Employee Experience

What is Employee Experience?

Employee experience (EX) is the sum of interactions an employee experiences during his or her time of employment at an organization. EX closely examines how an employee thinks and feels during those experiences, from first contact as a potential recruit to the last interaction at the end of employment.

Companies are looking at their Employee Experience because there is a direct correlation between EX and the Customer Experience (CX), which continues to rise in importance. As Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Companies will continue to fight an uphill battle if they only focus on improving their CX and pay no mind to their EX.

Why is Employee Experience important?

Agent turnover is still the number one challenge for contact centers. Employees are an organizations most important and most expensive resource. Yet, many employers struggle to attract and retain talent. And specific to contact centers, The Quality Assurance & Training Connection (QATC) reports the average annual turnover rate for agents in U.S. contact centers ranges between 30-45% — more than double the average for all other occupations in the United States.

High agent turnover has been a leading source of frustration for companies for decades. Even when compared to technology advancements, digital channel expansion, and ever-increasing customer expectations, turnover remains the largest challenge for contact centers.

Improve your employee experience, efficiency and production.

Improving the employee experience and employees’ efficiency and production helps combat the high turnover and low morale challenge.

The first step is to evaluate your current state, which includes listening to your employees to understand what adds friction to their jobs. It is also important to fully onboard agents, train often, provide feedback, and build trust in your teams and leadership. By fostering a positive EX, agent loyalty will increase, agents are more likely to stay and be committed to the organization’s goals, and they will bring more value to the customer experience. The success of your EX program should be trackable.

When investing in new equipment, take time to understand how it will impact both the customer and employee experiences in the short-term and long-term. Does the new equipment or solution drive down handle times? Does it improve first-call resolution? Will it eliminate any employee or customer pain points?

Aside from measuring hard data, companies should regularly check-in with employees to gather feedback and follow up about what you are doing with that feedback. Taking the pulse of your employees can include surveys, face-to-face chats, etc. By asking employees for feedback, your organization indicates the larger commitment to improving the employee experience.