Dive Brief:

• Enhancing employee experience — not just engagement — leads to higher productivity and lower turnover, according to research by coaching platform BetterUp. The company's Employee Experience Index of 17,000 workers found employees who scored highly on the index had 28% higher productivity, 37% fewer turnover intentions and 59% higher job satisfaction rises compared to their peers.
• BetterUp said the relationship between employee experience and productivity was six times greater than for engagement alone. IT workers were more likely to have a strong employee experience than retail workers or sales workers, the latter rating 27% lower than the top-ranked IT employees. HR employees also rated highly for employee experience.
• There were 27% more managers who supervised other managers who reported having a "strongly positive employee experience" than "frontline leaders" who answered similarly, BetterUp said.

Dive Insight:

The index isn't the first piece of research to discuss the importance of employee experience. In Paycor's 2019 Rise Web Summit, HR, finance and marketing experts distinguished the two terms, describing experience as something that can create cultural change. Katy Bunn, Paycor's senior director, marketing communications, told summit participants that engagement starts on day one of a person's employment and that managers and HR should build a supportive culture for new hires backed by goal setting​ and frequent check-ins to enhance experience. Bunn added that adopting a culture of recognition can further enhance experience.

A positive employee experience may also provide employers greater return on their investments. Research from the IBM Smarter Workforce Institute and the WorkHuman Analytics and Research Institute found that companies ranked in the top 25% on employee experience saw nearly three times the return on assets as companies ranked in the bottom quarter.

Enhancing employee experience might require organizations to equip HR with the tech tools needed to make it happen. Information Services Group (ISG) recommended in a March report that leaders determine the costs of preparing HR for this role, define cost-savings and include HR technology in day-to-day operations. HR technologies that could help to improve experience include those based on artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as chatbot solutions, ISG said.

HR can also begin experience improvement efforts on the candidate side by reviewing job ads for elements like biased language or outdated descriptors that could reflect poorly on a company's brand or culture. Employers may also seek to ensure job interviews are transparent about pay, duties, expectations, work schedules and advancement opportunities, and that applicants know where they stand in the process throughout.