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Measuring and Improving the Employee Experience

Author:

Tim Russell

Modern Workspace

•  Jul 23, 2024

How to Measure and Improve Employee Experience 

How well do you know your employees' experience? Do you rely on anecdotes, surveys, or guesswork to understand how they feel about their work environment, tools, and processes? Or do you have a data-driven approach that measures the end-to-end experience of your employees across different dimensions, such as productivity, engagement, satisfaction, and well-being? 

Employee experience is not just a buzzword. It is a strategic factor that can affect your organisation's performance, culture, and reputation. According to a recent study by IBM and the MIT Sloan Management Review, organisations that excel at employee experience are twice as innovative, profitable, and satisfied with their customers as those that lag behind. Moreover, they are able to attract and retain top talent, reduce turnover, and foster a positive work climate. 

But how can you measure and improve employee experience in a comprehensive and objective way? How can you leverage the power of data and analytics to gain insights into the needs, preferences, and pain points of your employees? And how can you use these insights to deliver world-class employee experience capabilities that enhance your IT strategy and user experience decisions? 

In this article, we will explore the following topics: 

  • What is employee experience and why does it matter? 
  • What are the challenges and opportunities of measuring employee experience? 
  • What are the best practices and tools for measuring and improving employee experience? 
  • How can you transform your workplace into a smart office that supports collaboration, innovation, and well-being? 

Employee Experience: What Is It and Why Does It Matter? 

Employee experience (EX) is the sum of all the interactions and perceptions that an employee has with their employer, from the moment they apply for a job until they leave the organisation. EX encompasses every aspect of an employee's work life, such as the physical environment, the culture, the technology, the learning and development opportunities, the recognition and rewards, the feedback and communication, and the well-being and support. 

EX is not just about providing perks and benefits to employees, but about creating a meaningful and engaging work environment that empowers them to perform at their best and achieve their goals. EX is also not a one-size-fits-all concept, but rather a personalised and customised journey that reflects the diverse needs and preferences of each employee. 

Why does EX matter? Because it directly affects the most important outcomes of any organisation: employee satisfaction, retention, productivity, innovation, customer satisfaction, and profitability. According to a study by Gallup, organisations with highly engaged employees have 21% higher profitability, 17% higher productivity, and 10% higher customer ratings than those with low engagement. Moreover, a positive EX can help attract and retain top talent, as well as enhance the employer brand and reputation. 

As an employee, you have probably experienced the difference between a good and a bad EX in your previous or current workplaces. Think about the factors that made you feel motivated, valued, supported, and happy at work, and those that made you feel frustrated, stressed, isolated, or bored. Think about how your EX influenced your performance, your relationships, your well-being, and your career aspirations. Think about what you would like to change or improve in your current or future EX. 

We will explore the best practices and tools for measuring and improving EX, and how you can use extended reality and line of sight information to create immersive and personalised EX. We will also show you how you can transform your workplace into a smart office that supports collaboration, innovation, and well-being. Our goal is to help you create a better EX for yourself and your colleagues, and ultimately, a better organisation for everyone. 

What are the challenges and opportunities of measuring employee experience? 

Measuring employee experience (EX) is not a simple task. Unlike some other aspects of organisational performance, EX cannot be easily quantified by objective indicators or metrics. EX is subjective, multi-faceted, and dynamic. It depends on the individual perceptions, preferences, expectations, and emotions of each employee, as well as the interactions and relationships they have with their colleagues, managers, customers, and other stakeholders. Moreover, EX can vary across different contexts, situations, and time periods, depending on the changing needs and goals of the employees and the organisation. 

One of the challenges of measuring EX is to find reliable and valid methods and tools that can capture the complexity and diversity of EX, and provide meaningful and actionable insights for improving it. Traditional methods, such as surveys, interviews, or focus groups, can provide valuable feedback from the employees, but they also have some limitations. For example, they may suffer from low response rates, social desirability bias, or memory errors. They may also fail to capture the real-time and continuous nature of EX, or the non-verbal and implicit cues that reveal the employees' feelings and attitudes. 

To overcome these limitations, some organisations are experimenting with new and innovative ways of measuring EX, using technologies such as sensors, wearables, biometrics, artificial intelligence, or extended reality. These technologies can offer more objective, granular, and timely data on the employees' behaviour, physiology, cognition, and emotions, as well as the environmental factors that affect them. For example, they can measure the employees' stress levels, engagement, attention, mood, or satisfaction, as well as the quality of the air, light, noise, or temperature in the workplace. They can also create immersive and personalised experiences that simulate different scenarios and test the employees' reactions and responses. 

However, these technologies also pose some challenges and risks, such as ethical, legal, and privacy issues, or potential misuse or abuse of the data. Therefore, it is important to ensure that the measurement of EX is done in a transparent, respectful, and responsible way, with the consent and involvement of the employees, and with the aim of enhancing their well-being and performance, not controlling or manipulating them. 

One of the opportunities of measuring EX is to create a more holistic and realistic picture of how the employees experience their work and their organisation, and how this affects their outcomes and impacts. Measuring EX can help identify the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation's culture, policies, processes, and systems, and the areas that need improvement or innovation. It can also help align the organisation's vision, mission, and values with the employees' needs, expectations, and aspirations, and foster a sense of belonging, purpose, and commitment among the employees. 

A good example of a holistic and realistic measure of EX is the Mean Opinion Score (MOS) that I utilised heavily when VoIP became mainstream. MOS was used to measure the voice quality of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services and is a subjective rating given by the users of the service, based on their perception of the sound quality, clarity, and intelligibility of the voice communication. MOS is a real-world, end-to-end measure that reflects the user's experience, not just the technical parameters of the service, such as jitter, packet loss, or latency. MOS takes into account the various factors that can affect the voice quality, such as the hardware, software, network, codec, or background noise. 

Similarly, measuring EX should take into account the various factors that can affect the employee's experience, such as the physical, digital, social, and psychological aspects of the work environment, and the interactions and relationships they have with their work-related entities. Measuring EX should also reflect the user's perspective, not just the organisation's perspective. For example, a server up ping is not the same as an EX measurement, because it does not capture how the employee actually uses and experiences the server, or the problems or frustrations they may encounter. A better measure of EX would be to ask the employee how often they have to repeat a task, such as hitting a submit button on a website, due to a slow script or poor connectivity, and how this affects their productivity, satisfaction, and mood. Imagine if this was in your daily life, how frustrating would that be if IT said the server was up and running but you were having a poor experience? 

Measuring EX can help create a more empathetic and responsive organisation that listens to the voice of its employees, understands their needs and preferences, and delivers solutions that improve their quality of work and life. By measuring EX, organisations can gain a competitive advantage in the global and dynamic market, and create a positive impact on their customers, stakeholders, and society. 

Digital Employee Experience 

One of the key factors that influences employee experience (EX) is the digital employee experience (DEX), which is the degree to which employees can seamlessly and effectively use technology to perform their work tasks, communicate and collaborate with others, access information and resources, and learn and develop their skills. DEX is crucial for enabling a productive, engaged, and satisfied workforce, especially in the era of remote and hybrid work models, where employees rely heavily on digital tools and platforms to stay connected and aligned with their organisation and colleagues. 

However, many organisations struggle to measure and improve DEX, as they lack a clear understanding of what constitutes a good DEX, how to assess it from the employee's perspective, and how to design and deliver solutions that enhance it. Some of the best practices and tools for measuring and improving DEX are: 

  • Define the DEX dimensions and metrics that matter for your organisation and employees, such as usability, reliability, functionality, accessibility, security, integration, personalisation, and feedback. These dimensions and metrics should align with your organisation's goals, values, and culture, as well as reflect the diverse and evolving needs and expectations of your employees. 
  • Collect and analyse data on DEX using various methods and sources, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations, analytics, logs, and sensors. These methods and sources should provide both quantitative and qualitative insights into how employees use and experience technology, what challenges and opportunities they face, and how they feel and behave as a result. Data collection and analysis should be done regularly and systematically, and involve multiple stakeholders, such as IT, HR, managers, and employees themselves. DEX is not just an IT tool to check on application performance! 
  • Implement and evaluate DEX solutions that address the identified pain points and gaps, and leverage the existing strengths and opportunities. These solutions should be user-centric, meaning that they are designed and tested with the involvement and feedback of the end-users, i.e., the employees. They should also be agile, meaning that they are iteratively and continuously improved based on the changing needs and preferences of the employees and the organisation. Examples of DEX solutions include digital workplace platforms, cloud-based applications, mobile devices, chatbots, virtual assistants, gamification, and digital wellness programs. 

DEX can give you insight into the positive or negative experiences being provided by your IT services. This may or may not make people more or less productive depending on each person’s work style. A simple example is logon times. This can give a poor digital experience but during that extended logon time the person may still be doing something valuable such as speaking to a patient, reading emails on another device, liaising with a colleague on an issue. It’s just inconvenient, rather than productivity-impacting. That being said, it should be resolved at some point, but maybe not as a priority. 

Conclusion 

Improving DEX is not only about enhancing the functionality and usability of technology, but also about harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to create a smart office that supports collaboration, innovation, and well-being. AI can help automate and optimise various tasks and processes, such as data analysis, document generation, customer service, and incident management. AI can also provide personalised and proactive support and guidance to employees, such as learning recommendations, productivity tips, health reminders, and feedback.  

However, AI should not be implemented blindly or without considering the ethical and social implications. AI should be transparent, accountable, fair, and human-centric, meaning that it respects the rights, values, and dignity of the employees and the organisation. 

At CDW, we understand the importance and the challenges of improving DEX and implementing AI in your organisation. We can help you define, measure, and improve DEX using our proven framework and best practices. We can also help you explore and implement AI ops and other AI solutions that can enhance your digital workplace and empower your employees. Whether you are looking for an assessment, a proof of concept, or a full-scale deployment, we have the expertise and the experience to help you achieve your goals. 

Measuring and Improving the Employee Experience is part two of a four-part Modern Workspace series, other articles include thoughts on Harnessing Technology To Revolutionise Meeting Spaces, Extended Reality and Line of Sight information, and Smart Offices.

Contact us today

CDW experts can show you how DEX and AI can make a real difference for your most important and irreplaceable asset, your staff. 

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