A detailed guide to improving the employee experience in your workplace

1. Attraction & recruitment: Setting the stage for success

From the moment someone learns about a job opportunity to the instant they receive a formal offer, they form expectations about your company. Organizations that care about nurturing trust and prioritizing transparency should be keenly aware of this fact — failing to meet those expectations can feel like a betrayal to people and lead to disengagement. That’s one reason why 75% of companies struggle with recruitment. 

Considering that so many job seekers have been let down by former employers in this way, companies need a better understanding of how they can improve on their own processes — and on the mistakes of other organizations. Here’s how you can get more insight into and optimize the recruitment process:

1. Gather appropriate data — Use a platform like Leapsome to find out how current employees feel about the company and whether or not it matches up to their expectations. You can collect input from exit interviews and engagement surveys. Ask applicants how they felt about your recruitment and application processes as well as those of other companies, identifying how you can make yours more effective.
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2. Be clear about your processes and expectations — Let candidates know how long the interview process will last and what to anticipate at each round. 
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3. Respond to applicants promptly and keep them informed — Respond to emails immediately and let individuals know the next steps as soon as possible to avoid confusion or wasting their time. 
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2. Onboarding: Leaning into your values & culture

During the recruitment phase, new team members mostly interact with the hiring manager and spend time having high-level conversations about your company’s mission and values. Unfortunately, they’re too often thrust into an overwhelming torrent of paperwork, training, and other tasks immediately after being formally brought on board. That can feel jarring at best and misleading at worst. 

Instead, use onboarding as an opportunity to focus on what new team members — not managers and senior leadership — need to know at this stage. Before bombarding them with policies, procedures, and compliance training, go in-depth about your company’s culture, ideals, and mission for the future, ensuring team members thoroughly grasp their place in all of it.  

According to recent Gallup research, these five elements can help you address employees’ needs during the onboarding stage and beyond:

• Values — Employees are 4.7 times more likely to agree that onboarding is successful if it gives them a strong sense of how company values play out every day.
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• Employee strengths — If onboarding helps new team members feel they can fully utilize their strengths within their new role, they’re 3.5 times more likely to agree that it’s effective.
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• The new hire’s role — Managers and team leads should ensure new staff members know exactly what’s expected of them and feel confident in their ability to carry out their responsibilities. That sense of comfort and security means they’ll be 1.8 times more likely to find the onboarding experience worthwhile. 
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• Building team relationships — Taking the time to facilitate colleague introductions and providing teammates with the technology and processes they need to collaborate helps foster respect and cooperation. Employees who feel they can rely on their coworkers after onboarding are 1.9 times more likely to appreciate the experience.
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• Future career growth — New team members need to understand how their current role fits into their desired professional futures. By utilizing competency frameworks to illustrate how advancement works within your company, you can create an onboarding experience that team members are 3.5 times more likely to rate as exceptional.
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🛣️ Help new hires discover the road to advancement

Leapsome’s Competency Framework feature helps employees focus on the skills they need to improve in their current role and progress within your company.

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3. Development: Empower employees to navigate their own learning paths

Opportunities for growth not only play an integral role in motivating employees — they also influence well-being and mental health. They instill confidence in team members and reassure them that there’s stability in their chosen role, that doors are open to them, and that they won’t stagnate. 

At the same time, employees’ career goals naturally change and evolve over time, which is why they expect employers to offer flexible, ongoing development opportunities. In its 2023 Work in America survey, the American Psychological Association found that 91% of professionals wanted a job that provided consistent growth opportunities, but only 47% had access. In addition, according to SHRM’s 2022 Learning and Development report, 38% of respondents said they wanted training that was directly relevant to their roles, and 32% said they prioritized having access to the most up-to-date content.

If this is an area where your company needs to improve, you can make the development experience more impactful by:

• Collaborating with new employees to set individual development goals — Help new team members find the intersection where their personal aspirations and company objectives align. Then, work together to create a set of SMART goals based on those priorities. 
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• Making performance reviews growth-focused — A constructive performance review should focus on identifying current skills and performance gaps so you can make a plan to develop and improve in those areas. 
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• Designing your own learning content — Use a platform like Leapsome to create interactive, tailored learning courses that are simple to track and assess.
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🔧 Adjust learning content to fit employee needs

Leapsome’s Learning module lets you design engaging multimedia learning courses to target specific skills and knowledge gaps.

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4. Retention: Showing team members they belong

During the previous three stages, managers and leadership have ideally been gathering all the information they can about individual employees, particularly regarding what they want from their role and their place in the company. Now, it’s time to take genuine action on what you’ve learned and give team members the support and tools they need to excel and feel supported so that they stick around long term.

To keep your best people, fostering a sense of belonging is essential. Based on McClean’s 2022 Great Attrition survey results, 51% of employees said they left their jobs because they didn’t feel they belonged, and 54% thought their company didn’t value them. Indeed, the lack of a sense of belonging is so widespread that organizations have made it central to their diversity initiatives, moving from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEI&B).

To cultivate more belonging and improve EX at the retention stage:

• Train managers in coaching and mentorship — In an interview with CNN, Founder and CEO of Manager Method Ashley Herd explained that managers needed more skills development: “...99% of employers don’t provide effective training — and I’m not exaggerating there. While some provide training, it’s rarely effective in providing the guidance that’s needed to help managers understand how to meet business goals while supporting employees in the right way.”
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• Prioritize weekly 1:1 meetings or check-ins — Getting together with direct reports weekly for 15 to 30 minutes allows managers to discuss goals, assess well-being, and share appreciation for any recent wins or milestones. This is where Leapsome’s Meetings module can come in handy to create purposeful, productive conversations.
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• Assess your rewards and recognition program — Do the monetary and non-monetary rewards your organization provides align with team members’ needs and truly incentivize great work?
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5. Transition & offboarding: Ending on the right terms

Turnover is an inevitable aspect of the employee experience, and yet it’s something that many organizations don’t want to acknowledge. While it may be hard to stomach the loss of knowledge, skills, and expertise when someone moves on to another opportunity, being transparent and realistic about turnover can help you create an offboarding program that genuinely serves both your company and exiting employees. 

Far too many businesses treat offboarding as an afterthought, and a staggering amount fail to do it all. Consider how Google’s parent company Alphabet laid off 12,000 team members by email right before disabling their security badges and data access. 

To avoid ending on an abrupt or unproductive note and make the most of offboarding:

• Be open about turnover and offboarding — When people leave, don’t try to brush it under the rug. Be honest in any communication about why the team member is moving onto another opportunity, especially if they’re senior or their reasons for leaving are in question. Be sure to celebrate the individual and the fantastic work they did for the company and encourage others to praise and support them publicly.
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• Communicate the steps involved — To reduce anxiety and stress, team members should know how your termination, layoff, and retirement processes work before they go through them.
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• Offer access to support and resources — Encourage employees who have been terminated or laid off or are retiring to reach out to human resources for guidance or support on their next steps. For example, some companies provide ‘office hours’ with HR professionals after a situation like a mass layoff in order to support those affected in finding a new role. 
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• Use automated tools to make data gathering easier — Leapsome makes offboarding just as easy as onboarding. Our Surveys module lets you schedule exit surveys ahead of time, and you can use our ready-made meeting templates to keep your exit interviews focused and helpful.
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• Think of exiting employees as alumni — Reaching out to former team members to check in may encourage them to return. However, if that’s not possible, it may also inspire them to praise your organization publicly and remain a valuable part of your professional network.
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How Leapsome supports a great employee experience

Gaining a comprehensive understanding of the employee experience can help you address it holistically throughout every stage of a team member’s journey. At a time when your competitors are trying to retain their top talent, EX strategies are crucial to help you stay resilient and create the best work environment for your people.

Forward-thinking companies recognize that every employee’s needs are distinct, and they don’t exist in a vacuum. They require technology and regular process flows to keep up with changing demands and expectations. The employee experience is also different for everyone, so employers need tools that can help them customize and optimize EX for as many people as possible.

With modules built to address every facet of the employee journey, Leapsome can help. With customizable surveys, real-time feedback, and structured meetings, our platform helps you listen to team members and gain valuable insights from their feedback. In addition, our performance review, goal-setting, and compensation management modules allow you to automate processes that drive meaningful, strategic outcomes for your company.

Adding Leapsome to your tech stack means you’ll have a well-integrated suite of employee experience and people enablement tools at your disposal, empowering you to address the diverse and ever-evolving needs of your team members.
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🌻 Help employees flourish at every EX stage

Leapsome’s suite of tools helps you gather data and design EX initiatives that drive engagement and unlock employee potential.

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