What is “Employee Experience” (EX)?

Many people are familiar with the term “user experience” also seen as “UX” as it relates to the experience a person has when interacting with a company - software platform, website and technology in general.

According to BetterUp.com, “The employee experience is the interactions an employee has with people, systems, policies, and the physical and virtual workspace. Both the small details of day-to-day work and the periodic events and transitions matter.”

Previously, the hot topic was (and to some degree still is) employee engagement. My favorite factors of engagement are the twelve factors of engagement as defined by Gallup. Engagement is ultimately the outcome companies measure based on employees’ responses to their environment. Shifting to employee experience takes us a step back and evaluate events or interactions employees have in the workplace.

Let’s take a look at the areas mentioned in the definition above:

• People - Leaders, peers, direct reports, customers, external partners

• Systems - Consider both technology and elements such as recruitment, onboarding, compensation and promotion cycles, performance management, feedback process, offboarding etc.

• Policies - Evaluate the impacts of policies such as paid time off, parental leave, referral, bonuses or commissions, leave options, hiring policies, etc.

• Workspace (physical or virtual) - Type of equipment available, access to internal tools or office supplies, if onsite are you giving them a tour or do they wander around a little lost until new hires learn the floor plan, are your office spaces accessible?

When thinking about employee experience, the key is to reflect on the kind of culture you want and how the environment you have created makes your employees feel. From there, you can curate everything else around feedback and what will get you closer to the impact you are looking for.