Employee experience: A transformational guide to EX

Employees are crucial to every business. They keep the wheels turning and the sales coming, but they need to feel appreciated, understood, and supported to perform at their best. The most powerful way to ensure this is to prioritize employee experience (EX) and internal customer service.

According to benchmark data from the Zendesk EX Trends Report, 84 percent of businesses see the employee experience as a competitive differentiator—and for good reason. A top-notch EX allows businesses to attract, retain, and develop top talent, helping them stay ahead of their competitors.

In our in-depth EX guide, we dive into the benefits, stages, best practices, and technologies crucial for delivering invaluable employee experiences.

More in this guide:

• What is employee experience?
• Why is employee experience important?
• Employee experience challenges in 2025
• The 6 EX stages
• How to improve employee experience
• How to design an employee experience strategy
• Essential EX workplace technology
• 7 types of EX surveys to create and use
• Frequently asked questions
• Transform your employee experiences

What is employee experience?

Employee experience (EX) refers to how employees feel about their jobs, workplaces, and employers. EX is affected by workplace culture, employee services, technology, policies for employee leave, growth opportunities, and more. It encompasses everything employees learn, do, see, and feel throughout the employee journey, from the hiring process to their departure.

Additionally, employee experience greatly impacts employee satisfaction and loyalty, influencing their engagement, collaboration, and contribution to business performance. A positive EX can drive innovation, enhance customer experience efforts, and strengthen an organization’s reputation.

Why is employee experience important?

Satisfied employees typically work and produce more—at higher quality. In short, EX is all about looking after your employees so they can look after your business. Let’s dive into a few of the ways this plays out in an organization.

Business impact

Zendesk benchmark data found that 87 percent of IT and HR leaders agree that EX impacts the customer experience (CX), making it a top priority for driving business success. By prioritizing inclusive hiring practices, positive workplace culture, cost savings through operational improvements, and other EX-specific changes, businesses can improve outcomes while investing in their workforce.

Recruitment

Organizations that prioritize positive workplace experiences—from streamlined interviews to career development opportunities—gain a significant advantage in attracting top talent. Prospective employees frequently research company culture and satisfaction before applying, making internal service quality a crucial recruitment tool.

When current employees enthusiastically advocate for your organization on review sites and social media, recruitment costs can decrease while applicant quality increases.

Retention

A thoughtfully designed employee experience directly addresses the fundamental reasons for employee turnover. Organizations that invest in EX tools, like responsive service platforms, clear communication channels, and efficient problem resolution, demonstrate that they value their employees’ time and well-being. This investment builds loyalty and creates an environment where employees see long-term potential.

Engagement

Positive and negative EX directly influence how connected employees feel to their work and organization. Employees who feel connected through intuitive, respectful, and efficient workplace interactions and processes can focus on meaningful contributions and productive actions, improving employee engagement.

Plus, businesses that invest in employee engagement ideas and workplace connection can experience higher worker effort and emotional commitment.

Performance

When organizations prioritize employee performance management so the workforce can easily access resources and receive timely support, businesses experience increased creative problem-solving and innovation. Further, streamlined service processes minimize productivity interruptions, and intelligent knowledge management systems help employees leverage organizational expertise efficiently, improving customer service and business performance.

Satisfaction

Employee satisfaction is shaped by daily workplace experiences and interactions. Service, process, and technology reliability build organizational trust between a business and its workforce, decreasing employee frustration and increasing job satisfaction. Plus, regular feedback, one-on-one coaching, and skills training prove a company’s investment in individual growth, which impacts employee fulfillment.

Organizations create emotional connections by treating employees with the same care and attention typically reserved for customers, transforming satisfaction from a measurement metric into a competitive advantage.

Workplace culture

Nobody wants to work somewhere they aren’t valued or appreciated, so creating a positive workplace culture is crucial for attracting and retaining top talent. By promoting collaboration, employee recognition, and respectful service across all touchpoints, businesses can reinforce a culture of respect and excellence.

This creates safety and fosters innovation, developing a workplace where employees feel genuinely connected to organizational purpose and to each other.

Brand advocacy

Employees are your first and most credible brand ambassadors. Those who encounter seamless service and thoughtful workplace design develop pride in their business associations and naturally share positive experiences with their networks.

This authentic brand advocacy can reach potential customers, partners, and talent through social media, review platforms, and personal conversations.

Employee experience challenges in 2025

From technology growth to employee needs, these are a few of the challenges associated with employee experience management:

• Harnessing AI: Companies are looking at ways to implement artificial intelligence (AI) without disconnecting employees, but benchmark data suggests that AI actually enables teams to handle complex tasks while enhancing work quality.
• Job security: The rise of automation and shifting market demands has led to job insecurity. However, organizations that leverage these advancements to invest in upskilling and internal mobility can future-proof jobs, leading to greater engagement and retention.
• Work-life balance: Hybrid and remote work have blurred the work-life balance. However, forward-thinking companies use technology to streamline workloads and encourage flexible schedules, proving that a balanced workforce is more engaged and effective.
• Poor processes and systems: Inefficient and outdated tools and workflows can frustrate employees, slowing productivity. Modernizing their infrastructure allows companies to create a smoother, more intuitive EX that drives high-impact work.
• Organizational values: Transparency and ethical leadership are vital because employees want to work for companies with similar values. Organizations prioritizing authenticity, DEI initiatives, and sustainability efforts build stronger cultures that retain talent.

Despite these challenges, the benefits of improving team productivity through positive employee experiences are invaluable.

The 6 EX stages

Getting your EX right from start to finish benefits your business, and it all starts with employee experience journey mapping. Below, we break down the six key phases of employee experience to help you better understand the employee lifecycle.

How to improve employee experience

Here are a few key principles for evolving employee experiences that not only meet but also exceed expectations and help teams improve EX.

Invest in AI and automation

Our benchmark data reveals a valuable statistic about AI for EX: 79 percent of IT and HR leaders agree that AI enhances employee work quality.

Consider leveraging AI to:

• Automate simple and repetitive tasks.

• Resolve complex inquiries through AI agents.

• Forecast workforce needs.

• Personalize experiences, coaching, and training.

• Monitor interactions and communication.

Using AI in the workplace can also reduce the pressure on your team by helping employees solve problems faster while ensuring they feel heard and are supported around the clock.

Hire and train inclusive management

The foundation of exceptional EX begins with managers who embrace diverse thoughts, backgrounds, and working styles. Inclusive leaders ensure that employees feel valued for their unique perspectives and comfortable sharing ideas without fear of judgment. Consider equipping managers with processes and tools that:

• Screen for emotional intelligence and bias awareness.

• Develop active listening, conflict resolution, and feedback skills.

• Recognize and mitigate microaggressions.

• Facilitate equitable participation in meetings and projects.

• Create employee development plans tailored to individual strengths.

Engagement and innovation naturally follow when employees see themselves reflected in leadership and feel their voices genuinely matter.

Prioritize employee well-being

The prioritization of employee well-being is no longer a nice-to-have employee perk but a strategic business imperative that impacts productivity, creativity, and retention. Through preventative and responsive measures, forward-thinking organizations implement comprehensive well-being programs that address four facets of health:

• Physical

• Mental

• Financial

• Social

Beyond traditional benefits, consider establishing mental health days, stress management workshops, financial counseling services, and more to promote total well-being. These initiatives should also help remove the stigma around asking for help by making support resources visible, accessible, and integrated into regular workflows.

Consider workplace flexibility

Effective flexibility goes beyond a simple remote work policy. Instead, workplace flexibility encompasses:

• Adaptable schedules

• Results-oriented performance metrics

• Accessible technology like remote help desk software

Flexible policies should balance individual preferences with team cohesion while establishing clear communication protocols, core collaboration hours, and schedule personalization. This allows organizations to support seamless collaboration regardless of location or working hours.

Support omnichannel communication

Just like it’s a good idea to meet your customers where they are, it’s key to the employee experience to use the communication channels your employees prefer. Whether it’s email, instant messaging, or social media, omnichannel support helps businesses avoid frustration and missed messages while ensuring everyone is on the same page.

Empower employees to self-serve

By implementing AI knowledge bases, search functionality, and user-friendly service portals, organizations enable employees to access information and resources whenever and wherever they need them. Further, the true value extends beyond efficiency gains—employee self-service increases autonomy and confidence and enables support teams to focus on complex issues requiring human expertise.

Personalize employee service

By leveraging data and intelligent systems to deliver an employee experience (EX) that recognizes individual preferences, anticipates needs based on role and history, and offers relevant resources, businesses invest in tailored interactions. This personalization should provide consistent, contextual support that acknowledges unique circumstances, creating a sense of investment that directly correlates with higher retention and advocacy rates.

Streamline employee onboarding and offboarding

The bookends of the employee lifecycle—onboarding and offboarding—influence employee perception and organizational risk.

• Effective onboarding extends beyond the first day to create a structured journey that combines efficiency with connection.
• Thoughtful offboarding preserves organizational knowledge, secures company assets, and creates brand advocates regardless of departure circumstances.

Companies with standardized onboarding systems and compassionate offboarding processes protect their reputations, care for employees, and minimize organizational risk. By treating each transition with the strategic importance it deserves, organizations can accelerate time-to-productivity for new hires while preserving relationships with departing talent who may become future customers, partners, or returning employees.

Standardize leave management

Leave management represents a sensitive intersection of employee well-being, legal compliance, and operational planning that directly impacts experience and trust. By implementing clear, transparent employee leave policies, organizations create clarity during life events like:

• Paid holidays

• Parental or caregiving leave

• Medical absences

• Bereavement

• Sabbaticals

EX systems should simplify documentation, provide consistent status updates, and ensure seamless handoffs of responsibilities. Plus, offering innovative leave options acknowledges diverse needs across different life stages, allowing employees to return with renewed engagement and loyalty that offsets temporary operational adjustments.

Consistently measure EX

Sustainable EX improvement requires systematic measurement that captures sentiment and behavior across the entire employee journey. Balanced measurement approaches combining traditional engagement surveys with real-time feedback allow businesses to examine the overall experience and specific touchpoints or “moments that matter.”

Organizations that establish clear EX metrics, integrate findings into evaluations and communicate action plans transparently create workplace cultures where feedback consistently creates meaningful workplace enhancements.

How to design an employee experience strategy

1. Make positive EX a core company value. Make employee experience a non-negotiable in your mission statement and ensure it’s reflected in leadership behavior, budget, and strategic planning.
2. Ask for employee feedback. Regular surveys and interactions provide insight into employee values and pain points. Listen actively to understand explicit requests and underlying needs.
3. Identify your areas for improvement. Analyze your current employee journey to identify bottlenecks and roadblocks. Then, focus initial improvements on high-impact, high-visibility issues to build momentum and demonstrate commitment.
4. Customize experiences for every individual. Recognize that your employees have unique needs, preferences, and working styles. Create flexible frameworks for personalization, including digital EX practices for remote or hybrid workers.
5. Design moments that matter. Identify, intentionally craft, and invest attention into the critical touchpoints—from job acceptance to retirement—that shape employee perception and engagement.

Developing an EX strategy is not a one-time project but an ongoing commitment. Organizations that approach employee experience with the same enthusiasm as CX can find themselves with a powerful differentiator in the talent marketplace and competitive business landscape.

Essential EX workplace technology

Now that you know how to design your EX strategy, you need the right tools and technologies to bring it to life. Here we dive into the most important technologies for improving employee experience:

• Predictive analytics: These tools identify patterns in employee data and transform historical insights into actionable intelligence.
• Listening tools: Modern employee listening platforms capture continuous feedback through pulse surveys, sentiment analysis, and digital focus groups and provide real-time data dashboards.
• Intelligent automation: Automation tools digitize repetitive tasks and reduce administrative burdens while giving employees transparent visibility into process status.
• AI analytics: AI-powered data analysis of employee feedback helps teams identify emerging themes and complex patterns across interactions.

Organizations that thoughtfully implement these technologies—prioritizing employee privacy, providing adequate training, and focusing on measurable outcomes—create digital environments that enhance rather than complicate the employee journey.

7 types of EX surveys to create and use

Measuring employee experience helps you understand exactly where you stand and what you need to improve. With the right tools, like inclusive surveys, you can identify important patterns quickly and efficiently. Below are seven examples of EX surveys to create and use for data capture.

1. Engagement surveys: These surveys aim to understand how committed employees are to your company and its goals by gauging their enthusiasm and dedication.
2. Candidate feedback surveys: These assessments capture the applicant experience regardless of hiring outcome, providing insights into your recruitment process and brand perception.
3. Onboarding surveys: Businesses can distribute these surveys at strategic intervals to measure how new hires are integrating into their roles, teams, and the broader organization.
4. 360-degree feedback surveys: These comprehensive surveys gather insights from professional circles—managers, peers, direct reports, and even external stakeholders when appropriate.
5. Benefits surveys: These assessments evaluate awareness, use, and satisfaction with your organization’s benefits and perks.
6. Performance reviews: These evaluations combine objective performance metrics with subjective feedback to create a picture of employee contributions and development needs.
7. Exit surveys: These critical assessments capture honest feedback from departing employees about their reasons for leaving and their overall experience with the organization.

A robust survey strategy balances depth and frequency, ensuring meaningful insights without creating survey fatigue among employees. The most valuable approach integrates multiple survey types into a cohesive listening program that covers the entire employee lifecycle while maintaining consistent core questions for trend analysis.

Frequently asked questions

Transform your employee experiences

Employee experience must be a priority for every company—it directly impacts how employees feel about their work, productivity, and loyalty. A positive EX can boost morale, reduce turnover, and help your business grow.

Employee service software from Zendesk makes great EX easy. Our omnichannel support, internal knowledge base, and 24/7 self-service support are perfect for HR and IT teams. Plus, our AI-powered support features are capable of handling all sorts of inquiries and support requests. Try Zendesk today and give your employees the tools they need and the support they deserve to deliver their best.