Employee Experience Management: Definition, Benefits, and Best Practices

The office party with ‘mandatory’ games. The annual employee survey with its generic 1-to-5 scale questions. The virtual ‘team-building’ treasure hunt that everyone quietly dreads.

Sound familiar? For too long, these token gestures have masqueraded as employee experience management.

Companies invest countless resources in understanding and improving customer experience, meticulously mapping every touchpoint and interaction. Yet when it comes to their own employees – the people who shape these customer experiences – the approach often feels superficial and disconnected.

A robust employee experience strategy goes beyond these checkbox activities. It’s about creating an environment where employees genuinely want to contribute, grow, and stay.

In this guide, we’ll explore how to prioritize positive employee experiences, and foster a work culture that benefits both your people and your business.

Table of Contents

• What is Employee Experience Management?
• Benefits of Employee Experience Management
• Best Practices for Effective Employee Experience Management
• Is Employee Experience Management Right for Every Organization?
• Start using Hiver today

What is Employee Experience Management?

Employee Experience Management (EXM) is the strategic process of shaping every interaction an employee has with their organization, from recruitment to exit. Its focus — creating meaningful, positive experiences that help employees and businesses grow together.

Benefits of Employee Experience Management

Increased employee engagement

Employees who feel cared for are highly engaged and enthusiastic about their work. They develop a sense of belonging within the organization and look to give back. Moreover, companies with engaged employees outperform those without by up to 202%.

High employee engagement results in higher retention, better collaboration, innovative ideas, and a commitment to the company’s goals. All of this goes a long way in creating a strong company culture as well as more impactful business results.

Improved retention rates

If people know they are valued, they are less likely to leave, and EXM plays a critical role in achieving this. According to Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workplace Report, 41% of disengaged employees worldwide said they would stay if the company worked on improving engagement and culture.

Retaining employees is more cost-effective than replacing them. Improvements here will lead to lower hiring and training costs and a stable, experienced workforce.

Enhanced customer experience

Happy employees create happier customers. The connection is simple: motivated employees go the extra mile for customers, creating a ripple effect of satisfaction. This is especially true for customer-facing teams, where every positive interaction makes a difference. Companies with high employee engagement show a 20% increase in customer satisfaction scores.

Best Practices for Effective Employee Experience Management

1. Gather continuous feedback

The Challenge:

Traditional annual surveys and suggestion boxes make
feedback collection a formality. By the time issues are identified, they’ve often grown into bigger problems affecting multiple team members.

The Solution:
Much like listening to customer needs, the best organizations listen to their employees. Create ongoing opportunities for feedback that encourage honest dialogue:

1️⃣ Conduct regular 1-on-1s

• Schedule these bi-monthly or quarterly to create a dedicated space for open conversations.
  
• Ask open-ended questions like “How supported do you feel in your role?” and “Are there obstacles I can help you overcome?”

2️⃣ Use pulse surveys for quick insights

• Schedule short, anonymous pulse checks to capture overall employee sentiment at periodic intervals. Focus on actionable questions using frameworks like Start-Stop-Continue:
  
  • ▶️ What should the team start doing?
  • ▶️ What should we stop doing?
  • ▶️ What is going well and should continue?

3️⃣ Track and organize insights

Hiver’s surveys allow People Ops teams to track responses and automate follow-ups for non-responders. The best part is that you can create and distribute surveys directly from Gmail. Hiver’s analytics dashboard also helps identify recurring themes in the feedback received.

4️⃣ Close the loop

• Act on insights quickly so that employees see results.
• Communicate the changes you’re implementing to the team. Example: “Based on your input, we’re introducing a new tool to simplify task management.”

2. Foster open communication

The Challenge:

When employees don’t know where to go for information or whom to approach with questions, frustration builds.
PeopleOps & HR teams get overwhelmed with repetitive queries, and important updates get lost in endless email threads or scattered across different platforms.

The Solution: Create transparent communication channels that make information accessible and keep everyone aligned. Here’s how:

1️⃣ Set up dedicated channels

• Create different ones for company-wide updates and team-specific communications. Set up anonymous channels for sensitive concerns.
• Establish clear protocols for what goes where (e.g., policy updates in company channel, quick updates in team channels).
• Emails, forums, or Slack groups are useful for creating these channels.
  For example,Logistics company, Clutter, used Hiver’s Shared Inbox to manage their PeopleOps team’s growing overwhelm with internal emails. Without a structured system, responses were delayed, and employees felt frustrated and unheard. Using Hiver, every inquiry was tracked and assigned, and nothing fell through the cracks. This led to faster response times, fewer bottlenecks, and a culture where employees knew their voices mattered.

2️⃣ Document communication guidelines

• Define response time expectations for different types of queries
• Create templates for responding to commonly asked questions
• Establish escalation protocols for urgent matters

3️⃣ Encourage leadership transparency

• Leaders should regularly share company updates and decisions to keep everyone in the loop. For example: “Here’s our plan for the upcoming quarter; we welcome your feedback.”
  
  Zappos, the online retailer, actively promotes an open communication culture by encouraged employees to share ideas and voice concerns freely. Leadership doesn’t just talk the talk—they lead by example, regularly holding town halls and team huddles where employees can openly discuss challenges and opportunities.

3. Provide development opportunities

The Challenge:
86% of employees would switch jobs for better professional development opportunities. Yet many organizations limit learning to annual training sessions or generic online courses that don’t address specific career growth needs.

The Solution: Create structured development pathways that combine learning with practical growth opportunities. Here’s how:

1️⃣ Create structured learning program

• Offer access to online courses, certifications, and workshops
• Use a knowledge base for internal training materials, such as video tutorials and guides
• Make learning resources available on-demand

2️⃣ Launch mentorship programs

• Pair junior employees with experienced mentors for career guidance and skill building.
• Organize regular check-ins to ensure mentor-mentee relationships remain productive.Amazon implemented the Amazon Mentoring Program (AMP) to support the continuous development of employee skills . It contributed to higher employee satisfaction and accelerated staff promotions. Here’s what Amazon SVP Beth Galetti had to say about the impact of the program:

3️⃣ Enable cross-training opportunities

• Create opportunities for employees to participate in projects outside their department. For instance, marketing professionals could work with the product teams to better understand customer needs.

4. Utilize technology for efficiency

The Challenge: Manual HR processes are time-consuming and prone to errors. Teams spend hours on administrative tasks instead of focusing on strategic initiatives that could improve employee experience.

The Solution: Leverage technology to automate routine tasks while keeping the human touch in critical interactions. Here’s how:

1️⃣ Centralize knowledge with a digital hub

• Create a searchable knowledge base of resources and FAQs for routine queries, reducing reliance on HR.
• For instance, create a “New Employee Guide”, “How to Request for Leave”, or “Steps to Claim Benefits,” accessible with just a few clicks. Tools like Hiver allow you to build a central knowledge base where employees can find answers to common questions independently.

2️⃣ Automate Routine HR Tasks

• Set up automated workflows for common tasks like leave requests and document submissions, as well as reminders for pending tasks.
• Automate assignment of specific types of queries to the right team member. For instance, all emails containing ‘Payroll’ in the subject line can be assigned to Cindy from Talent Management.
• Use templates for common communications in order to respond faster to such queries.

3️⃣ Integrate technology with reward systems

• Tie employee recognition to performance metrics using smart tools. Take inspiration from Microsoft integrating a gamified engagement platform. Employees earned points for hitting key milestones, and the platform linked these achievements to tangible rewards like gift cards or extra time off. The tool also delivered ongoing learning on products and process changes.

5. Create a positive onboarding experience

The Challenge: First impressions matter, yet many organizations treat onboarding as a mere paperwork exercise. Poor onboarding experiences lead to early disengagement and higher turnover.

The Solution: Design an onboarding journey that makes new hires feel welcomed and prepared for success. Here’s how:

1️⃣ Design pre-onboarding experiences

• Send new hires a personalized welcome email before their first day. Include a team introduction guide, onboarding resources, a checklist of tasks (e.g., submitting documents, account setup). You could add a personalized video message from the CEO or team leader to make the welcome memorable.
• Set up necessary accounts and access in advance

2️⃣ Structure the first week

• Host activities like team lunch meetups or interactive sessions to replace traditional presentations.
• Define clear goals and expectations to ensure accountability and alignment with managers.
• Schedule key training sessions

3️⃣ Enable ongoing support

• Assign an onboarding buddy
• Schedule regular check-ins
• Gather feedback on the onboarding experience

Buffer’s “Buffer Bootcamp” – a 45-day onboarding program – demonstrates this well. They provide a buddy system, weekly check-ins with managers, and virtual team-building events to help new hires integrate successfully into their work environment.

Is Employee Experience Management Right for Every Organization?

Disengaged employees cost businesses between $228 million and $355 million annually. On the flip side, employees who feel valued are 18% more productive and can boost profitability by up to 23%.

The focus has to be on your people — retaining employees is as important as retaining customers.

We’ve established how EXM is a must for improving employee engagement and well-being, as well as how employees feel about their workplace. But your approach to it depends on your unique setup.

EXM doesn’t have to be expensive or complex. It’s about doing what works for your people. Start by improving communication, automating simple processes, or creating a space for employees to share feedback. Measure what works and build on it.

Every organization can benefit from EXM – but your employee experience strategy depends on where you are and what your people need. The goal is the same: a work environment where employees feel valued and businesses thrive.