20 Employee Experience Statistics You Should Know

As we head into 2024, the employee experience is going to be more important than ever. Everything from retention to helping your employees bring their best selves to work relies on the experience in the workplace. That’s why we’ve rounded up some of the most important employee experience statistics that will help you put together your HR and Internal Communication strategies for the year ahead.

What is the Employee Experience?

First things first, what is the employee experience and why is it so important?

Employee experience (EX) is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a term used to describe the experience each employee has at your company, starting during the hiring process until that employee goes through the exit process.

That’s a lot of touch points and a lot to consider, isn’t it? But EX is everything. Even if we can only tackle a piece of the employee journey at a time, it will add up.

Since EX encompasses so much, it can be difficult to know where to start improving things. Keep reading for our list of over twenty employee experience statistics to guide you.

Employee Experience Statistics to Know for 2024

These EX statistics will help you pinpoint where you should focus to make the biggest impact for your workforce.

Satisfaction is Very Low

The sad truth is that we have a very long way to go where the employee experience is concerned. Gartner research has found that only 13% of employees are fully satisfied with their experience at work.

This is why the rest of these stats matter so much. Poor EX leads to a ripple effect of other issues—keep reading to learn more!

When EX is Great, So Is Work Performance

The Employee Experience Index from IBM found that companies with the top 25% highest employee experience index scores also had the highest levels of work performance.

So, even though we have a long way to go in improving the workplace experience, it is completely worth it!

Employee Burnout is Increasing

In 2021, 52% of employees reported feeling at least moderately burnt out at work. That shot up to 59% of employees experiencing burnout in 2022 – 2023 according to Aflac’s WorkForces Report.

Work-Life Balance is Key to Productivity

Whether you’re talking about work-life balance or separation or work-life harmony, those who feel they have good work-life balance are more willing to “go above and beyond” for their company. 

However, the same 2023 Qualtrics Employee Experience Trends Report also found that there’s a discrepancy between satisfaction levels with their work-life balance. Perhaps not surprisingly, individual contributors are less satisfied with their work-life balance than Director-level and above employees.

Retention is at Stake

If we don’t focus on improving the employee experience, we will start losing talent. That’s why 77% of HR professionals and 62% of senior executives have “employee retention” as a top priority. But perhaps EX should be the priority!

Recognition is Low-Hanging Fruit

One of the easiest ways to retain employees and make them feel better about work is by showing more and better recognition.

A 2023 Quantum Workplace study found that 53% of employees who quit say they weren’t recognized for their work. That means 1 in 2 employees at your company probably don’t feel valued.

Don’t Ignore the Digital Side of EX

Digital employee experience (DEX) is an important but sometimes overlooked part of the workplace experience.

In an employee engagement survey, you often ask employees if they have the proper tools and equipment to do their jobs. That can be a great indicator of your DEX.

But if you aren’t on the cutting edge of technology, you might be leaving money on the table. A 2023 Future Forum survey found that companies that are “technology innovators” report 1.6x higher productivity scores, 2x better employee focus, 2.2x higher sense of workplace belonging, and 2.8x higher overall satisfaction.

Transparency is a Necessity

Your employees are adults. But sometimes companies don’t treat them that way. They withhold the truth like their employees “can’t handle it” or assume they don’t need to know.

But the truth is, employees who believe their company is being transparent with them have 8.8x higher job satisfaction than employees who think their company isn’t transparent.

It’s Time to Stop Being Shady About Pay

One type of transparency that workers desperately want is pay transparency. According to a Lattice survey, 67% of employees say they want pay transparency at their company but only 25% know the pay range for their job.

Flexibility Makes a Big Difference

Even though 25% of executives believe their workplace culture is being negatively affected by flexible work policies for their office staff, that’s not actually the case. Employees with flexible work arrangements are 57% more likely to say their company culture has improved compared to fully in-person staff.

Having Growth Tracks Aren’t Enough. You Need to Communicate Them.

We all know that investing in our people makes them more likely to stick around, not to mention improves job performance.

So, why is it that so few companies have growth paths in the first place?

35% of HR leaders say their company has growth paths that employees understand and just 33% say that growth tracks exist but aren’t understood.

But there’s also a divide here from a DEI perspective. Women are 50% more likely than men to say they don’t have visibility into the career opportunities at their company.

Leadership Communication Has to be a Focus

It’s not just mid-level managers who need to step up their communication game. Studies from Future Forum and Axios have found many issues with leadership communication.

• 73% of leaders think they’re being “very transparent” but only 41% of employees agree.
• 77% of leaders believe their communications include sufficient context for employees to do their jobs well, but only 46% of employees agree.
• 70% of leaders think their employees and stakeholders can find company goals and strategies quickly, but only 46% of employees agree.

This is not good enough! It doesn’t matter if the executive leadership team thinks they’re doing a great job. If the employees say they aren’t, then they aren’t.

We Have to Get Our Priorities Straight

Even though employee experience is the key to unlocking better engagement, retention, productivity, satisfaction (the list goes on)…we aren’t prioritizing improving it.

In fact, Deloitte research found that 80% of executives say EX is important or very important. And yet 59% say their companies aren’t ready or are only somewhat ready to address EX.

This work is critical. We have to make it a focus.

Companies Who Do Invest in EX Increase Their Profit

Why companies aren’t lining up to improve EX is baffling, especially when companies who have invested in EX outperform other companies. Companies who have invested in EX tend to see 4.2x average profit.

Managers Make a Huge Difference on Retention

Qualtrics research has found that employees with managers who consistently help them manage their workload are 8x more likely to stay with the company.

Just like how managers account for 70% of the variance in engagement (Gallup), they also make the biggest impact on a person’s work experience.

Collecting Employee Feedback Isn’t Enough. You MUST Act On It.

It’s actually worse when you consistently give feedback when asked for it and then see nothing come of it. That’s actually where survey fatigue comes from.

So, while 60% of employees in the US have been given a way to provide feedback about their experience at work…only 30% say their company acts on that feedback.

Culture is Still King

We’ve known for some time that how good and healthy your company’s culture is will determine if people want to show up and give it their all.

But did you know that 77% of job candidates heavily consider company culture when deciding whether or not to accept an offer? 

A bad EX is going to show up in your brand reputation. So, definitely take it seriously if you want to recruit top talent.

Work-Life Balance Isn’t Just an Employee Problem

While your company might think that employees balancing work and life is their prerogative, you might be surprised to learn that 87% of employees actually expect their employer to support their work-life balance.

Employees Want More Direction

Nearly half of employees don’t have a clear development plan laid out for them to help them reach their professional goals. This not only makes employees feel like their development isn’t a priority, it might even lead to them seeking opportunities elsewhere.

It’s Not Just About DEI. We Need to Improve Belonging Too.

25% of employees feel like they don’t belong at work. That’s staggering, isn’t it? No wonder 40% of employees also feel isolated at work.

How to Use These Employee Experience Statistics

A lot of these employee experience statistics paint a pretty bleak picture. But the good news is that these data points do give us a starting point and a sense of where we need to focus our efforts.

• It has to start with an investment. Before you can focus on specific areas of the employee journey to improve, you have to get your executive team on board, a cross-functional team lined up, and an actual budget. 
• Figure out where your areas for opportunity are. These statistics are a great benchmark, but you’ll need to do a little digging to learn where your specific company stands. Base your employee experience strategy on that data.
• Focus on one major problem at a time. When we’re faced with a problem as big as fixing the employee experience, we tend to boil the ocean, try to take on too much at once, burnout, and get nowhere. If you’re tackling something as big as manager communication or your career development program, it’s important to focus and really get it right.

If you want to focus on improving your internal communication, transparency, and connection to your workforce, we’d be happy to talk to you about our suite of accessible internal comms channels.