Competition for talent, return to office and hybrid work issues continue to test brands and businesses, but their biggest employee experience (EX) challenge is measuring the business and financial impact of EX improvements, according to new research from EX measurement firm FOUNT Global and EX consultancy TI People.
The firms’ newly released 2022 State of EX report, a longitudinal study tracking organizations’ efforts to improve employee experience, reveals that this measurement issue was found to be the top challenge for 85 percent of respondents—and the findings suggest that employee data is at the root of this challenge.
Although over 90 percent of respondents run employee surveys at least once a year, 70 percent say the employee data they collect is inadequate for their needs. This inadequacy seems to stem from the fact that most organizations’ data does not capture the depth and context of employees’ experience thoroughly enough to guide decision-making and action.
“The upheaval of post-pandemic work life has driven many organizations to reevaluate their employee listening strategies to be more responsive to their workers’ expectations,” said Christophe Martel, co-founder and CEO of FOUNT, in a news release. “Given our experience working with early adopters of advanced EX practices, we expect to see more global brands extend their existing survey capabilities to dig deeper into what causes friction for their employees and focus their data collection activities on things they can actually fix.”
Overall, survey respondents felt that the current business environment is disproportionately favorable for EX investment, with 94 percent reporting that EX improvement is more than just a short-term project at their organizations. For 51 percent, EX work is a permanent change in how their organizations operate.
“Whether you are surveying to get a baseline on the entire experience or diving into a specific moment of work, if your data doesn’t get to the root cause of why employees are struggling to be productive or why they feel disengaged, the EX effort will fall short,” said Michelle Webb, executive director of employee experience at TEKsystems, in then release.
Other findings from the survey:
- 81 percent report that intense competition for talent is motivating their colleagues to invest more in EX
- 63 percent report that post-pandemic return-to-office/hybrid work issues are also motivating more EX investment
- EX professionals ranked business leaders and managers as having the most impact on EX and as their most important partner, yet also ranked them less helpful than HR colleagues
- 79 percent of respondents struggle to coordinate EX work across their organizations
- 70 percent of EX teams report into HR, 50 percent have budgets of less than $100k/year, and 75 percent have fewer than 7 members
Download the full report here. You can also take a short quiz to find out how your organization’s EX efforts stack up against the 2022 survey benchmarks.
