The employee experience is the sum of every interaction, perception, and emotion employees have regarding their work and organization. This begins from the first time an employee has contact with the organization during recruitment and the application process through their exit. This is marked by the employee lifecycle, the operational timeline of an employee’s time at the organization.

In a nutshell: Employee satisfaction is how content people are with their jobs and work environment. Imagine employee satisfaction as being the foundation of your organizational culture. It relates to extrinsic elements that are fundamental to employee well-being. This includes compensation, work environment, tools and resources, safety, staff relationships, and company culture.

An Engagement Survey isn’t like The Field of Dreams. “If you survey, they will participate.” When a high percentage of employees don’t take the survey, senior leaders and HR are left without the data they need to take meaningful actions. What is a good employee response rate? It’s unrealistic to think 100% of your staff will take the engagement survey. That said, you should strive for 70% - 80%. Anything above 80% is exceptional. 60%-69% is acceptable. Anything below 50% should be considered a red flag.

The obvious response to this is with an Employee Engagement Survey. Absolutely, this is your baseline for understanding how your employees are experiencing work and life in your organization. Healthy organizations, though, create a culture of continuous feedback that provides organizational leaders and HR with the tools to monitor and track employee engagement through various metrics. This includes pulse surveys, performance and productivity metrics, employee turnover and retention rates, and absenteeism and presenteeism rates.

In our previous post, we discussed how effective a virtual suggestion box can be at work. It can give your managers and senior leaders an opportunity to listen, creating an ongoing channel for feedback. Simply put, a virtual suggestion box can get the conversation going. What are the best practices to implement a virtual suggestion box?