EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE AND ENGAGEMENT

You know your staff experience and engagement scores. You’ve been tracking them for years and have been struggling to step-change the score, or it may even be declining. You’re clear on the challenges of pay, communication, and work/life balance. What you wrestle with is “why?” Why are our employees still not satisfied even though we’ve taken action on these issues? What are their emotional needs?

When you get employees together in a room and directly ask them why and how you tend to get rational and obvious platitudes. People say they want more pay, a balanced workload, and improved communication. Of course, this is true, but it can’t be the entire story as staff experience and engagement metrics have not significantly increased, and labor turnover continues to be a challenge.

Employees are telling you what they are thinking. What’s lacking is how they are feeling.

Emotion is the missing dimension in employee experience and engagement research. It is a valuable component you can add to your insight for a more holistic understanding of your employees’ experience at work and what an ideal experience would really feel like, as this paper explains.