promised. How can leaders turn this around?

The Global Employee Experience Trends 2023 report by Kincentric noted three key areas that will help leaders boost their employee experience: connection, consistency, and courage.

Connect employee experience to culture and business strategy

Kincentric revealed that engagement is 5.5 times higher when employee experience is aligned with culture and strategy. However, just 36 per cent of businesses believe they’re aligned.

The disconnect has been attributed to three key factors:

1. Over-reliance on managers to drive/own the employee experience
2. Overfocus on engagement as a metric rather than a focus on the experiences that drive engagement
3. Survey measures as a “feel-good” process rather than a tool to drive change

Consistent employee experiences translate into business outcomes

The report found that financial performance is two times higher for businesses that have consistently positive employee experience. But, only 42 per cent of employees claim to have a consistent experience.

Leaders need to take a step back and review their processes. Kincentric said the seven key areas of leadership that influence employee experience are:

1. Enabling
2. Leading
3. Developing
4. Recognising
5. Performing
6. Managing
7. Connecting

“Reducing the noise in your work experience by making it more consistent across all elements and all employees is how you translate employee experience into real business outcomes,” said Kincentric.

Courage from the C-suite makes employee experience a business asset

The C-suite leaders have the power to initiate change to the employee experience, yet just a third of employees believe the senior leadership at their workplace take the necessary actions to set the company up for success.

It’s reported that senior leaders have a 1.5 times greater impact on employee engagement than managers and six times more impact on the consistency of the employee experience. This is why taking charge is so important.

Kincentric listed three ways that employers can take control of their business and inspire positive change:

1. Shift the ownership back to top leaders
2. Empower managers to amplify through personalisation
3. Drive HR with intention

Kincentric noted that engagement and employee experience go hand in hand. Getting both right is crucial, and it’s up to organisations to find more meaningful ways to boost them.

Unfortunately, employee engagement has stagnated in the last couple of years, dropping from 69 per cent in 2020 to 68 per cent in 2021 and now stalling at 67 per cent in 2022 and 2023.

Between 2021 and 2022, organisations improved a variety of areas affecting employee experience. Kincentric found that workplaces gave increased attention to career development, made it simpler for employees to transition back to work, were better with employee workloads, and provided better management.

Continuing this momentum and focusing on engagement and employee experience can help workplaces to outperform, attract, and retain better than the competition.