Your employees’ workplace experience matters. And unfortunately, in the workforce, a lot of employees aren’t having a positive experience. In 2021, almost half (48%) of the workforce were actively job hunting. And today, employees are still keen on job hopping.
And when your employees leave, it costs one-half to two times the employee's annual salary. Assuming an average salary of $50,000, that replacement cost translates to between $25,000 and $100,000 per employee.
It’s no surprise then that in 2022, the overall cost of voluntary employee turnover amounted to over $1 trillion! This, plus the expenses it costs to cover the turnover, is a huge amount that cannot be ignored.
So what can be done to lower future employee turnover? Many leaders are still unsure how to improve and measure their employee experience. While many teams are turning to a workplace experience platform for help, there are complementary solutions to optimize your impact.
You can start with a plan to monitor and measure your employee experience so you can make the most strategic decisions to increase results and boost your return on investment. For example, surveys combined with recognition help get clear insights in what to measure to get the best results.
Recognition is a critical part of the employee experience and should be measured!
Below, we dig into five tips and tricks to find the right data so that you can build an effective employee experience framework.
1. Surveys, Feedback Jams, and Exit Interviews
In our opinion, surveys are still the best way to get the answers leaders need. The surveys highlighted below can provide an opportunity to blend structured data with freeform responses.
When they have questions on employee rewards and recognitions, surveys are great for assessing what you need to know to get a clear pulse on what your employees are experiencing throughout their career journey.
Here are a few examples of employee experience surveys:
- Engagement surveys
- Pulse surveys
- Exit surveys
- Onboarding surveys
- Post-training surveys
- Leadership surveys
- Wellness surveys
Here’s what you can do: Start with an engagement survey to gain insights into the strengths and opportunities within your organization. Look at the surveys that you are currently conducting and fine-tune the questions to make sure your focus is on the right data to measure and monitor the areas that surfaced in your engagement survey. Make sure there are no holes in your survey pipeline for the data you need to capture. For example, nail down the process for conducting new hire surveys, when they occur, who administers them, and what happens to the results.
Take your employee surveys to the next level with the #BeHeard engagement survey from Sparck! If you want to maximize participation with any employee survey, check out this Employee Survey Toolkit for a free checklist.
2. Dig Deeper Into Your Turnover Rate
While industry averages and regional medians are helpful references, it’s hard to gauge what your organization’s employee engagement really looks like. There is almost always a disconnect between what employers think and what employees feel, which is why many employee recognition programs fail.
If you want to get an accurate read on your employee experience, you need to get real feedback. If you have a spike in turnover coming from one specific department, look for the real cause. You might have a workload problem or a process issue that is burning your workers out.
Here’s what you can do: Calculate your employee turnover rate. Then, categorize that turnover by voluntary versus involuntary and functional versus dysfunctional. You want to look at the slice of the pie that represents the voluntary turnover of functional (high-performing) employees. Next, segment your list by department or role to uncover trends or spikes and then analyze the reasons why from your exit interviews.
You can use the data you have from your HRIS or payroll system to dive into the current analytics you have to see where it's spiking. Then you can use your recommendations that you already included.
The analytics behind what is happening NOW is great but getting additional employee insight is how you solve and continuously measure projected turnover to prevent it. To gain buy-in to move forward with a survey use our ROI calculator to show how much the employee engagement and turnover is impacting your bottom line.
If you don't have that data now, look at the trends from our Sparck 2023 Workplace Report to identify key areas that you need to drive a loyal and committed workforce.
3. Observe, Engage, Interact
Sometimes all the data that you can collect is no match for seeing with your own eyes. Sometimes team members aren’t comfortable voicing their opinions, or aren’t convinced their employee experience will change when voiced.
So, how do you measure employee experience? You start by taking notes on how teams work together. Listen for tone in verbal exchanges and watch for non-verbal cues in body language. Do you hear more phrases that are constructive and helpful, or phrases that focus more on the negative and finger-pointing?
While the former is clearly a positive that communicates appreciation and gratitude, the latter is a passive-aggressive sign that resentment is building. Once you see what’s happening, you can take steps to figure out why.
Here’s what you can do: Spend time observing and/or working with different departments, taking notes on what you see. Then, conduct employee feedback sessions to open up the conversation. If you need help with this step, our #BeHeard employee engagement survey helps organizations filter data based on department, location, tenure, or other custom demographics to personalize your approach to how you address and measure the experience!
Next, solicit anonymous feedback from employees and supervisors. Finally, pull data on project outcomes or performance metrics and compare the employee experience to impact on the business.
4. Find the Right KPIs to Measure Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is really what’s at the heart of a positive employee experience. There’s a lot at play here. First, job satisfaction is a variable metric that changes over time. Sometimes changes are so gradual that they are imperceptible until they add up to enough negative change to be noticed.
Job satisfaction is influenced by things like:
- Values alignment
- Compensation and benefits
- Job security
- Relationships at work
- Personality styles
- Leadership
- Opportunities
- Working conditions
- Communication
Broadly, we like to use the term ‘fit’ to describe the degree to which each of these factors matches the preferences of an employee. But even that feels a bit jargony. Rather than chalking your turnover up to poor fit, look for ways to measure and improve job satisfaction before it’s too late.
Here’s what you can do: Create a system to start tracking key performance indicators (KPI’s) to monitor and measure the employee experience for your unique culture. Our free #BeHeard survey includes Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS), engagement score, key engagement driver rankings, and more. These are great areas to start. Once you determine the best KPIs for your organization, build a survey that goes deeper into measuring each one to get insightful data and trending analytics to evolve the experience.
Actively monitor this feedback from your current employees by conducting regular surveys, including personalized questions, and pulling data from aggregate review sites like Glassdoor.
5. Find Overlap from Traditional Performance Metrics
Chances are, you are already tracking a variety of key performance indicators (KPIs) related to performance. The only thing you might not be doing is cross-referencing that data with your turnover rates to see if there is any overlap.
Low employee engagement often leads to turnover, but it also often leads to burn-out, poor-quality work, missed deadlines, and low productivity rates first. Looking at your traditional performance metrics can help you identify and address root cause issues that improve both areas.
Here’s what you can do: Add your turnover data side-by-side with your standard performance metrics and track trends over time. Implement a system for conducting a root cause analysis when you identify spikes in certain trends. A survey helps your team get even more insights by benchmarking for progress, or comparing across the organization to identify "bright spots." Once you have the data, you can form a committee to take action.
Put Your Data to Use: Take Action to Transform Your Employee Experience
How do you measure employee experience? While it might not be as simple as pulling numbers and running them through a calculation, it is possible to measure and change the experience.
Before you ask how to measure employee experience, make sure you’re clear on why you want to measure it. The goal of measuring employee experience is to create meaningful change to drive organizational results.
Are you ready to try something different and improve your employee experience (EX)? Try our free #BeHeard report today to see real results!
