Employee Experience Strategy: Build Yours in 11 Steps

Competitive salaries and benefits are important, but they are no longer enough. Employees want fulfilling work environments that support their growth and wellbeing. This is where an effective employee experience strategy comes in.

For HR professionals, developing this strategy needs a thoughtful, data-driven approach that’s aligned with your company’s goals and culture. Learn the essential steps to creating an employee experience strategy that attracts top talent and drives sustainable business results.

Contents
What is an employee experience strategy?
11 steps to develop an effective employee experience strategy
HR best practices for improving employee experience

What is an employee experience strategy? 

An employee experience strategy is a planned way to improve each worker’s employment journey and the relationship between them and the organization. It aims to incentivize employees by meeting their needs, resulting in greater employee productivity and retention.

The strategy takes into account the full employee lifecycle, from recruitment and onboarding to daily work experiences, career development, and offboarding. For example, an onboarding employee experience strategy is designed to ensure that new hires feel welcomed, informed, and prepared to succeed in their new roles.

Employee experience is often confused with employee engagement. Employee engagement is part of employee experience but focuses more on employees’ level of commitment to their work. Employee experience focuses on what employees experience in all work-related matters, from company culture to career development.

Why is a good employee experience strategy important?

A solid employee experience strategy is important for a few reasons: 

• Improved productivity: Employees who feel positive about their work and employers are more motivated to be innovative, efficient, and productive.
• Better employee retention rates: Greater job satisfaction makes employees more likely to remain committed to their employer, resulting in lower turnover rates. 
• Enhanced employer branding: Organizations with satisfied employees have better reputations. This can lead to more word-of-mouth referral hires and even industry recognition and awards.
• Increased attractiveness to top talent: Companies known for providing a positive employee experience have a competitive advantage in appealing to diverse candidates and attracting top talent.
• Greater customer satisfaction: Happy employees in customer-facing roles tend to deliver higher-quality customer service. According to Isolved, 90% of employees say their employee experience directly affects the experience they give customers.

11 steps to develop an effective employee experience strategy

We’ve compiled the following list of 11 steps to guide you through the process of creating a successful employee experience strategy:

Step 1: Thoroughly assess the company’s current employee experience

Start by evaluating the organization’s current status in all aspects of the employee experience it provides. You should:

• Collect input from employees: Send a company-wide employee experience survey to gauge employee sentiment. You can also use pulse surveys to get additional feedback.
• Conduct stay and exit interviews: Understanding the reasons employees choose to leave or remain with the organization can offer insights into your company’s employee experience.
• Establish and track employee experience metrics: Data provides tangible evidence of what works well and which issues to address to enhance the employee experience. For example, measuring the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) asks employees to rank on a scale from 0-10 whether they would recommend your company as a place of work. This metric helps you gauge the employee experience levels in your organization.

Step 2: Define clear objectives for your strategy

As with any HR framework, an employee experience strategy must focus on specific, measurable (SMART) goals consistent with the organization’s purpose and aspirations.

Here are some tips to achieve this:

• Review core business objectives and key HR goals: Incorporate the business and the HR goals into your strategy. This ensures that your employee experience strategy helps employees and the business to reach the organizational objectives. For example, if the organization plans to launch a product or service that requires employees to take on new duties, the strategy could include initiatives to ease the transition and equip employees to meet these new demands. 
• Conduct a needs assessment: Determine what will be needed to bridge the gap between the company’s present employee experience and the desired outcome. Collect employee feedback and external data to benchmark against competitors. Then, inventory the available resources and identify any limitations to determine how to proceed. 
• Define specific goals: Employee experience strategy goals must be well-defined and actionable. Set SMART goals and use KPIs, quantitative metrics, and qualitative feedback to measure their progress.
• Keep goals aligned with business outcomes: Conduct an impact analysis to identify the potential implications of your employee experience strategy. Review them regularly to learn whether they are contributing to business success. 
• Set priorities: Focus on high-impact areas and how best to allocate resources. This can help secure a higher return on investment (ROI) on your employee experience strategy.
• Develop action plans: Document detailed plans with specific steps for implementing the strategy. Encourage employee involvement in decision-making so that the actions planned are relevant to the workforce.
• Monitor progress: Revisit the strategy’s goals frequently to measure progress. This will help you maintain accountability and allow you to make adjustments whenever necessary.
• Communicate goals and progress: Be transparent with staff on the details of the employee experience strategy and the reasons behind it. Keep employees informed about developments and openly celebrate milestone achievements.
• Evaluate and refine: It’s important to set fixed goals but avoid making them overly rigid. Establish feedback loops to enable continuous improvement and be flexible about making modifications.

Step 3: Secure leadership buy-in

A TI People study mapped out 285 touchpoints of the employee journey and discovered that HR owned only one of the 36 most critical ones.

Company-wide initiatives need leadership backing to be successful. Leaders must be on board for the following reasons:

• To approve the necessary financial resources
• To make these initiatives a priority and model them for cultural impact 
• To help overcome skepticism and resistance to change
• To sustain initiatives in the long-term.

To secure leadership buy-in for your employee experience strategy, explain its direct link to improved employee performance and business goal achievement. You can also address any immediate concerns leadership may have with employee experience solutions.

Step 4: Create employee personas

Employee personas incorporate your workforce’s unique demographics, skill sets, experience levels, preferences, and behaviors into hypothetical, empathetic representations. 

By identifying the different types of people in your company’s workforce and constructing a narrative around them, HR can better address their needs and craft a more insightful employee experience strategy.

Step 5: Map the employee journey

Start mapping your organization’s employment journey using the employee personas you’ve created. The experiences employees have throughout this journey, particularly at key milestones and moments, shape their overall experience and how they feel about it. 

A common employee journey should include six stages: 

1. Recruitment: The entire hiring process.
2. Onboarding: Introduction to the organization and team members, paperwork processing and other admin tasks, and on-the-job training.
3. Engagement: Integration into the role and connection with their team.
4. Development: Becoming accustomed to the role and performing as expected.
5. Progress: Assuming new responsibilities and achieving career advancement.
6. Offboarding: Departing from the organization via resignation, dismissal, or retirement.

Mapping the employee journey provides HR and leaders with a clear view of the entire employer-employee relationship. This highlights the highs and lows of the company’s employee experience.

Step 6: Develop a communication plan

A positive employee experience cannot happen without effective communication. Employees need to know what’s happening at all levels, understand what they need to do their jobs and see how their work fits into the bigger picture. This fosters inclusion and boosts morale.

Every employee experience strategy should include a communication plan that not only provides information but also connects employees with the organization.

Transparent internal communications should:

• Focus on the target audience
• Get to the point quickly and concisely
• Convey an open, honest, and pleasant tone
• Be distributed through channels accessible to all relevant parties
• Accommodate different communication styles with a variety of formats (i.e., email, video, instant messaging, social networks, and in-person meetings)
• Encourage and enable feedback.

Step 7: Design an engaging onboarding process

Onboarding sets the tone for the employment journey by giving new hires a first impression of the organization. An effective onboarding process should make new hires feel welcome, inform them of the company’s expectations, and prepare them to start their jobs confidently. 

A well-designed onboarding process should include: 

• A personalized welcome and opportunity for self-introduction
• Important company information (policies, procedures, values, culture, etc.)
• Easy access to essential tools and information (passwords, identification badges, security codes, etc.) 
• Available and interactive onboarding resources
• Job expectations
• Thorough training
• Personal interactions with the supervisor and team
• A mentor or buddy pairing
• Overview of career growth opportunities.

HR tip

Regularly conduct new hire surveys to gather feedback on how to improve and tailor the onboarding process.

Step 8: Foster a positive work culture

Organizational culture is a key component of employee experience. It influences work relationships, social interactions among colleagues, and the work environment.

A work culture that prioritizes employee experience values its workers’ perspective. For example, an organization that emphasizes teamwork should provide workspaces and digital tools that support effective collaboration. When employees feel heard and respected, they’ll be more inclined to offer input and innovate, contributing to a positive work culture.

Step 9: Invest in employee development

When an organization is committed to workforce growth and development, employees see their value to the company and recognize opportunities for career advancement.

Development opportunities to consider for an employee experience strategy include:

• On-site training sessions
• Off-site classes, conferences, conventions, or workshops
• Mentoring and job shadowing programs
• Stretch assignments and temporary placements
• Internal promotions
• Company-sponsored professional organization memberships or certifications.

Step 10: Implement technology solutions

Technology is a key factor in job success and a top employee concern. According to Envoy, 36% of employees find slow or outdated technology a dealbreaker when considering in-person over remote work.

Having a strategy that budgets for new or upgraded devices and platforms can improve your organization’s employee experience.

Step 11: Evaluate and fine-tune your strategy

An effective employee experience strategy needs to evolve with changing needs and circumstances. Identify what’s working, what’s not, and what’s missing, then make the necessary adjustments.

Regularly assess your strategy by measuring key metrics like employee turnover, retention, and engagement. Gather employee input from pulse surveys at different touchpoints or through open feedback methods. This will give you additional sights into how well your strategy is working.

HR best practices for improving employee experience

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for how to improve employee experience. However, below are some employee experience recommendations to consider when developing your strategy:

1. Personalize the experience: Offer benefits and work arrangements tailored to individual needs. Provide flexible work options, custom career plans, and personalized recognition to fit diverse preferences and life situations.
2. Promote wellbeing: Implement wellbeing programs that support physical, mental, and financial health. Include wellness challenges, mental health resources, financial planning help, and work-life balance initiatives.
3. Encourage collaboration: Create chances for employees to work with different departments through cross-functional projects and team-building activities. This helps employees understand the broader organization and fosters teamwork.
4. Facilitate career growth: Offer clear career path options and resources to help employees plan their development. Provide career coaching and skills assessments to guide their progress.
5. Support internal mobility: Promote internal job openings and provide resources to help employees apply for new roles within the company. This helps retain talent and keeps employees engaged by offering new opportunities.
6. Recognize and reward: Set up programs to recognize and reward achievements, both big and small. This could include peer recognition, spot bonuses, and milestone awards to keep employees motivated.
7. Provide continuous learning: Offer ongoing learning opportunities that match employees’ interests and career goals. Provide access to online courses, certifications, and workshops to keep skills up-to-date.
8. Act on feedback: Regularly collect feedback through focus groups, suggestion boxes, and informal chats. Make sure to act on this feedback to show that employee input leads to real changes.
9. Build a strong employer brand: Develop and share a clear employer brand that reflects your company’s values and culture. This helps attract and retain talent by showing why your organization is a great place to work.
10. Support DEIB: Create and promote initiatives for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Offer training on unconscious bias, celebrate diverse events, and ensure fair opportunities for everyone.

To sum up

Developing an effective employee experience strategy is crucial if you want to foster a positive company culture, enhance employee engagement, and retain top talent. The success of this strategy hinges on your ability to assess and adapt it to evolving workforce needs continuously, ensuring the initiatives remain relevant and impactful.

Focus on key elements like communication, recognition, and growth opportunities to build a strong foundation for a positive employee experience that drives productivity and loyalty. As the workforce continues to evolve, HR’s role in shaping the employee experience will be more critical than ever.