Author: Kristina Proffitt

Categories
Employee Experience

8 future of work trends that will impact your employee experience

The future of work will look very different from the working world we know today. Many of the children in school right now will go on to work in roles that don’t yet exist.

It was the same for many millennials in the early 2000s. Content marketing didn’t exist back then when I dreamed of being a writer, for example.

The speed of technological advancement means that new roles are going to emerge. At the same time, old ones will die off, and the future of work will be unrecognizable.

Businesses therefore need to change and adapt to stay fresh, attract younger candidates who are digital natives, support knowledge transfer between employees, and continue to provide a positive employee experience.

What trends do you need to keep in mind to optimize your employee experience for the future of work? Here are our picks:

Green energy transition

The green energy transition will make millions of jobs obsolete. But it’s also going to create far more jobs than it eliminates.

To support employees through this transition, you need to invest in training initiatives. This will help them adapt their existing, potentially beneficial, skills.

While different countries will shift to green energy at different rates, green energy isn’t going anywhere. It will change both the future of work and life.

It will also create new roles, such as how we now have mechanics who specialize in electric vehicles.

AI

Many employees are worried about AI coming for their jobs in the future of work. It’s therefore important that businesses explain where they stand on AI, how they intend to use it, and how they want employees to use it. It isn’t going anywhere and it’s likely to become even more embedded in our lives.

AI can play a role in improving employee experience by helping with things like streamlining repetitive tasks, analyzing data, assessing job candidates, conducting interviews, etc.

Offloading these tasks to AI saves teams time and energy. That way they have more to spend on human interactions. Which further improves your employee experience by allowing for more personalized (and potentially longer) interactions between colleagues.

Return to office

The return to office trend has continued recently, with more big companies insisting employees are better off being at a desk in an office for the duration of the working day.

While being in an office has its benefits, it’s also very limiting. It restricts where you can hire from to a certain radius. Which means you risk hiring people from similar economic and cultural backgrounds. As a result, you get less innovation and creativity due to a decrease in diversity.

Over the next few years, up to a quarter of workforces in advanced economies could end up working remotely between three and five days a week. This is four to five times more remote work than before the pandemic. In terms of accessibility, this is huge. But, given recent company rollbacks on remote work, I am skeptical of this future of work stat.

Make remote work work for you

If you want to make your remote work culture a success, you need to invest in the right tools. That’s true both today, and in preparing for the future of work.

Workrowd helps you connect with your employees. Everything they need from files to upcoming events to employee groups and programs is kept in one place so that they always know what’s going on. Get in touch today to find out more.

Gen Z

Gen Z is now firmly a part of the working world. As one of the largest and the most diverse generation ever—and the first of digital natives—they’re bound to impact the future of work.

Businesses need to consider how they can set these young people up for success.

While Gen Z will need to adapt from education to the world of work, the world of work also needs to adapt to the new ways of thinking Gen Z brings. They’re not all about work work work. They want a life outside of their job and they’re not all that interested in traditional career paths.

Instead, they want purpose-led work with good pay and work-life balance. Is that too much to ask for? We’ll have to wait and see.

How companies accommodate Gen Z’s way of wanting to work will be a significant differentiator. It may be the difference between companies successfully adapting to the future of work and being left behind.

DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility)

It’s estimated that as much as 40% of US GDP growth between 1960 and 2010 was because of an increase in women and people of color in the workplace. If businesses want to continue growing, they need to continue to embrace diversity.

DEIA decreases the likelihood that companies will fall into groupthink which reduces internal innovation and problem-solving skills.

Remote work, flexible hours, adaptable office equipment, and accommodations like sending meeting agendas in advance are simple ways that businesses can support employees with different needs.

Sharing the types of adaptations they offer will also become a key differentiator to a company’s employer brand in the future of work.

Honesty and integrity

As more companies become opaque (and social media stops fact-checking) it will become increasingly important for employers to make their organizational values clear. 

Employees want to know what their employer stands for and that they’re on the same side. They can only work that out if their employer is open and honest about what matters to them. And about what’s happening in the business.

Failing to be open and honest is likely to lead to even more uncertainty in an already uncertain world. Which could impact your engagement, retention, and hiring efforts in the future of work.

Company purpose

Purpose is a key driver for younger employees who are motivated by feeling like they make a difference in the world.

Making your company values clear to people inside and outside of your organization helps attract the right types of hires. It also ensures values stay at the forefront of their mind when they join.

For instance, if a value is that employees can “disagree agreeably” they should be able to have a healthy discussion about a project. Then when that’s over, continue to respect and listen to each other even if one of them didn’t get what they wanted.

Knowledge transfer

With so much happening right now, and so many employees retiring or not sticking around as long as their predecessors, knowledge transfer will be vital to business success in the future of work. 

Not only will it ensure that knowledge doesn’t leave with an employee, but it will also help to retain employees by offering them more training opportunities.

Things like employee groups and mentoring can ensure that just because someone leaves, the strategies and tools that they used don’t have to leave with them.

Conclusion 

The future of work will affect every level of business, from senior leadership right down to recent graduates and apprentices. The pace at which it approaches will only continue to grow, too.

How businesses adapt to these changes will have a huge role in their ability to survive and thrive in the future of work.

Ready to future-proof your employee experience? Workrowd’s all-in-one suite of tools can help.

Find out how an automated hub for everything employee engagement ensures your success no matter what the future holds. Drop us a note to see how our platform can help you reach and exceed your future of work goals.

8 future of work trends that will impact your employee experience
6 ways to make the most of career ladders in your organization
6 organizational values examples to supercharge your culture
Categories
Learning & Development

6 ways to make the most of career ladders in your organization

Supporting employee career growth can play a vital role in your talent attraction and retention efforts. Offering career ladders ensures your people know they have a path for growth in your organization.

Which is important, because a quarter of employees report plans to quit their jobs in the next six months due to a lack of growth opportunities.

Promoting internally can save you money on the expensive hiring process, ensure you retain your star players, and help you attract better-quality hires who want to grow with your organization.

The higher up in an organization you go, the more likely a promotion is to be internal. 21.5% of C-Suite and other top positions are internal hires, compared to just 8.9% lower down the ladder. 

However, there are benefits to promoting employees who start at the bottom of your career ladders, too. For instance, they have more internal knowledge on how things work. Which means they can use this to find efficiencies, boost productivity, and connect more easily with colleagues at every level.

Here’s how to get the most out of career ladders in your organization:

Connect those on similar paths

There are inevitably times, when we’re working toward a goal, where we feel disheartened. Or when we need support from someone who’s been there to solve a problem. ERGs are an effective tool to connect those who are on similar paths.

Workrowd can help you create and manage employee groups that drive real impact. It’s a one-stop shop for employees to find the latest information on what’s happening in the organization, alongside ways for them to network and share knowledge. Get in touch today to book your free demo.

Use internal and external trainers

To climb your career ladders, employees need to learn new technical and soft skills. While you’re likely to have lots of great knowledge internally, external coaches, mentors, and teachers are also useful resources that shouldn’t be underestimated.

Not only can they act as objective sounding boards, but their external knowledge and experience can prevent groupthink by ensuring that you regularly get new insights and perspectives.

There’s always a new way of doing things. Sometimes that new way of doing things can give your business a new lease on life. And in turn, help you become more competitive as more employees use their knowledge to ascend your career ladders.

Set quotas and embrace DEI

Despite the recent pushback, studies have shown that quotas and DEI initiatives are effective at weeding out incompetent employees. They ultimately help businesses become more profitable.

The London School of Economics found that adding more women increased the competency of male employees by 3%. 

Organizations with greater gender diversity are 25% more likely to outperform competitors. And those with greater ethnic diversity are 36% more likely to outperform. Diverse teams make better designs 87% of the time.

In addition, diversity makes teams 35% more productive, increases cash flow per employee by 2.5x, and means businesses get 26% more job applicants.

Diversity is still something that matters to Gen Z, too. Businesses that stop prioritizing it may become less attractive employers to the first generation of digital natives. In doing so, they risk being left behind by the future of not just the workforce, but the world.

Offer mentoring

Mentoring is an effective tool for knowledge-sharing. Those who’ve already climbed their career ladders can share their knowledge with people further down. Which can be particularly useful for supporting underrepresented talent in the workplace.

Team members from underrepresented backgrounds face unique challenges that can be difficult to navigate without adequate support. A mentor can provide this support, making the employee feel more like they do belong in the workplace and can continue to climb one or more career ladders within your organization.

Send surveys to check in

The only way you’ll know if the support you offer your employees is effective is if you send surveys to check in and ask what they think of their current situation and where they’d like to go.

Workrowd can help you send those surveys.

And better yet—you can set them to go out automatically at particular milestones. 

That way, the process becomes more seamless for you and employees. Wouldn’t you rather focus on supporting employees and helping them up your career ladders, rather than sending surveys?

Consider alternative paths

Not everyone wants to be—or is suited to being—a manager. Is that a reason to lose your top employees?

Being a manager requires a unique balance of technical and people skills. The truth is, a lot of people don’t have this combo (even those in management). But there never used to be non-managerial career ladders for those who wanted to grow their skills or income.

However, the world of work is changing. Many millennials and Gen Z-ers don’t want to follow traditional paths. But they also don’t see why they can’t continue to grow.

Consider having career ladders for those who want to focus on their technical knowledge without losing time to people management.

For example, you could create a principal engineer role for software developers who want to focus on knowledge over people management. They can become the go-to person on a particular area or topic. It can help streamline processes and retain internal knowledge.

Conclusion 

Climbing career ladders is seen as a rite of passage for many people. However, in 2025, it isn’t for everyone. Make sure you offer a variety of options to help everyone thrive, no matter their goals.

Supporting employees to climb your career ladders, instead of them having to jump from one company to the next as is often the case, helps you retain internal knowledge and top talent.

Connect colleagues

If you’d like to empower your employees who are climbing career ladders, why not connect them via an employee group? Get in touch today to find out more about how Workrowd could help you do just that.

8 future of work trends that will impact your employee experience
6 ways to make the most of career ladders in your organization
6 organizational values examples to supercharge your culture
Categories
Company Culture

6 organizational values examples to supercharge your culture

Almost two-thirds of people who leave a role do so because their values or goals don’t align with the organizational values of their employer.

While there’s never going to be a perfect match, when employees’ values do align with their employer’s they’re happier and more productive, meaning your business can grow faster.

When a company has a well-defined set of values, employees are 115% more engaged.

And when they discuss those values daily instead of yearly—keeping them at the forefront of employees’ minds—employee engagement goes up by 37%.

Despite all this, less than a quarter of businesses have a detailed list of company values.

If you’re considering creating organizational values to help motivate your workforce, or you want to rejig your existing ones, here are some examples to get you started:

Purpose 

With the cost of living crisis, numerous wars, and a tumultuous political climate, the traditional model of having a stable job, buying a house, and being able to afford marriage and children has now become the exception rather than the rule. 

So, it’s no surprise that employees want more from their work. They want to feel like they’re making a difference in the world, not just working to pay the bills.

In fact, teams with a strong sense of shared purpose experience a 17% increase in performance. Obviously, incorporating purpose into your organizational values can make a huge difference to output.

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA)

DEIA still matters to employees. And it’s increasingly important to younger generations. Gen Z is the most racially and ethnically diverse generation ever.

Clearly prioritizing diversity shows that you listen to, and understand, employees’ motivations and priorities. 

It also shows that you want to avoid groupthink and encourage creativity with your organizational values. The more diverse a workforce is, the more creative and better at problem-solving it becomes.

Creativity 

Creativity is an overused buzzword on resumes to the point where it’s now a little meaningless. But true creativity is still a powerful tool—especially in the age of AI.

True creativity comes from diversity of thought, both within teams and among individuals themselves.

For example, Ada Lovelace was both a scientist and a poet. Her combined interests allowed her to think differently from her contemporaries. In fact, she’s most well-known for being the world’s first computer programmer.

When we focus purely on one thing, it becomes harder to problem solve. We never give our brains a break, we have no time for play, and we’re too focused on what’s in front of us.

When we have a range of interests, it has a subconscious effect. For example, some interests of mine include cooking and ghost stories. So I’ve written books about a haunted chef and often use cooking or ghosts as analogies for life or writing techniques. Those things are unique to me and my interests.

If you want to embrace creativity as one of your organizational values, consider encouraging employees’ creative hobbies outside of the business, in addition to organizing creative activities for them to try together. There are endless possibilities, from pottery throwing to painting to cross stitch and beyond.

Continuous learning

Learning new skills is good for our physical and mental health as well as our work performance. 

Using your organizational values to create a culture of learning, and giving employees the opportunity to keep learning, helps your business stay fresh and innovative. 

It also creates a more psychologically safe space, where employees are more comfortable taking risks. After all, if you’re not taking risks, how can you learn?

Honesty and integrity

Employees want to know they can trust their employers. Having honesty and integrity as organizational values demonstrates that you’re going to be open and honest with them. Even if things are uncomfortable.

This transparency creates a deeper connection with employees and can even have a motivational impact when things are going badly. After all, if their values are in line with your organizational values, they’re going to want the business to succeed. And they’ll put more effort in to help it do so.

Work-life balance

Work-life balance was a big trend during Covid, but there’s been some backlash lately. 

For example, the co-founder of BrewDog recently said that the UK is “one of the world’s least work-oriented countries.”

Perhaps because so many are struggling to pay the bills even when they have a job, they wonder why they should bother putting the effort in if they can’t afford basics like food and electricity.

As the world continues to change at an unprecedented pace, many of us have begun to realize that giving all our time and energy to companies that either don’t pay enough, don’t value employees enough, or will drop employees without a second thought, isn’t worth it.

Instead, employees want to be able to switch off at the end of the day and do their own thing. Whether that’s spending time with children and family, building a side hustle, pursuing a creative hobby, or simply relaxing in front of the TV.

And employers should encourage this. When employees have time to recharge and have a range of hobbies, they’re happier and more productive. Forcing employees to work extremely long hours is unsustainable and risks burnout.

Conclusion 

Organizational values play a key role in your attraction and retention efforts. And they help you bring in people who are aligned with your values and want to help you succeed.

Organizational values can also help you attract customers with similar values. In turn, that increases your brand strength and your visibility.

Encourage a culture of connection

Connecting employees with a one-stop shop for everything your organization offers can work wonders for your employee experience. Organizing important information, events, programs, and groups in one place ensures team members can always access what they need, when they need it.

Workrowd can help you keep your organizational values front and center with a central hub for your company culture. Get in touch today to learn more and book your free demo.

8 future of work trends that will impact your employee experience
6 ways to make the most of career ladders in your organization
6 organizational values examples to supercharge your culture
Categories
Learning & Development

7 ways to improve your annual performance review process

Dread. That’s the feeling many employees get in the lead-up to their annual performance review.

I’ve had plenty of conversations with friends panicking over them. No matter how long they’ve been in a role or how good they know they are at it.

There’s something about sitting down and formally discussing their performance over the year that makes people sick to their stomachs.

While businesses can’t completely eradicate this feeling, there are steps they can take to make the process better. Not just for employees’ mental health, but also for getting the most out of the annual performance review process and their employees.

Have regular check-ins

Rather than having one big check-in after 365 days, have regular ones throughout the year instead. This will make them shorter, more focused, and reduce anxiety as they become part of everyday work.

It also means that when you’re discussing something that’s happened, it’s fresher in everyone’s minds. That makes it easier to look back on and learn from issues, versus a single annual performance review.

It’s not just about using these sessions for feedback—they also help make managers more accessible to employees. This puts everyone at ease when they have meetings together.

Make feedback a regular occurrence

Whether you use radical candor, constructive criticism, or another technique, the more you make feedback a regular part of the business, the less anxious employees will feel about their annual performance review. And the less there will be to cover when that time of year rolls around.

A third of employees want regular feedback outside of an annual performance review. By providing them with that, you ensure that they continue to grow and improve throughout the year. Likely at a faster pace, too, because they can adapt what they’re doing sooner.

In any review, ensure there’s a balance of positive and negative feedback. That way employees don’t feel like they’re constantly being criticized.

When we only receive negative feedback, it can make us worry that we can’t do anything right and we’re not good enough in a role. This is particularly true if we lack confidence or are newer in our careers.

Positive feedback and recognition go a long way toward making employees feel appreciated and supported in the workplace. 

Share the agenda in advance

Whatever you can do to reassure employees that their annual performance review isn’t a bad thing can mean that review season doesn’t cause anxiety or stress.

Sharing a clear plan or outline for the session in advance, for example, makes it so employees know what will be covered. That way, they’re not walking into the discussion blindly.

Preparing employees for conversations makes the whole thing less stressful. It’s often the fear of the unknown that can trigger anxiety. People can prepare talking points and responses, making the process more accessible for those who don’t think well on the spot.

The clear outline for the conversation also keeps the meeting focused and ensures you cover everything.

Make it a two-way conversation

In one of my previous roles, my annual performance review was not, in fact, a performance review. 

I sat with my manager and they told me what I needed to do for the next 12 months. There was no room for me to speak, no analysis of what I’d done, and my opinion didn’t matter.

Despite all that “effort”, none of what was listed for my future priorities got done. Everyone forgot about the reviews the following day, and it was back to business as usual.

To get the most out of employees, it’s important for them to feel heard. Making their annual performance review a two-way conversation is a really simple way to do this.

After all, it’s about them. So why wouldn’t you ask for their opinion? For what they think they could do better, and what they want to achieve going forward?

Create a clear goal—together

If an employee isn’t onboard with their performance goals, they’re not going to put as much effort into achieving them. That’s why it’s important that their annual performance review is a two-way conversation, and you work out what the goals are for the next 12 months together.

Empowering them to be a part of this conversation may also allow them to feel more comfortable reflecting back on the previous 12 months, as it will feel more like an open discussion.

Develop a culture of psychological safety

Psychological safety is a key tenet of a healthy workforce where employees feel comfortable receiving feedback. 

When people are comfortable at work, they’re more likely to share what they’re going through and be more able to analyze what impacted their performance and why. Meaning they can improve before their next annual performance review.

Use more than a spreadsheet

58% of businesses still use spreadsheets to manage and monitor performance reviews. While spreadsheets have their uses, there are far better ways to assess an annual performance review in 2025.

The right tool can make it easier for employees and managers to track goals and enable you to analyze the progress.

Employees are more likely to trust software to be objective and deliver a fair review than just their manager, too. Which makes sense when you consider that we’re all prone to unconscious biases and it’s easy to forget things.

Despite how much easier technology can make performance reviews, just 45% of business leaders think their organization uses consistent tools for them. Showing it’s time for an upheaval in how we approach the annual performance review process.

Conclusion

The annual performance review process shouldn’t be a time of stress and anxiety for employees or managers.

The right tools, systems, and culture can make it a more comfortable, effective process for everyone. And not just one where managers talk at employees about things that are forgotten 24 hours later.

Boost your feedback culture

Want to find out what your employees really think of your company’s annual performance review? Why not send a survey?

Using Workrowd, you can send automated surveys to collect feedback from employees after key milestones—like their annual performance review. Get in touch today to book your free demo.

8 future of work trends that will impact your employee experience
6 ways to make the most of career ladders in your organization
6 organizational values examples to supercharge your culture
Categories
Employee Engagement

Measuring employee engagement – tips to drive greater impact

While effectively measuring employee engagement at your organization can be a challenge, it’s undeniably important. Low engagement costs the global economy $7.8 trillion every year.

Yet, with so many businesses turning their backs on DEI initiatives—which are proven to boost engagement—is employee engagement really still a priority?

Prior to the pandemic, employee engagement and well-being had been rising globally for almost a decade. Now, they’ve stagnated.

Just a fifth of employees are engaged at work, and only a third are thriving in their overall well-being.

Work now feels pointless to many and they don’t feel hopeful for their futures. I mean, can you blame them? Given the current state of the world from every direction?

Businesses need to be mindful of the impact engagement can have on their bottom lines, and how both company culture and external factors can impact employee engagement and productivity.

Failing to consider these factors means risking a decrease in employee engagement, innovation, productivity, and profit.

Which is risky, when you consider that engaged employees lead to a:

  • 10% jump in customer satisfaction rates
  • 17% productivity bump
  • 20% sales increase
  • 21% profitability boost
  • 31% reduction in absenteeism

To be able to improve your employee engagement rates you need to measure them, though. How do you do that?

Here are our tips for measuring employee engagement:

Automate feedback

Automation is a key part of making your, and your employees’, lives easier.

When it comes to measuring employee engagement, if you automate it, there’s no forgetting to send that feedback survey or not having enough time to do so. The right tool can do it all for you. So you can collect more data in less time.

Want to automate your employee feedback surveys? Check out Workrowd. We can help you send automated, bite-sized surveys so that it’s easier for you and your employees to discuss what’s happening in your business in real time. And did we mention we can automatically analyze the results, too?

Make feedback opportunities bite-sized

The more effort you make something for someone—especially a busy employee—the less likely they are to do it.

Think about those feedback surveys you get from a coffee shop or doctor’s office that say they’ll just take ten minutes for you to complete. How often do you actually want to fill them in? And how often do they offer some sort of reward/prize to incentivize you to do it?

Yeah, that’s so that you focus on the reward not on the effort you’ve got to put in to fill it out.

Sure, one-time, in-depth answers can be useful. But if you collect data regularly, you’ll get more actionable information because you can spot trends more quickly.

Meaning you can pivot faster if something’s going wrong or capitalize on what’s working quicker.

Little and often can be much more effective than one and done. Especially when it comes to measuring employee engagement.

Combine data points from a variety of sources

Imagine you’re collecting employee feedback on your company culture and want to improve response rates. Consider:

  • Reaching out to people from multiple teams—and following up if a particular team has a disproportionately low participation rate
  • Requesting feedback more often—to obtain more real-time data
  • Getting feedback from people throughout the organization, not just at a particular level or in a particular role

To get even more useful data throughout the year:

  • Ask for feedback on multiple initiatives rather than just one or two
  • Include employees in decision-making processes (or at least ask what they think of certain decisions so that they feel heard and valued)

The more data you have, the more in-depth your results will be and the more useful they’ll be for measuring employee engagement.

Make data collection ongoing

Many companies still send one large feedback survey per year. This allows them to track changes over several years.

But in the modern world, where things change so quickly, is yearly enough?

When you make data collection an ongoing initiative, you get an evolving, holistic picture of employee sentiment, rather than a point-in-time snapshot. Meaning the data you get is more accurate, precise, and actionable.

So you won’t just be measuring employee engagement for appearance’s sake. The data you collect can actually lead to positive changes across your organization.

Leverage tools

The right tools are a key part of any digital employee experience. They’re also key to measuring employee engagement. If you want to collect actionable data that can help you drive change within your business, having the right tool is even more important.

Using Workrowd, surveys will automatically go out after employee initiatives to see how team members feel in real time. You can set them to go out after certain milestones, too, and the software will analyze the results for you. That way, you don’t have to rifle through all the responses to find the data that matters.

Instead, you get more time to spend improving employees’ working lives and supporting your organization.

Conclusion

Employee engagement is a key metric that can foreshadow challenging business times, or help you adapt to upcoming challenges. High employee engagement can mean that it’s easier to weather storms, while low engagement is a sign of stormy seas ahead.

Measuring employee engagement is therefore vital if you want to be able to successfully navigate the modern business world. It shows your employees that you support them and listen to them, as well as helping you see how your decisions impact your employees in real time.

If you want to collect more feedback with less work, check out Workrowd. You can automatically send surveys and view the results once they’re already analyzed, meaning you have more time to drive change and support your employees. Get in touch today to book your free demo.

8 future of work trends that will impact your employee experience
6 ways to make the most of career ladders in your organization
6 organizational values examples to supercharge your culture
Categories
Wellness

8 ways to boost the value of your employee assistance program

An employee assistance program (EAP) can reduce absenteeism by up to 70%. It can also improve presenteeism, life satisfaction, workplace distress, and employee engagement.

But, on average, only around 10% of employees use EAPs.

Prior to the pandemic, this number was even lower at just 5%.

Why is this? Let’s explore what an employee assistance program is, how to encourage employees to use it, and how to increase its impact.

What is an EAP?

An employee assistance program is a type of benefit some businesses offer their employees. Through it, team members can get a handful of counseling or therapy sessions.

It’s designed to support employees’ mental health at work.

And given that a fifth of US adults are estimated to experience mental health challenges, it could have a huge impact on your employee engagement and productivity.

How to get more value from your EAP

Having an employee assistance program and experiencing its benefits are two different things. If your employees don’t use it (and as the numbers show, most don’t) then it’s not only a waste of money that you could invest elsewhere, but it also means your employees suffer needlessly.

So, what can you do to get more value from your EAP and ensure it’s money well spent?

Make sure you’re using the right provider for you

Just like with any other business you work with, you want to ensure your EAP provider aligns with your company values.

The way some companies offer support, even down to the language they use when talking to employees, may not be compatible with your business.

If you choose to keep your employee assistance program in-house, consider whether your employees will feel comfortable sharing private information with someone internal.

When discussing personal information, there’s always a chance employees will prefer to remain anonymous. Or that they’d rather discuss challenges with someone external and objective.

Especially when most people assume HR is there to protect the business, not its people.

These small differences can influence whether employees feel comfortable using your EAP and if it’s a success for your organization.

Tell employees about it

If team members don’t know about your employee assistance program, or how to access it, they’re not going to use it. So you won’t get your money’s worth and they won’t get the support they need.

Make sure to remind employees that it’s there regularly—in all-hands/town hall meetings, company-wide emails, on Workrowd, etc. The more places they can see it, the more likely they are to use it.

It can also help to remind employees that the support is there during challenging times such as mergers or layoffs. That way they know there’s support out there for when they feel like they’re on shaky ground. It can offer them techniques to support their mental health, prioritize their workload, manage survivor’s guilt, and more.

Make it accessible to everyone

Data shows that 75% of employees in the highest quarter of earners have access to an EAP. In contrast, just a third of the lowest quarter of earners have access.

But someone can experience challenges regardless of what they earn or where they are in their career. So why not make it accessible to everyone?

Especially in the current climate, when so much of what’s happening economically, politically, technologically, and environmentally is unpredictable and will inevitably impact employee well-being.

Your employee assistance program could provide team members with the tools they need to overcome obstacles and progress in their careers.

Create a culture where people are open about using an employee assistance plan

There’s still a lot of stigma out there around asking for help or having mental health struggles. Creating a culture where people feel open to admitting that they’ve used, or are using, your employee assistance program can help remove some of this stigma.

It can be particularly useful if your leaders share their journeys with similar initiatives. Whether that’s therapy, counseling, coaching, an EAP, etc. It shows they really do understand that it’s both necessary and helpful to get mental health support, and they won’t judge anyone for using it.

Share successes

Sharing successes—such as employees being able to better handle problems or even getting a promotion because of the guidance they received—can encourage other people to use the employee assistance program. It gives them a concrete example of what they could achieve if they used it, too.

These successes could be internal successes from current or past employees, or, if the program is new, external case studies provided by the provider you choose.

Ask employees what they need help with

The only way you can help employees effectively is if you know what they really need help with. How do you find that out? Ask them!

Using Workrowd, you can automate feedback surveys to see what is and isn’t working across your employee experience. This data can then help you make more informed decisions about how best to support your employees now and in the future.

Collect data

When you ask employees what they need help with, it can be useful to do so in a quantitative, rather than qualitative, way. This makes it easier for you to visualize how your employees feel and what they need from you.

For instance, you could ask them if they’d prefer an internal, external, or hybrid employee assistance program. Collecting information on this will help you create a program that’s more likely to be successful. Or it will allow you to pivot to improve employee participation rates. 

Conclusion

An employee assistance program can be a vital tool to help you provide an exceptional employee experience. If used the right way, it can create a culture of support and openness that helps employees overcome barriers. That way, they can progress in their careers and help your business stay ahead of the competition.

Support your employees from day one

If you’d like help finding out how best to support your employees, why not try Workrowd?

You can use our tools to collect employee feedback and share everything they need to know about your employee assistance program in one place. Get in touch today to book your free demo.

8 future of work trends that will impact your employee experience
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Categories
Employee Engagement

The top talent engagement strategies to focus on in 2025

2025 is here. Which means it’s time to start thinking about the best ways to support employees over the coming year. And, more importantly, the best talent engagement strategies to implement.

Even companies with highly engaged employees need to actively work on keeping those employees engaged.

Otherwise, as trends move on, employees can become disconnected from their roles and the company mission. And end up quiet quitting or leaving completely.

So let’s dive in to some talent engagement strategies to maximize your results in 2025:

Development opportunities

Providing learning and development opportunities is going to top the list of talent engagement strategies for the foreseeable future.

LinkedIn data suggests that 57% of Gen Z employees want learning and development opportunities at work. So if you’re not providing them, you’re likely missing out on a massive pool of talent.

Not to mention that by not offering training opportunities, you risk falling behind your competitors from a knowledge and skills standpoint. Which means that both your business and your profits could suffer.

Career progression

Tying into the professional development topic, employees are far more likely to want to learn if they have a path laid out for them.

It gives them something to work toward—a purpose—and a goal to achieve.

Knowing that if they put the work in there’s a promotion waiting for them is a good way to retain your top talent, too. Building career ladders and lattices is a key element of successful talent engagement strategies.

Purpose 

More and more, employees want to feel like they’re contributing to something bigger. They want to feel empowered and do something that speaks to them on a deeper level, rather than just something that pays the bills.

Having a deeper company mission is one way to connect with your employees. It’s also one of the most important talent engagement strategies.

But purpose can also be simpler than this. It’s can be about clear communication. What do you actually need your employees to do? What is their purpose within your business?

The more connected employees feel to your purpose—and the reason why they’re there—the more you’ll get out of them. And the happier they’ll be to work for you.

AI

AI is here to stay, but using it in the right way is key to making sure it supports your business.  Employees need to be taught how to use it effectively and how it can help, not hinder, their roles.

Otherwise, they either won’t use it, or they’ll fear it’s going to steal their job.

For example, they need to learn things like how to fact check any stats AI provides to confirm they’re accurate (it usually doesn’t link to an original source even when you ask it to); how to write prompts effectively to get the end result they want; and how to use it for idea generation. 

They also need to keep in mind that while it’s good for bouncing ideas around, it’s essentially a regurgitation tool. So if they want something truly original or creative, they have to use it as a virtual assistant and still do the legwork themselves.

That said, ensuring they have the tools and skills they need when it comes to new technologies ranks high on the list of talent engagement strategies.

Recognition and gratitude

Employee recognition never goes out of style. And it never falls off the list of top talent engagement strategies.

People want to feel seen and like the hard work they put in is recognized. A little thank you or virtual high five goes a long way.

When you thank employees for their hard work, they feel appreciated and like they belong in the workplace. 

It doesn’t have to be about a shiny bonus or even a celebratory meal. Sometimes it’s just about getting a shoutout in a meeting or on your employee experience platform. Simple things that make employees feel more connected to your business and the people in it. And that show someone has noticed and appreciated their hard work.

Office returns

The sad fact is that the mass return to office that’s been happening over the last couple of years is unlikely to end.

While there are lots of reasons behind these office returns—and they make businesses less inclusive—there’s too much of a cultural desire to return to the world pre-Covid and act like it never happened.

There are upsides to seeing people face-to-face. It can change how employees engage with each other and enhance professional relationships.

But balance is key. Hybrid work is among the talent engagement strategies that allow you to attract and retain people who can’t (or don’t want to) come into the office every day, but who can still contribute to your business.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

It worries me that more and more, DEI is experiencing a backlash.

Big companies cutting their DEI budgets or roles; people complaining that everyone is too sensitive these days and how we can’t accommodate everyone; DEI businesses closing their doors because they’re not attracting enough business anymore.

I truly hope this doesn’t continue. But unless we’re actively working to create a more inclusive world, things can and will go backward.

Including one person doesn’t mean excluding anyone else. In fact, more diverse businesses have more engaged employees. And make more money as a result.

Championing diversity doesn’t mean making huge changes, either. It’s about having an open mind and finding ways to support everyone.

For instance, I’m lactose intolerant. Organizing an office lunch somewhere I can eat doesn’t mean anyone else misses out: we can all eat there.

It simply means I don’t get left out because everyone else can eat there but I can’t.

There’s no downside to including more people, so long as we remember not to exclude anyone—accidentally or otherwise.

Diversity benefits everyone, and definitely belongs on your list of talent engagement strategies.

Conclusion

These are just some of the talent engagement strategies to focus on in 2025. Several, such as recognition, are classics that never go out of style. Working on them and prioritizing them for your employee initiatives ensures team members always feel like a valued part of your business.

Newer additions like AI and purpose tap into current trends in the wider world. They’re things that are unlikely to go away any time soon, so the more your business can do to demonstrate attention to these areas, the more engaged your employees will be.

Discover what talent engagement strategies work best for your team

Want to find out what your employees want from you, and what could make them more engaged? Workrowd’s all-in-one suite of tools can help.

With a central hub for your employee experience including automated engagement surveys and real-time analytics, you’ll always have the data you need to maximize your impact. Get in touch today to book your free demo and find out more.

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6 organizational values examples to supercharge your culture
Categories
Hybrid/Remote

6 benefits of an effective digital employee experience program

Your digital employee experience program is key to attracting new talent, as well as retaining your existing talent. 

It shows everyone, internally and externally, that you’re a forward-thinking business. It’s also a sign that you embrace flexible work and want to make your employees’ lives as easy as possible. 

After all, if it’s easier for them to do their jobs, they’ll be more productive. And of course, that means that your business will make more money.

6 benefits of an effective digital employee experience program

Here are some of the benefits of an effective digital employee experience program:

More streamlined onboarding

Your onboarding process is your new hires’ first impression of your business. It has such a big impact that up to a fifth of new hires leave in the first 45 days. What’s more, up to a third leave within three months.

If your digital employee experience program incorporates tools that streamline processes and help new hires hit the ground running—alongside people and tools that make them feel like welcome additions to the team—they’re more likely to be engaged and want to stay.

Higher employee engagement

Just 23% of the global workforce is engaged, according to Gallup. Given the impact employee engagement can have on just about everything within an organization, this number is concerning.

If your employees aren’t engaged, they won’t be as happy in their roles. They also won’t be as productive, and won’t provide as good customer service.

It’ll have a ripple effect throughout the organization, too. New employees will feel less welcome because everyone who already works there feels so blah.

Moods and attitudes within communities are contagious, whether that’s between family members, friends, or colleagues.

Invest in your people by way of your digital employee experience program, and they’ll invest in you.

Increased productivity

Engaged employees are productive employees. Meaning they produce more and make you more competitive as an employer and a business.

And, of course, more profitable, too.

Better customer service

We’ve all decided not to buy from somewhere after seeing how bad the reviews are, right?

We worry that if we have an issue, the company won’t deal with it effectively, if at all. So we take our money elsewhere.

Good customer service is integral to a positive brand. It’s what brings people back again and again, and pulls in new business.

It can even improve your employer brand, attracting more employees who value good customer service and want to help you continue that trend.

But disengaged employees are far less likely to go above and beyond to please your customers. They simply won’t care enough about their role or the business to do so, since they won’t feel like you care about them as people.

On the flip side, when you invest in your employees and give them the tools to do their jobs effectively through your digital employee experience program, they’re happier. As a result, they’ll be more likely to want to support your clients and customers.

Increased retention

An effective digital employee experience program helps you retain your workforce. Why? Because it makes it easier for them to do their jobs.

If you’re still making them use outdated processes to connect with colleagues, everything slows down and increases workplace stress.

As a result, employees are far more likely to leave and take their skills and industry knowledge elsewhere.

Higher profits 

MIT research found that companies with a strong employee experience are 25% more profitable than those with a weak one. They also have double the NPS score and innovation levels.

All this means your business can grow faster while retaining its top talent and attracting more clients. If you continuously work on your digital employee experience program, that is.

How to build a better digital employee experience program

Now that we understand why building a positive digital employee experience program matters, let’s take a look at how to do it:

Use the right tools

The key to your digital employee experience program is in the tools you use. They need to fit how your business operates and be able to scale as your business grows.

Otherwise, your employees will settle into using a tool only for you to change it in a few years’ time. This can lead to disruption and disgruntled employees if they dislike adapting to change or don’t like the new tools.

That’s why it’s so important to use tools that integrate with each other or that do as much of what you need as possible. And to pick tools that are user-friendly.

Workrowd helps you keep all your employee experience initiatives in one place. You can create employee groups to help people connect, organize events, and share announcements to multiple places at once so that no one misses out. Plus, real-time analytics ensure you always know what’s working and what’s not.

Teach your people how to use the tools

It’s all very well and good providing employees with tools that can help them do their jobs. Without teaching them how to use them though, you’ll never get the most out of the tools—or your employees.

Just because something seems obvious to you, that doesn’t mean it is to everyone.

A one-day training session, a series of videos, or a knowledge base anyone can access ensures that everyone can learn in a way that works for them, at a time that works for them.

Creating a knowledgebase is also an important part of a top-notch digital employee experience program. Having somewhere people can refresh their memories means that they don’t get stuck going in circles when they can’t remember how to do something.

Lead by example

To get your employees to use a tool, you need to lead by example. Employees will follow the lead of others within your organization, and that starts at the top.

If you’re implementing a new tool as part of your digital employee experience program, get your leaders to show examples of what the tool can do. This will encourage employees to engage, get the conversation going, and increase the likelihood of employees logging in to use the tool.

Collect employee feedback

To know and understand how your employees feel about your digital employee experience program, it’s important to ask them. The tools they use should feel like a seamless part of their working day. You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken.

Sending feedback surveys to find out how they really feel will help you discern what’s working and what’s not, how well your tools really integrate, and if they’re actually making your employees’ lives easier.

Conclusion

Your digital employee experience program is key to your overall employee experience and employer brand. It can help you attract digitally native employees who are future-oriented, improving your hiring efforts and innovation within your business.

If you want to create a truly great digital employee experience program, check out Workrowd. You can use it to manage your employee experience initiatives, share updates with one click, and keep everything easily organized in one place. You can even automate employee surveys and analytics.

It’s the user-friendly engagement platform that encourages connection for everyone across your organization. Get in touch today to book your free demo.

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Categories
Employee Experience

7 features to look for in an employee experience platform

The right employee experience platform can make your workers’ lives easier and things in your business run smoother. It can improve employee engagement by helping team members connect with each other. Plus, it can also help you understand what’s happening across your organization.

But what sorts of features should you look for?

The more features your employee experience platform has, the greater the difference it can make. But having too many tools can overcomplicate things. Then employees may not use the platform as much because it’s just too complex.

Likewise, if the tool has a steep learning curve, this can turn employees off. They’ll wind up wasting time figuring out how to use it instead of doing their jobs.

With employee experience being key to retention and hiring efforts, the right tools really can make all the difference.

So let’s explore what features you should look for in an employee experience platform:

Connect tools to reduce bloat

Having too many tools to use can become overwhelming for employees. It slows them down, and any new hires will have to spend more time learning how everything works. This can impact your onboarding time and how long it takes a new hire to reach peak productivity.

Not to mention employees may not use every tool that you have. This is especially true if a tool doesn’t integrate with the ones that are firmly a part of their working lives. Or if the new tool only has a couple of nice-to-have-features.

When your tools integrate with each other, or you use an employee experience platform that has multiple features, team members are far more likely to use and get more out of them.

Streamline communications

With an employee experience platform that streamlines communications, you can share news and information in multiple places with one click. That way, employees always know where to find what they need.

This ensures no one misses out on big announcements whether they’ve been on vacation, or they’re just overwhelmed by email.

Make engagement easier

One of the hardest parts about hosting events or training sessions is getting people to attend them. It’s easy to miss announcements that they’re happening or forget if an event requires filling in a lengthy sign-up form.

One-click signups for training programs or events ensures employees are more likely to register. It becomes a seamless process. Add in a dashboard on your employee experience platform where they can see that the event is coming up, as well as in their calendar, and you’ve got a recipe for success.

The event will stay front of mind and they’re far more likely to attend on the day. They’ll learn new skills, feel more engaged at work, and improve their sense of belonging.

Automate feedback requests

Remembering to send feedback surveys for employee milestones or after initiatives is easier said than done. It’s simple to forget when other priorities pile up. Or to send them so late that everyone has already forgotten the key insights that you actually need.

Being able to automate and streamline the feedback process for your HR teams gives them more time to deal with other employee queries. And to make changes based on the feedback they get.

This continuous feedback loop ensures that every initiative can be better than the last and exactly what your employees are looking for. It’s important to find an employee experience platform that can help enable this cycle.

Tap into real-time analytics

Sending employee feedback surveys is just one piece of the puzzle. You need to know what the results say so that you know what’s working and what isn’t.

An employee experience platform with real-time analytics gives you the insights you need to find out what’s happening with your employees right now.

That means you know how they’re feeling, how changes within the business affect them, and you can measure employee sentiment to look for changes over time.

These analyses are vital to preventing problems in the workplace from escalating into bigger issues that harm your employee experience and lead to disengagement.

Manage employee groups

Managing employee groups can be challenging if you don’t have a central place for communications, event coordination, and more. Sure, you could use a Slack channel, but it’s not designed for that. You’ll spend forever adding integrations to make it work how you want.

Not to mention if you organize an event, it won’t sync with someone’s calendar or show up somewhere they can easily find it once a date is chosen. So there’s the risk that they won’t block the time out in their calendar and may forget to attend.

The key to employee group management is an employee experience platform that enables members to connect effectively in as many ways as possible. This includes making it easy for them to talk about what matters to them. Plus, it should streamline organizing everything from a quiz to a cooking class to a lunch and learn.

Reach remote employees

While many businesses are returning to the office, there are still millions of people who work remotely. Why should they miss out?

Working remotely can be lonely. But it’s sometimes the only option for people with disabilities, caregivers, and parents. Or even just those who concentrate better in their own work environment.

It can be challenging to build a strong culture if not everyone works from the same place. If you use an employee experience platform like Workrowd, everyone can see what’s going on. Employees can launch their own initiatives wherever they are, and people leaders get insights into what’s having the most impact for employees who aren’t in the office full-time.

Employee experience with Workrowd

Workrowd has all these features and more. It enables your people leaders to organize, drive, and measure your company culture with our suite of events and community management tools.

HR leaders and executives can empower and support employees.

Employees can ask to create their own employee-led groups and programs, ensuring everyone from every level within your organization is engaged and invested in building a transparent, thriving company culture.

Want to find out how our employee experience platform can help drive more bottom line value for your business? Get in touch today to book your free demo.

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Categories
Employee Retention

9 tips to design a stay interview process that drives retention

Less than a third of businesses include a stay interview in their employee lifecycle. That’s despite the fact that over half of leaving employees feel that their manager or employer could’ve done something to stop them from quitting.

This shows how little employers actually connect with their employees to find out how they feel about what’s happening in the business. 

Are they happy with their manager? Do they feel connected to the business direction and mission? Is there something that could make their job easier? 

These are simple questions that can solve huge problems—and save you a lot of money hiring and training new recruits.

So, how can you design a stay interview process that drives retention?

Interview someone from each department

While this can be time intensive, it’s one of the most effective ways to spot gaps in your business. 

Just because the sales team is happy, that doesn’t mean finance is. Just like every business has its own culture, so too does each department. The only way you’ll fully understand this is to connect with as many people as possible in the form of a stay interview.

(Read to the end for a way to streamline this process.)

Automate invites

Organizing times for everyone to connect can be almost as time-consuming as the stay interview itself. 

There are plenty of scheduling tools out there that you can use now that will automatically pull from the interviewer’s schedule, then offer those times to the interviewees. This can save hours of time responding to back-and-forth emails and reduces the likelihood that anyone gets double-booked.

Create a safe space

Employees need to feel comfortable being open and honest. Otherwise they either won’t want to be a part of the stay interview, or they won’t provide honest enough answers for them to be useful.

To create this psychological safety, you need to reassure employees anything they say is free from repercussions. And have a culture where employees believe you when you say it.

If you conduct the stay interview in person, be sure to hold it somewhere comfortable. A formal meeting room can be intimidating and change the atmosphere around the conversation compared to a café or a more informal meeting area with sofas and coffee tables.

The atmosphere sets the tone for the meeting, meaning the location you choose plays an important role in getting the best possible responses.

Allow for anonymity

Sometimes, no matter what your company culture is, employees will feel better if they can share their feedback anonymously. 

Perhaps they could provide comments in a written format rather than via an in-person or video stay interview. For instance, a survey could be less stressful than a live conversation.

Some people also find it easier to articulate their thoughts this way as they don’t have to think on the spot. A flexible format allows them to provide you with more useful answers.

Create more opportunities for feedback

The more chances you give employees to give you feedback, the more useful answers you’re going to get. 

Everyone thinks and expresses how they feel differently, which means while some people will be comfortable talking to you in person about how things really are in their working lives, others will not.

The more feedback opportunities you have, the more scalable the stay interview process becomes. Interviewing everyone isn’t scalable, but sending an automated employee feedback survey is.

We can help you with just that! Using Workrowd, you can set up an employee feedback survey to go out regularly, then we’ll analyze the results for you automatically. 

That way, you have more time to dig into the answers and make changes based on the results.

Consider who conducts the interview

If an employee gets along with their line manager, it makes sense for them to conduct the stay interview. 

But in some cases, employees simply won’t feel comfortable being that candid with the person they report to directly. 

If half of employees leave because of their manager, are they really going to be honest that they dislike how the team is run to the person responsible for the team culture?

It can therefore be helpful for other people to conduct these interviews, such as HR personnel or a manager from a different department. You could even bring in someone external if budget allows. The key is to find someone objective and not directly involved in what’s happening in the team.

Ask useful questions

Make sure the questions you ask allow you to collect genuinely useful information. Things like:

  • What do you enjoy about your job?
  • What would make your job easier?
  • How do you feel about employee recognition?
  • Would you like more training opportunities? If so, what would you like to learn?
  • What causes you to feel stressed or anxious about work?
  • How well do you get along with your team members?
  • How do you feel about your manager?

Understanding how employees feel about work and their colleagues will give you a well-rounded picture of what’s happening. This can help you spot problems early, giving you a better chance to take action before things spiral and become bigger issues.

Act on feedback

If you don’t take action based on the feedback employees provide, they won’t see the point in giving you any. 

Look for patterns in what employees say, and consider ways to change things that they feel aren’t working. This is one of the key steps to improving your company culture by incorporating a stay interview.

Conclusion

A stay interview is a simple yet effective way to boost your retention rates. It can also help you spot issues before they spiral into something larger that’s harder to deal with.

Collect regular employee feedback

Another great way to see how your employees really feel is by sending regular employee engagement surveys. Putting them together can be time-consuming and tricky, but with Workrowd, you can automate it! Better yet, we can analyze the results for you on the fly, giving you more time to support your employees. Get in touch today to book your free demo.

8 future of work trends that will impact your employee experience
6 ways to make the most of career ladders in your organization
6 organizational values examples to supercharge your culture