For many years, businesses put their customers at the center of everything they did. From rolling out a new product to updating pricing to implementing new technology, the first question was often the same: How will this impact our customers?

It’s a legitimate question. After all, what customers think is important. Without them, there would be no money coming in and no business.

But you could say the same about employees.

Without employees, processes wouldn’t exist, products wouldn’t be developed, and customers wouldn’t get served. There would be no business.

That’s why many companies today are shifting their mindsets and putting their employees at the center of everything they do. Business leaders are recognizing that, by putting the employee experience first, things like productivity, customer satisfaction, and growth follow closely.

Let’s take a closer look at what employee experience is and its impact on business. We’ll also review challenges and the five pillars that make a positive employee experience.

What is the Employee Experience?

The employee experience is how your employees feel, what they do, and the things they see during their entire employee journey. It starts from the moment they apply for a role and can end well after they leave your company.

As a business or HR leader, you have to think about your employees as your internal customers. What will make them happy? How can you set them up for success? What challenges do they have that you can help solve?

Your goal should be to understand the ins and outs of what your employees need, what they care about, and what their expectations are for an engaging workplace. All of this contributes to the employee experience.

Why Businesses are Investing in the Employee Experience

Creating a positive employee experience doesn’t come overnight. It requires having an employee experience strategy, and that takes buy-in from company leadership, a lot of effort, and investment.

And like everything else that requires an investment, one big question always pops up: Why should we invest in this?

The short answer: A positive employee experience can lead to positive business results. Let’s look at some of the data and insights behind this.

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “happy employees equal happy customers.” A Qualtrics study found that companies with high employee engagement have a 24% higher NPS than companies with lower engagement. And since acquiring new customers is often more expensive than retaining existing ones, it’s smart to invest in the things that’ll boost customer loyalty. (Plus, Harvard Business Review has reported that increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by up to 95%.)

Additionally, a Gallup report found a correlation between employee engagement and employee retention. Organizations with highly engaged teams had better retention than those with low engagement — even in high-turnover organizations.

The same report found that teams with high employee engagement had 18% higher sales productivity and 23% higher profitability than teams with low engagement.

All that said, it’s clear why businesses are investing in the employee experience: happy and engaged employees are a competitive advantage for growth.

Challenges with the Employee Experience

Even though there are undeniable benefits to investing in the employee experience, creating these programs doesn’t always come easy. Like with any other new program, there will be hurdles. 

After having conversations with thousands of customers about employee experience challenges, here are six of the most common ones we hear:

1. Budgets are tight and resources are scarce. People operations leaders tell us that “do more with less” is the mantra across their companies these days. Employees have never been under this amount of pressure to perform, and yet access to the tools and resources they need to efficiently do their jobs is being revoked.
   
   Not having the right tools — or worse, no tools — can decrease productivity and be a detriment to the employee experience.
2. The company and employee can’t agree on values. This goes back to truly understanding what your employees want and need. Some may just want a paycheck and benefits in exchange for their work. Others may want to fully integrate with their coworkers and into the business.
   
   In the latter situation, it’s probable that your company’s values won’t align with the values of every single employee — and that’s okay. But if you can help every employee connect in some way, that’s when satisfaction and engagement grow. 
3. Onboarding processes are lacking. Onboarding is one of the first impressions your new hires will get of your company (outside of the recruiting process). But according to Gallup, 20% of employees say their most recent onboarding experience was poor or nonexistent.
   
   Our customers confirm that ineffective onboarding processes often lead to lower productivity, disengagement, and high turnover — even within the first few months of employment.
4. Remote and hybrid employees feel isolated. The employee experience is important regardless of where you work. But some may argue that a positive employee experience is even more important for those working at home, since they don’t get to connect in person with coworkers on a daily basis. In fact, a Forbes study found that 53% of remote workers say it’s hard to feel connected to their coworkers.

   Thankfully, there are employee experience tools that help build connections through introducing new teammates, celebrating milestones, and offering the resources to support career growth.
   

5. Formal, yet flexible, development programs don’t exist. Most employee development programs either don’t exist or assume that every employee grows the same way. Training programs are often only delivered in a virtual or in-person classroom and mentorship program participation is hit or miss.
   
   But these are the kinds of development opportunities that give employees a sense of belonging and purpose, while boosting their motivation to be productive.
6. Organizations don’t have the data to understand the employee experience. One big observation from our customers’ experiences: the employee experience is a notoriously difficult thing to measure. And without data to measure it, it’s nearly impossible to understand how engaged or disengaged your employees are.
   
   Companies not using employee satisfaction surveys, exit surveys, or an employee experience platform won’t be able to capture the data required to fully understand the employee experience and build a program around it.

5 Pillars of a Positive Employee Experience

Having a motivated, engaged, and productive workforce is a competitive differentiator and key for business growth. Creating and maintaining a positive employee experience is how you’ll get there. 

This is more important than ever before. A 2024 Gallup report found that only 30% of US employees are engaged, which is the lowest it’s been in 11 years. Morale is lower than ever, layoffs are abundant, and employees don’t have the confidence in their organizations that they once had.

A positive employee experience isn’t just about giving employees a work environment that’s pleasant to be in. It’s about building a culture that supports employees in every stage of their journey with you. 

There are five critical pillars that form the foundation of an exceptional employee experience: employee onboarding, mentorship programs, training and development, belonging and inclusion, and team collaboration.

Let’s take a closer look at the pillars, why they’re critical for the employee experience, and tips for getting started with each.

Employee Onboarding

Aside from the recruiting process, employee onboarding is the first impression your new hires will have of your organization. It sets the tone for their entire employee journey and can impact their engagement and productivity significantly. 

But an effective onboarding process is more than just paperwork and day-one orientation. It needs to immerse new hires in the company culture, introduce them to teammates they’ll be working closely with, and set them up for success with access to tools and knowledge.

So, what does this look like? We think about onboarding in three stages:

Preboarding is everything that happens after the new hire signs their offer letter and before their first official day. This is important for a few reasons: It helps ease first-day jitters, gets some of the tedious paperwork out of the way, and helps to guarantee new hires won’t bail. Preboarding activities will vary company to company, but a few ideas include:

• Asking new hires to complete necessary paperwork, including tax, direct deposit, I-9, and emergency contact forms
  
• Sharing important first-day details, like an orientation schedule, office address (or Zoom link), etc.
  
• Sending a welcome email and company swag to make them feel like part of the team
  
• Asking the hiring manager and any teammates to connect with new hires on LinkedIn, and send messages to reiterate the team’s excitement
  
• Setting up the new hire’s office or desk, or sending a laptop and any other materials for remote employees

Ongoing training is how you engage new hires during a set period of time following their first day. Maybe your official onboarding program lasts 30 days or three months. Whatever you decide, ongoing training sets new hires up for success and could include:

• Structured training sessions to get new hires up to speed quickly on the product, service, or anything else critical to job success
  
• A “little wins” project list, where new hires can contribute something in the first day or week that gives them a sense of confidence and impact (this is also great for new hire retention)
  
• Regular 1:1s with their manager, where they can talk about quick wins, long-term goals, career aspirations, and their role in company success
  
• Check-ins between new hires and HR to make sure employees feel supported and HR can get a pulse check on how engaged their new hires feel
  
• Early participation in a formal mentorship program (more on this next)

Remember: the goal of onboarding is not just to integrate employees into the company, but to make them feel valued and prepared to contribute meaningfully from day one.

Mentorship Programs

Here’s a staggering statistic: 100% of US Fortune 50 companies have mentorship programs.

Surely, there are other reasons why these companies are so successful. Would they be as successful without mentorship programs? Maybe. But it says a lot that these companies are prioritizing it.

If that’s not enough, companies with mentorship programs had profits that were 18% better than average.

Mentorship programs are a differentiator not just for business performance, but also for the employee experience. 

They give employees guidance, support, and opportunities for professional growth. Mentors can help new or junior employees navigate the company culture, develop their skills, and build their internal connections. And for more tenured or experienced employees, mentorship offers a chance to gain new perspectives, enhance leadership skills, and learn about other areas of the business.

Creating a mentorship program isn’t always easy. Here are a few things to consider while you start developing it:

• Understand your why and socialize it with everyone participating. No one likes to do something without a purpose. Your goals might be to boost skill development, increase employee engagement, or create more leaders.

• Create guidelines and structure around program participation, mentor/mentee meetings, and timelines. For example, how often do you want people to meet? What should they talk about? Are any follow-ups required?

• Have a documented process for matching mentors and mentees. This is arguably one of the most critical pieces, as the mentor/mentee relationship can make or break the program’s success. Consider locations and time zones to balance convenience and cultural awareness.

• Promote the program internally, especially if it’s not a mandatory program. Make sure it’s part of your regular communications to the entire organization, and get the support of leadership to encourage their teams to participate. Leaders and rising leaders will be more inclined to be mentors if the executive team views them as such.

• Offer sample agendas, questions, topics, and resources. The easier you can make mentorship programs for both mentors and mentees, the more likely they’ll be to participate whole-heartedly.

• Get the support of a mentoring platform. Find one that encourages healthy mentor/mentee relationships and gives them the tools to have productive meetings. And as another step, make sure the platform has automation that helps with enrollment, matching, and facilitation to streamline repetitive, manual tasks — and frees you up to handle the strategy of it all.

Training and Development

Employees today need more skills than ever before to succeed. In fact, a LinkedIn report notes that the required skill sets have changed by 25% since 2015, and they’re expected to double by 2027.

But it’s more than a requirement. It’s a want. According to PwC, 74% of employees want to develop new skills.

New skills help employees be more successful in their current roles, get promoted, and find new opportunities. They also support a positive employee experience. Employees want to feel that they are growing and advancing in their careers, and in turn, companies can expect higher levels of engagement and retention. 

If it’s your first time creating a training and development program, don’t stress. Here’s a breakdown of what your program should be:

• Training and development programs should be diverse and adaptable. Don’t assume every employee learns the same way. You want to cater to the different learning styles and career aspirations of all employees.

• Training and development programs should offer a mix of formal education, on-the-job training, and self-directed learning. You may decide to offer a financial stipend for professional conferences or workshops, in-office classes, and a subscription for virtual courses.

• Training and development programs should be aligned with the company’s goals and provide employees with the skills they need. For example, if your company is looking to uplevel employees into leadership positions, you may need to add leadership training into your course catalog.

Employees want training and development opportunities. Employers want people who are equipped with the knowledge and skills needed for more performance and productivity. A formal training and development program is an effective way to do all of this and keep employee engagement high.

Belonging and Inclusion

If you didn’t feel included at work, would you be able to do your best work? Probably not.

A Deloitte study found that companies with inclusive cultures had 22% lower turnover rates, 22% higher productivity, and 27% higher profitability. 

Other studies have shown that, when employees have a greater sense of belonging, their organizations have higher eNPS scores.

The data has spoken. A sense of belonging and inclusion at work is directly related to the employee experience. 

But it can be really hard for employees to do things that create a sense of community and improve productivity — like build a network, find a mentor, and collaborate cross-functionally. This is especially true in organizations where employees don’t feel respected and valued.

This pillar to the employee experience is different in that there’s not a step-by-step process to building an inclusive workplace culture. It’s something you have to work toward every day, forever.

So rather than giving you a framework for how to build inclusive cultures, we’re going to share five red flags that might mean you have some work to do.

• Employee engagement and/or morale is low. This could manifest through something objective like low eNPS scores. Or it could show in less tangible ways, like more mistakes, more deadlines missed, low meeting participation, or increased negativity.

• Your turnover rates are high or increasing, or your length of average tenure is decreasing. Employees who feel like they belong are less likely to leave an organization — so if they are leaving, you might have an inclusion problem.

• People don’t feel like they can express their ideas and opinions. Do your employees speak up in meetings or give feedback to their managers? If not, or if this has suddenly stopped, they probably don’t feel like it’s a safe place to share their thoughts.

• There’s limited or no diversity across teams, especially on the leadership team. Culture is built from the top down, so make sure diversity starts there. When employees can find someone on the leadership team they can relate to, they’ll inherently feel like they belong.

• You’re not promoting enough people internally. This may mean you’re not offering a path for employees’ career growth, and employees want to know that you care about their future.

Efforts like employee resource groups, training courses, and new policies can help build a more inclusive workplace — and lead to a more positive employee experience.

Team Collaboration

Team collaboration is the last pillar of a positive employee experience, and it goes hand-in-hand with belonging and inclusion. When employees feel like they’re part of a team and can work well with teammates, they’re more likely to feel engaged and motivated.

It also supports business performance. In fact, high levels of team collaboration can increase customer satisfaction by 41% and sales by 27% — and Gallup notes that it can also result in 21% higher profitability.

But like creating a sense of belonging, building a culture that thrives on team collaboration is something you have to work on all the time. To get it right, let’s walk through five ways you can improve team collaboration.

• Set and communicate clear goals. Team members need to know what they’re working toward. When they have a common objective, it makes it much easier for teams to focus, ideate, and be successful as a group.

• Lead by example. Team collaboration shouldn’t just apply to individual contributors. When team or department leads — or even senior leadership — participate in team activities and projects, it indicates strong communication and alignment in the organization.

• Encourage cross-functional projects. One of the worst things for both an organization and its employees is work that’s done in silos. Cross-functional projects improve team collaboration, boost creativity, and can lead to innovative business ideas.

• Celebrate team collaboration wins. There’s a reason people like positive reinforcement: it works. When you recognize the people and projects that come out of collaboration, it encourages even more collaboration — while increasing engagement and morale.

• Use team collaboration technology. From intranets to communication tools, there’s a wide range of platforms out there that support team collaboration. But there are also tools that help build that collaboration through connecting employees, celebrating moments, and sparking real conversations.

Office workers spend 42% of their time on average collaborating with others. By encouraging open communication and cross-functional projects, organizations can create the collaborative workplace culture that all employees want.

Conclusion

Investing in the employee experience is no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have. Employees want to feel motivated and engaged, and organizations need this to differentiate themselves in a competitive market.

To put it bluntly: you can’t afford to ignore the employee experience. A poor experience will cost you in the form of employee attrition, low performance, and manual program management. And with budgets being heavily scrutinized, now is not the time to take on these avoidable costs.

To create a positive employee experience, you need to consider the five critical pillars we discussed in this guide: employee onboarding, mentorship programs, training and development, belonging and inclusion, and team collaboration. Focusing on these pillars will help organizations create an environment where employees feel valued, supported, and empowered to do their best work. 

And when employees get to that point, it not only drives engagement and retention, but also leads to higher productivity, better customer satisfaction, and ultimately, growth (for both employees and the business). 

Remember: your employees are your MVPs. Prioritizing and investing in their experience is what will make your organization thrive.

Donut offers a number of solutions to support your employee experience goals. If you’re new to Donut, it’s easy to get started for free today.

Already using Donut? Checkout our latest pre-built Journey templates to get a jumpstart on automating programs from onboarding to mentorship.