2023 GLOBAL

GLOBAL EMPLOYEE
EMPLOYEE
EXPERIENCE
EXPERIENCE
TRENDS
TRENDS
2023

Strength in
the Beauty
beauty of
consistency
Consistency
Translating Employee Experience
into Business Outcomes
GLOBAL EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TRENDS 2023

Contents

A bold refocus: The business case for a consistent employee experience 5

 ngagement trends current state:

E
A new normal with new expectations 6

Connect employee experience to culture and business strategy 9

A holistic approach to drive business impact 10

Overcoming the disconnect 11

Consistent employee experiences translate into business outcomes 12

Consistency across experience elements has a dramatic impact

on engagement levels 15

Consistency has a notable impact on business performance 16

Courage from the C-suite makes employee experience a business asset 17

Shift the ownership back to top leaders 18

Empower managers to amplify through personalization 20

Drive HR with intention 23

A path forward 27

Consistency and personalization: A magical combination 27

Hitting invisible walls 29

Creating a safe harbor for your people 30

 sing employee experience as a competitive edge to unlock

U
organizational vitality 31

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There’s a well-known parable about rocks, pebbles, sand and

water filling a glass jar. In this story, a teacher brings a large,
empty glass jar into the classroom and fills it with big rocks. He
asks the students if the jar is full. The students reply that it is.
The teacher then takes a bag of pebbles and adds them to the
jar. As the pebbles fill in the gaps between the rocks, the teacher
again asks if the jar is full. The students once again say that it is.

The teacher then brings out a bag of sand and pours it into the
jar, filling in the remaining gaps. The teacher asks if the jar is
full now. The students agree that, yes, it is finally full. Finally, the
teacher then takes out a pitcher of water and pours it into the jar,
where it seeps into the spaces between the sand.

Although the lesson of this parable has been interpreted

in various ways, it serves as a powerful illustration of the
maturation journey when building an engaging work experience.
The rocks and pebbles represent the foundational elements of
an engaging experience — those basic processes and behaviors
that are critical in order to develop engagement, such as training
to do one’s job, role clarity and trustworthy leadership. The sand
and the water represent the more mature and unique elements
that have evolved beyond the foundational elements to further
enhance the work experience.

High-performing organizations add sand

and water by looking for ways to ensure the
employee experience consistently supports the
business goals, and by “personalizing” the work
experience to address the needs of different
cohorts and groups. This creates a more
cohesive and distinctive experience.

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Kincentric has been measuring and consulting on engagement for over 20

years using a standardized six-item measure of engagement (our “Say, Stay,
Strive” model). Looking back at 20 years of engagement trends, what we
see suggests that although companies may have mastered the foundational
elements of an engaging experience, they may be stuck and unable to evolve
further, struggling to identify and implement the elements needed to create
a truly differentiated employee experience (EX).

In the early 2000s, around 50% of employees surveyed had scores in the
“engaged” range. Over time, as more companies have focused on and taken
actions to drive engagement, the number has steadily increased1 to the
point that we now see scores consistently falling in the high 60% engaged
range over the last six years or so.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT IS PLATEAUING

78% 77% 78% 76% 76%

74% 75% 75% 76% 75%
68% 68% 70% 68% 70% 70%
65% 64% 63% 64%
59% 67% 69% 68%
66% 65% 67% 67%
63% 61% 61% 63% 63%
58% 58% 59% 58%
56%
52% 52% 51%
49%

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
YTD
Global Engagement Global Top Quartile Engagement

The question at this point is whether

engagement can go further, or if we
have reached a true upper limit. If
there is any benefit to going further
on this journey, how do we move
engagement to new heights?

1 There are some notable spikes in periods of global crisis: 2009 results show engagement levels in the midst of a global recession during
which people tend to show high intent to stay, driving up engagement scores, and in 2020 during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

4 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
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Going back to our parable, we find that many organizations have put rocks
and pebbles in their proverbial glass jars. That is, they have implemented
the basic processes and activities that help to create an engaging work
experience for the majority of their people. But many have not yet gone
further — adding in the sand and water that can create an experience that
can help shift the organization from average to top-performing levels.

In other words, the approach to action and change that was effective for
companies that had about 50% engaged is not going to have the same
kind of impact now, when engagement is notably higher. Addressing the
foundational change allowed companies to focus on major “rocks” that were
not working, and that focused effort helped move the engagement needle.
However, as organizations have become more mature, they have shifted
focus to refining and personalizing the experience in a holistic way, requiring
a new way to approach change.

Engagement still matters, but

organizations need to rethink
how they approach engagement
and find new ways to move
forward and create meaningful
change to drive it.

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Engagement trends current

state: A new normal with
new expectations
Looking at current trends from our global employee database of more than 9 million
respondents from over 2,500 organizations, across 162 countries and 62 industries,
we see some indications that there is a return to more stability in the work experience
post-pandemic.

Global trends reveal that employees have more optimism about their personal future
and general work experience than in the previous year. There is also more confidence
in the effectiveness of virtual work — both in meeting the needs of customers and
being able to collaborate productively with coworkers.

SEVERAL ASPECTS OF WORK EXPERIENCE HAVE IMPROVED OVER THE LAST YEAR

Career Development Return to Office and Virtual Work

81% 80% 87%
78% 75%
69% 70% 66%
60% 57% 2021
2022

I can achieve my long- I continuously gain I am comfortable Virtual work arrangements Our virtual work
term career aspirations at useful knowledge and returning to work allow me to collaborate arrangements are
this organization experience in my job (e.g., office, on site productively with my allowing us to meet the
location, travel, etc.) coworkers needs of customers

Workload and Clarity Manager Effectiveness

88%
76% 82% 82%
65% 70% 67% 73%
59% 64%

We have clear processes My current workload is My manager helps me My manager demonstrates My manager maintains
and procedures for doing manageable understand the skills I will consistency between words composure in high-
our work need for future success in and actions pressure situations
this organization

In general, employees also seem more positive about having clearer work processes
and procedures and have indicated that workloads are becoming more manageable.
Perceptions of managers have strengthened as well, with greater reflection of trust,
handling of stressful situations and helping prepare for the future.

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However, not everything is moving in a positive direction. Employees are

becoming more demanding regarding what they want from their leadership and
work experience. Perceptions of senior leaders are falling back to pre-pandemic
levels in terms of showing care and concern, keeping people informed and
creating optimism about the future. In addition, despite being confident about
collaborating virtually, fewer feel they are getting the connection and support
they need from their work group and only about half feel their ideas and
suggestions are being heard.

PERCEPTIONS OF SENIOR LEADERSHIP DROPPING OFF POST-PANDEMIC

74% 79%
68% 67% 68%
59%
2021
2022

Senior leadership makes me Senior leaders are I have complete confidence in

hopeful about the future in this demonstrating care and concern the integrity of senior leaders in
situation for employees this organization

Even though more people feel they have a good understanding of their
organization’s values, fewer feel their organization is demonstrating those
values every day or that leaders are making decisions that are consistent with
those values.

ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES ARE BEING UNDERSTOOD, BUT NOT BEING DEMONSTRATED

81% 87%
68% 73% 69%
62%
2021
2022

I have a good understanding of I see the organization’s values Decisions made by senior
the organization’s values being demonstrated throughout leadership are consistent with the
the organization every day organization’s mission and values

Over the course of the pandemic, employees felt heard, considered and cared
for in many ways. As we return to a “new normal,” there may be a shift in the
expectations that people have of their leaders and in how values are not just
expressed, but truly lived in day-to-day work experiences. In other words,
the care, compassion and connection people experienced throughout the
pandemic are things they expect to continue moving forward.

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These gains and decreases in trends may signal a shift in what people want
in their work experience. It is no longer enough to have just the rocks and the
pebbles — people want to feel understood and cared for by their leaders and
aligned to their organizations in a meaningful way.

Yet many organizations are falling

Only feel that their
short in meeting these demands, with

51%
organization is
just over half of the respondents in
delivering on the
our research2 indicating that they feel
experience they
their organizations are delivering on the
promised
experience they were promised.

So what can leaders do to balance the

change in expectations and break through
the barriers they may face to create a
more engaging work experience?

It comes down to three powerful factors:

• Connection • Consistency • Courage

2 Kincentric Global EX Panel Study 2023

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Connect employee
experience to culture
and business strategy
Employee experience must be put into a broader context — it is not
something that should be worked on independently of your business goals
and organizational culture, but rather a natural extension or reflection of
your strategy and culture. If this connection isn’t made, then no matter
how positive the employee experience may be (and the strength of the
engagement that comes from it), your organization won’t be able to fully
realize the potential it can deliver. You’ll have actions and processes in place
that may not support — or even worse, may work against — the business
goals you are working to accomplish.

Opportunity:

Engagement is Challenge:

5.5X
higher when EX is aligned
Only

36%
to culture and strategy
of organizations have indicators
that strategy, culture and EX are
truly aligned

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A holistic approach to drive business impact

Every employee experience effort (both measurement and transformation)
ultimately should start with business strategy. What are you trying to achieve
for your organization? What problems are you solving for and what capabilities
are needed to be successful? When there is clarity around the strategy, it
becomes easier for people to align to it. Imagine putting together a 1,000-piece
puzzle, but with no picture of what the puzzle should look like in the end.
You can figure out the edges fairly readily, but it will become a real struggle
to put the rest of the puzzle together. Clear strategy is like the picture on the
puzzle box. It helps people put the pieces together within the framework and
minimizes guesswork in terms of priorities of actions and areas of focus.

Business strategy should be connected to the culture of your organization

as well. Culture defines the values, beliefs, behaviors, artifacts and reward
systems that ultimately shape how work gets done. When your culture is not
aligned to business strategy, the ability to deliver on the strategy may become
blocked by the culture itself. But when culture and strategy are connected and
aligned, success in achieving business goals is greatly enhanced.

BUSINESS STRATEGY CULTURE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE BUSINESS IMPACT

The goals, plan and The values, beliefs, Employee perception Progress and return on
capabilities needed to behaviors, artifacts and about their journey business (e.g., financial,
achieve the organizational reward systems that at an organization customer, productivity) and
vision for the future influence behavior from hire to retire people (e.g., engagement,
retention) outcomes

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Overcoming the disconnect

Going back to our long-term trends, it is possible that many organizations
are feeling “stuck” in their engagement journey because there has been a
disconnect between the employee experience and the big-picture strategy.
There are three general factors that may be contributing to this disconnect
between business strategy and employee experience3:

1. Over-reliance on managers to drive/own the employee experience:

Relying on managers alone to shape experience often results in actions
that are quite removed from the broader business strategy. It becomes
more about what the manager thinks they can make happen versus
what the organization needs to focus on.

2. Overfocus on engagement as a metric, rather than a focus on the

experiences that drive engagement: Although well intentioned, solely
aiming for high engagement scores often results in companies (and
managers) driving the number instead of working to create the right
experiences that naturally result in high engagement. This can lead to
actions that are often not really aligned to culture and strategy, and
results in no meaningful impact on business outcomes.

3. Survey measures as a “feel-good” process rather than a tool to drive

change: Many organizations tend to only measure the same (often
foundational) things rather than leverage a survey to help design and
drive more challenging experience elements. To get unstuck, you need to
think differently about your employee experience, as well as what you are
trying to achieve with your listening efforts.

Many aspects of these disconnecting factors can be resolved by shifting

focus toward consistency of experience and not just the outcome of
engagement.

3 Survey technology in the last decade was developed to support these factors and may contribute to
the disconnect. Instead of looking at technology as a “solution” for creating engagement, it should be
considered as a tool in supporting organizations to drive change. See Kincentric Insights Zone for deeper
discussion. https://www.kincentric.com/insights/not-getting-traction-on-your-engagement-survey

11 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
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Consistent employee
Consistent employee
experiences translate into
experience translates into
business
business outcomes
outcomes
We should first remember that engagement is a business outcome
itself — it is a reflection of the experience employees are having. Given
this, it is critical to remember that high scores on engagement come not
from any one thing in the experience, but from a combination of factors
that are happening together in the experience. The more favorable work
experiences an employee has, the more likely this translates into a higher Opportunity:
level of engagement. In other words, the experience is reliable enough for
A consistent EX results in
one to feel engaged.

Think about the impact of consistency this way. Imagine going to three
2X higher
ratings of financial
different restaurants. performance
1. Restaurant One has good food, but service is spotty — sometimes
great, sometimes not. You go in not knowing if you’ll get served Challenge:
quickly and accurately.
Only

42%
2. Restaurant Two has great service, but the food can be lackluster, and the
restaurant doesn’t always have the nicest environment — music can be
too loud or things aren’t as clean as you would like.

3. Finally, Restaurant Three has consistently great food, service and of employees globally
atmosphere. You can trust that when you go there, you know what to have a consistent EX
expect and they will deliver favorably on these expectations.

Which restaurant are you most likely to endorse as being a great

restaurant that you would return to? Most would choose Restaurant
Three — because it isn’t good at just one thing, or good at some things,
some of the time. You endorse it because it is good at most things, most
of the time.

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An engaging work experience is similar — it isn’t about providing one or two elements
well or having it right sometimes but not others. Rather, engagement comes from
experiences that employees can trust. The more consistent the experience, the more
this experience can also translate into higher business performance.

To understand the power of consistency in driving engagement and business

performance, we first reviewed years of survey data, employee comments and
research to identify the most common and critical aspects of the work experience.
Through this, we identified seven key elements of employee experience — each
represented by a range of items that reflect the underlying construct.

CORE EXPERIENCE ELEMENTS

Seven core elements of the employee experience, grounded in strategy, culture and maturity

ORGANIZATIONAL
ACTIONS
Enabling Leading

Recognizing Performing Developing

TEAM
Managing Connecting ACTIONS

Although all elements may be served by actions from the top or at team level,
“Enabling” and “Leading” tend to be influenced more by organization-wide or top-
down initiatives. “Managing” and “Connecting” tend to be more influenced by team
actions (e.g., changes in manager behavior, day-to-day enrichment). “Recognizing,”
“Performing” and “Developing” are influenced by both organizational and team actions,
with organizational actions being more focused on processes and structures related to
these elements, and team actions being more focused on enacting on these processes
reliably, while also adjusting to local and individual needs.

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Using the last three years of data from Kincentric’s employee experience Study 1
database, we evaluated the range of consistency in experience based on
EX consistency
responses within a survey (i.e., for all items in a survey, were the responses
ranges
quite variable from item to item, or more consistent?).4 Each employee was
categorized as having low, moderate or high consistency of experience based
on responses. High consistency would mean favorable responses across most
or all experience items.

Evaluating results across the three groups, we readily see that consistency of
experience was related to engagement levels, with those demonstrating low
consistency showing the least engagement (r = .44, p <.001). Furthermore, the
range of engagement scores was limited by level of consistency. Those with
low consistency at best were less than 50% engaged, whereas those with high
consistency showed no less than 81% engaged. Moderate consistency shows
some possibility of achieving above-average levels of engagement, but most
fall within the average range.

CONSISTENT EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCES LEAD TO HIGHER EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

100 93
79 86 Top Quartile
80
68 81 Average
% Engaged

60 48
59 Bottom Quartile
40 38
20 28
0

Inconsistent Mixed Highly Consistent

(Poor) EX (Moderate) EX (Great) EX

This pattern helps to illustrate the

opportunity to go further in your
engagement journey by focusing on
driving consistency of experience.

4 Individuals who provided “straight-line” responses (i.e., same response for all items) were excluded from the analysis, as these do not
typically represent a thoughtful evaluation of all the items throughout the survey.

14 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
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In a second study of almost 9,500 full-time adult workers from 19 countries and Study 2
across industries, we evaluated the seven core experience elements — looking
Kincentric Global EX
at how many were “active” at the same time for a given employee (active
Panel Study 2023
meaning that overall ratings for that element across items were consistently
favorable).

We looked at how many employees had all seven elements “active,” versus
six elements, versus five elements, and so forth down to zero elements active
(meaning they did not have a strong positive endorsement of that experience
element across items). Looking at the distribution, we found that many
employees fall along the extremes in terms of active experience elements: 33%
indicated that all seven elements were active (favorable) for them, while another
27% indicated none of the seven elements were active.

We categorized these respondents into three groups — those having a highly

consistent (great) work experience (six or seven elements active), mixed
(moderate) work experience (three to five elements active), or inconsistent
(poor) work experience (zero to two elements active). Overall, we found a highly
consistent work experience positively impacts both employee engagement and
business outcomes:

Consistency across experience elements has a dramatic impact on

engagement levels

Employees with a highly consistent experience are more than 5X likely to be

engaged than those in the inconsistent experience group, and intent to stay was
over 2X higher for the highly consistent group than for the inconsistent group.

Employees who had a mixed experience only had average levels of engagement.

CONSISTENT EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCES DRIVE HIGHER EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

41% of respondents having 17% of respondents having 42% of respondents having

Inconsistent (Poor) EX Mixed (Moderate) EX Highly Consistent (Great) EX

94%
82%
73%
64%
51%
43%
27%
9%

0 EX 1 EX 2 EX 3 EX 4 EX 5 EX 6 EX 7 EX
Elements Element Elements Elements Elements Elements Elements Elements
Active Active Active Active Active Active Active Active

Inconsistent (Poor) EX Mixed (Moderate) EX Highly Consistent (Great) EX

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Consistency has a notable impact on business performance outcomes

Respondents provided an evaluation of their employer’s business performance

and customer satisfaction levels (from well below average to well above
average). We again see over 2X differences between highly consistent and
inconsistent groups — with about 65% to 70% of the highly consistent group
respondents rating their organization as above average or better on financial
performance and customer satisfaction, compared to only about 30% of those
in the inconsistent experience group. Here, too, being in the moderate group
doesn’t take performance beyond average performance — you need to have
consistency across most of the elements, not just several of them, to get the
largest potential payoff.

CONSISTENCY TRANSLATES TO BETTER BUSINESS OUTCOMES

65% 69%
52% 0-2 Active EX Elements
47%
3-5 Active EX Elements
32% 30%
6-7 Active EX Elements

Financial Performance Customer Service

(% Above Average) (% Above Average)

We also identified respondents from companies that were included in various

“best places to work”/”most admired company” lists (those that are providing
a positive work experience as well as performing well). High-consistency
respondents were 2.5X more likely to be from a high-performing company than
inconsistent respondents.

These findings suggest that a highly consistent, great employee experience

has the biggest positive impact on business performance. Conversely, less
consistency suggests excessive “noise” or inconsistency in the experience, which
can often hamper business performance.

Reducing the noise in your work experience by

making it more consistent across all elements
and all employees is how you translate employee
experience into real business outcomes.

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Courage from the C-suite

makes employee experience
a business asset
Given that a consistent employee experience translates into business
performance, we then sought to identify those things that can help enable
organizations to create a highly consistent experience. Our research has
identified three critical factors that contribute to a more consistent and
connected employee experience:

• Shift the ownership back to top leaders

Senior leaders must set the priorities, provide clear direction Opportunity:
and lead the change to create a truly engaging and consistent
C-suite can
work experience.

• Empower managers to amplify through personalization drive

Support managers to enrich and personalize the day-to-day
business
results
experience through the priorities and processes leadership and
HR have established.

• Drive HR with intention through EX with courage,

Drive HR with intention and cohesion to deliver more mature, commitment and alignment
personalized experiences.

Challenge:

1/3
of employees do not feel
senior leaders take the
necessary actions now to
position the company for
long-term success

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Shift the ownership back to top leaders

Although there has always been some expectation around the role senior leaders
play in driving engagement and employee experience, the reality is that over the
last decade or so, the focus and expectations for actions toward engagement
have been placed heavily upon managers. This stems in part from belief in the
misconception that “managers own engagement,” which was introduced in the
early 2000s.

The intent of the research behind this was not to absolve senior leadership’s
involvement in creating an engaging experience, but practical adoption of the
concept fell to managers because they were perceived as being a larger part of
employees’ day-to-day experience. Although that may be true, it ignores the reality
that employees are embedded in an experience that is ultimately shaped by top
leaders. Furthermore, over time the role of the middle manager has evolved as
well, with more responsibilities and less time for people management-related
activities, resulting in an even greater need for leadership oversight.

Looking across our client surveys over the years, we find that the more prevalent
drivers of engagement often include measures related to senior leadership, but
not managers (who often fall much further down the ranking of drivers).

This makes sense, as senior leaders set the priorities (dictate what is important) in
their organizations, are the ultimate owners of the processes that people engage
with in their work, have oversight of these processes, and are able to determine
when changes are made and to what end. Influence and support from both levels
of leadership are required, but while managers play an important role in creating
an engaging work experience, research shows senior leaders have a stronger level
of influence.

If we focus on the consistency of the EX

Senior leaders’ (versus employee engagement),
actions* have the relationship is even stronger.

1.5X
Senior leaders have

greater impact on employee

engagement than managers’
6X
more impact on the consistency
actions and behaviors** of EX than managers

* communication, building confidence and connectivity

** fairness of treatment, trustworthiness and support provided to the team

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These findings suggest that actions that influence employee experience

(and drive the consistency of that experience) should start with leaders.
Confidence in leadership and vision as well as perceptions around leadership
showing care and support of employees continue to be among the top drivers
of engagement. Leaders should take heed, as current trends also show that
confidence and trust in leadership is fading — perhaps because we are moving
away from “crisis” mode, in which leaders tend to make more efforts to be
visible and communicate with employees. As we fall into a “new normal,”
leaders may become less intentional with these valued communications and
connections. The result can be less consistency of experience, with people
becoming less aligned and priorities less clear.

How to shift ownership back to top leaders

Without clear guidance and direction from leaders, the work experience
becomes murky — making it difficult for people to identify the true priorities.
Without a true north star to guide them, people will set their own path, which
may or may not support the true goals of the strategy and culture set by
leadership. This can lead to even more inconsistency, as every part of the
organization is off doing their own thing — all well intentioned, but not in a way
that will coalesce into meaningful momentum for the business.

To mitigate this risk, senior leadership should:

• Have a strong overarching strategy and vision that is translated into priorities and
employee experience. This helps to align everyone around a common set of goals and
allows disparate actions that might otherwise seem like separate priorities to come
together under the same “umbrella” of the vision.

• Ensure consistency in messaging from leader to leader. When different leaders have
conflicting priorities, it can not only lead to confusion, but create mistrust. If leaders aren’t
aligned, your employees may question their vision, strategy and capability.

• Make sure that the priorities themselves are seen as consistent. Even if leaders are
aligned, shifting from priority A in one month to priority B the next may lead people
to question whether leaders know what they are doing. Be sure you have a strong
overarching strategy that provides context and demonstrates how seemingly different
priorities are aligned to the same goals.

• Be visible to employees — involve them, get their feedback and leverage their ideas.
Intentional involvement helps your people understand expectations and chart a path
toward meeting those expectations that is relevant for them. This allows them to feel like
an active part of the experience (and thus more likely to see the experience favorably)
versus creating a passive feeling that the experience is happening to them (which most
likely will be seen unfavorably).

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Empower managers to amplify through personalization

Although senior leaders are critical to driving consistency in experience, managers still
have an influential role. But instead of bearing the full ownership of employee experience,
the role of managers is to help amplify and support the priorities and processes set by
leadership. Senior leaders set the priorities, while managers help bring them to life.

The adage that “people leave managers, not organizations” rarely holds true. While a lot
of noise is made around “toxic” managers, only about 10% of full-time employees indicate
that they left or would leave their current role due to their manager. In fact, perceptions of
managers tend to be among the more favorably-rated areas of employee experience.5

Organizational leaders can leverage the positive manager/employee relationship to amplify

their own efforts to create a consistent work experience and drive business outcomes.
However, this does not happen by chance. Organizations must support people managers in
bringing the organizational vision to life.

We asked people managers to rate the support they receive, from “not true for me” to
“could be improved” to “true for me” across five key areas (see chart). Only about half of
people managers felt any one of five areas was true for them, with the other half looking
for improvements in how they are supported in these ways. And although half of any given
support element is present, only 16% of those people managers report being supported
across all five of these elements. A similar number (16%) do not feel any of these elements
are fully present for them and half (49%) only have two or fewer present. These supportive
behaviors play a critical role in amplifying leadership impact and driving a more consistent
experience, and yet, rarely are all five fully present. Enhancing manager support across
these five elements can have a significant positive impact and represents an opportunity
for many organizations.

PEOPLE MANAGER SUPPORT IS LIMITED

I have a role model for how to

53% 35% 12% Present
best manage/lead team
Could be Improved
I receive effective feedback from manager Not at all Present
on how to best manage/lead team 51% 38% 11%

I have training/coaching needed to provide

50% 40% 10%
valuable career advice to team members

I have enough time to regularly

48% 47% 5%
provide feedback and coaching

People management tools

49% 49% 42% 9%
and processes are easy to use

5 In our global employee database, ratings of managers tend to be about 10 percentage points more favorable on average than ratings of leaders,
and among the more favorably rated items on surveys in general. And as noted earlier, ratings of managers have improved in the last year.

20 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
GLOBAL EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TRENDS 2023

The best of both worlds — strong leaders and supported managers

working together

In addition to the level of manager support, the strength of leadership influence

also has an impact on consistency of experience. When there is strong
leadership influence, consistency improves, especially with high manager
support (1.2X compared to low manager support). Conversely, we see the least
consistency of experience when senior leadership influence is weak, regardless
of whether manager support is high or low. However, high manager support
can help to amplify impact in the absence of strong leadership influence,
somewhat improving the employee experience. But as we noted in the previous
section, consistency of experience is not the responsibility of managers alone
— strong leadership influence is also required.

Active EX Variance
across EX items
elements (lower score = more
(0 to 7) consistency of EX)

Weaker senior Low manager support 0.8 .84

leadership influence
High manager support 3.3 .77

Stronger senior Low manager support 5.4 .66

leadership influence High manager support 6.6 .56

Not surprisingly, our findings suggest that the same correlation exists around
financial performance. Of organizations whose financial performance was
rated above average or better, those with both high senior leadership influence
and high manager support outperform those with low senior leadership
influence and low manager support by over 50%. The extra manager support
helps them bring leader vision and priorities to life in a more consistent way,
which in turn can translate into stronger business outcomes.

MANAGER SUPPORT BRINGS LEADER PRIORITIES TO LIFE IN A CONSISTENT WAY,

TRANSLATING INTO STRONGER BUSINESS OUTCOMES
76%

53%
40%

23%

Lower Leadership Lower Leadership High Leadership High Leadership

Influence & Low Influence & High Influence & Low Influence & High
Manager Support Manager Support Manager Support Manager Support

% above average financial performance

21 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
GLOBAL EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TRENDS 2023

How to empower managers to amplify through personalization

There are many elements of the work experience that are enhanced and
enriched by managers, effectively moving from foundational elements
(the rocks and pebbles in our parable) to more mature elements and even
personalization (the sand and water) to create a great employee experience.
For example, it is foundational when a manager provides clarity around
expectations of an employee’s role. From there, it can evolve to helping
connect the employee’s job to the strategy/vision for the organization,
followed by providing guidance on how the employee can grow their career
in a way that aligns to the organization’s future. However, as we see in
our research, this maturity requires time, training and feedback to enable
managers to learn how to do this. The more care organizations take in
providing this support at each level of maturity, the more effectively (and
consistently) managers will be able to apply and help generate a more
powerful experience for their people.

But without strong support, managers may struggle to deliver a consistent

employee experience. First and foremost, ensure your managers are
provided with a consistent experience themselves, which will enable
them to amplify and activate the vision and strategy of senior leadership.
Managers should also be encouraged to advocate for the kind of
support they may be lacking. This can range from serving as a “voice of
the customer” for HR tools and systems that they leverage for people
management to seeking out role models to learn from to asking for
feedback and coaching on people management skills.

It is equally important to ensure both your managers and senior leaders

have a clear understanding of their authority to make decisions, particularly
as it relates to processes and procedures that can shape the employee
experience. Both senior leaders and managers need clarity around influence
and “ownership.” Make time to differentiate and clearly articulate those
decisions owned by managers and those owned by senior leadership to
ensure each level is spending their time appropriately and has the support
needed to create a real, tangible impact on experience.

22 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
GLOBAL EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TRENDS 2023

Drive HR with intention

Just as managers must move beyond a mastery of the foundational
elements of experience (from rocks and pebbles to sand and water), so
must your HR processes in order to create a more impactful, consistent
employee experience.

HR processes that influence experience should be challenged to go

beyond the basic needs. You must intentionally decide on how to build on
the foundation in ways that support your organization’s unique strategy.

Creating impact on engagement and performance outcomes

Although we find that high-performing companies do a better job of

creating a consistent work experience, they are not able to differentiate
themselves on the foundational items alone. Our research shows the
gap in percent favorable scores between average and high-performing
companies ranges from approximately six to eight points on foundational
items. However, on more mature items, the gap essentially doubles — and
we often see high-performing companies measure 12 to 15 percentage
points higher on these mature experience elements.

Foundational items cover the basic expectations of the work experience

and are those that tend to be more easily implemented by organizations.
For example, if we look at the core experience element “Developing,”
foundational items would include things like providing employees with
the training needed to do their current job. With respect to the element
of “Recognizing,” foundational items might include ensuring employees
understand how performance is being measured and are paid fairly, while
for “Performing,” foundational items might cover things like ensuring
basic staffing levels are met or that people are being held accountable
for performance. Generally speaking, organizations score higher on
foundational areas on their employee surveys.

23 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
GLOBAL EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TRENDS 2023

More mature or evolved items tend to reflect more specific — and in some
ways more personalized — experiences. Although some may consist of unique
programs or approaches, most simply take the foundational experiences further,
reflecting how organizations are bringing (or can bring) more value to the
experience.

For example, more mature items around “Developing” might include such things
as having a mentor to provide valuable coaching and guidance about one’s
career. Similarly, for “Recognizing,” a more mature experience might include
creating a stronger link between performance and reward and for “Performing,”
maturity might include readily investing in new ideas that drive future success
and having decisions made without unnecessary levels of approval.

Keep in mind, maturity exists on a continuum, with different steps in the journey
to maturity as an organization progresses from foundational (for example,
providing training) to more evolved (providing individualized career coaching).
The goal is to continuously build on and improve these key processes. Each
step up the maturity ladder helps enrich the overall employee experience, which
in turn helps build consistency and will be more likely to translate into positive
business outcomes.

But while successfully executing foundational elements will definitely

improve your performance, there is a ceiling effect. Mastery of foundational
elements alone will not push your organization into the level of experience
that can create meaningful business impact.

High-performing companies often challenge themselves to push their processes

beyond the foundational — building on what works rather than accepting the
foundation as being “good enough.” For example, HR processes are often geared
toward fulfilling the needs of the lowest common denominator — the most
basic, foundational needs. High-performing companies instead tend to gear
themselves toward the highest common multiple — meaning enhancements to
the processes that will have the largest impact on employee experience, and in
turn, business outcomes.

To better demonstrate this, we selected three experience elements that HR

processes tend to have the greatest influence on: Recognizing, Developing
and Performing. For each of these experience elements, we identified one
foundational and one mature item from our global trends database. We then
examined the level of maturity — from no foundational items present to only
foundational items to both foundational and mature items being present, along
with the corresponding impact on engagement, intent to stay and financial
performance.

24 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
GLOBAL EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TRENDS 2023

When moving from no foundational items in place to having just

foundational elements present, we can see a notable jump in the average
impact on engagement, intent to stay and ratings of financial performance.
However, with only the foundational elements in place, performance in these
areas does not exceed the average range for these outcomes. It is only
when we layer in the more mature behaviors that the performance in these
areas jumps dramatically.

HIGHER MATURITY CREATES BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

91% 88% No Foundational

74% Foundational Only
63% 65%
50% Foundational + Mature
43%
32%
18%

% Engaged Intent to Stay (% Fav) % Above Average Financial

Performance

In other words, simply ensuring consistency in the

foundational items of experience elements is not enough
to deliver a real advantage — you must also evolve, expand
and enhance your processes, adding in more mature
items to bring more value to the experience. In doing this,
you get a return on that experience in a way that can drive
positive business outcomes.

To illustrate this, let’s go back to our “rocks in the jar” parable. You can keep
working with just the rocks and pebbles, and even polish them up nicely,
but that alone won’t fill the glass jar completely. At some point, you need to
add in the sand and water to completely “fill” the jar. In the same manner,
high-performing companies are those that do the right foundational things
consistently (provide training, set performance expectations, hold people
accountable), but also create additional value in the experiences they bring
through more mature, evolved elements, which provide more personalization
of the experience (e.g., coaching, recognition of effort, decision-making
empowerment).

25 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
GLOBAL EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TRENDS 2023

How to drive HR with intention

Too often, organizations focus on individual HR processes in isolation from

one another. For example, the design and execution of career development
programs may not be coordinated with performance management efforts.
Even though they should all be aligned with the same strategy, in our HR
transformation work with clients we find that this is not always the case.
More often than not, organizations may think there is alignment, but in
reality, they have created disparate programs with the hope they are all
driving toward the same end goal. However, you can’t rely on hope — you
must intentionally align your critical HR programs so that they cohesively
reinforce the same overall experience. The better the holistic alignment
of HR programs and processes to the business and talent strategy, the
more effectively those programs will translate into a consistent employee
experience.

Recall earlier, when we looked at how many of the seven experience

elements needed to be active to have a meaningful impact on engagement
and business outcomes. Being good at just one or two is not enough, nor is
being good at most of them just some of the time. Rather, you must be good
at most of the experience elements most of the time — it is a consistent
experience that brings all these elements together in a coordinated, cohesive
and intentional way to support the strategy and drive business performance.

To this end, leaders need to move away from “silver bullet” and “one size
fits all” thinking — how the parts come together to serve the bigger picture
is just as important as what any one effort or change can do. This doesn’t
mean working on everything all at once, but it does emphasize the value
of using your strategy as the starting point and then building out a journey
aligned to reaching your goals.

26 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
GLOBAL EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TRENDS 2023

A path forward

Consistency and personalization:

A magical combination
As we have shown, consistency of experience creates high engagement,
which translates into better business outcomes. This research supports
what we have already learned from our high-performing clients over the
years: to drive success, it is not about being great at just one or two things,
but being consistently good across a number of critical elements and then
evolving those elements further.

It is important to note that achieving consistency does not mean that

everyone’s specific experience is the same — rather, it means that every
experience strives to give people the same effect. Positive perceptions
about core EX elements such as Developing, Recognizing, Managing and
so forth will come from the experiences that are most relevant to both the
individual employee as well as various cohorts within the organization.

For example, our research reveals that younger workers with lower tenure
place a high value on learning and development that gives them exposure
to a broader range of opportunities — a chance to explore. More tenured
workers, on the other hand, look for opportunities that can help them deepen
their skills in their area of interest or prepare them for the next step on their
professional career path. So, if both exploration and depth of development
are present in your career development experience, both younger and more
tenured employees will be more likely to perceive “Developing” favorably. It
is the same outcome, but with different paths needed to get there — in this
situation, based on age and tenure.

27 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
GLOBAL EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TRENDS 2023

It is also important to recognize that you can’t necessarily do all things for all
people all at once. Realize that this is a journey, and the best place to start is to
identify what is working universally — what rocks and pebbles you have in place
for your employee experience — and verifying their alignment to your strategy
and culture. If those foundational elements are solid, you can take the next step
to identify where experience needs to be enhanced further and take actions
from there (sand and water).

• When an experience element is universally not working (broken), you should

step back and evaluate its foundation to determine what is missing and
rebuild. You may discover that your experience is not really lining up with
your business strategy or culture (e.g., wanting risk taking and agility in a
rule-bound and compliant culture).

• Conversely, you may find a situation in which, although the foundation

is sound, certain elements of experience seem stuck — you are probably
doing many of the right things, but the organization is not really challenged
to push things further. In this instance, you should examine your HR
processes and explore which may be evolved further to go beyond serving
just the least common denominator. You will also want to be sure that you
are leading change efforts from the top, and not relying solely on managers
to drive employee experience transformation efforts.

• In situations where consistency of experience is present for many but

not all employees of your organization (be it subpopulations or entire
business units), personalization of experience becomes critical. These gaps
suggest that what is working for some is not necessarily working for all
(remember, no one size fits all). Personalization efforts allow you to enrich
the processes in a way that is more meaningful for select groups while
retaining what is working for others. We find experience design efforts can
be powerful tools in this situation to identify what is working for each part
of the specific experience journey, as well as what can be enhanced.

28 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
GLOBAL EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TRENDS 2023

Hitting invisible walls

In some instances, organizations may feel they have made a concerted effort to
drive change from the top, but are not seeing meaningful adoption or a real return
on these efforts. It’s as if you are trapped behind an invisible wall — you know it is
there, but you are unable to see it or move past it.

At times like these, it is important to step back and take a closer look at your
business strategy and culture to ensure they are aligned to your employee
experience. Remember that to be effective, your employee experience needs to
be a reflection of both. When there is misalignment, even the best intentions and
efforts to enhance the employee experience may have a limited impact on the
business. For example, you may wish to create an inclusive experience, but if your
business strategy or culture strongly reinforces hierarchical decision-making, it
may prohibit input from those most affected by the decisions, resulting in efforts
to drive inclusivity to stall out or fail. Unfortunately, great intentions do not create
great experiences.

Of course, the invisible wall might just start with your strategy itself. Strong
engagement and consistent experience will not result in better business outcomes
if your business strategy is flawed from the start. Aligning to a faulty business
strategy will lead your engaged people down the wrong path. Furthermore, if
your strategy and direction for the organization is constantly changing, it can
undermine your employees’ confidence in your leadership and strategy. And if
confidence in leadership is lacking, your employees may look elsewhere (local
leaders, mid-level managers or fellow team members) for direction and to
establish priorities for their work, leading to inconsistency across the organization.

Evaluating top leadership alignment and confidence in the strategy (along with
appropriate stress testing of the strategy) can help verify if this is one of your
underlying challenges. If you are contemplating changes or shifts in your business
strategy, be sure to lock it in first and clearly communicate it throughout the
organization to get the most out of the employee experience enhancements that
will support it.

29 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
GLOBAL EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TRENDS 2023

Creating a safe harbor for your people

Creating consistency of experience can help focus the energy your people
bring to your organization to create strong business outcomes. But there is
yet another benefit of consistency — it can also provide employees with a safe
harbor of sorts in a BANI world (i.e., one that feels brittle, anxious, nonlinear and
incomprehensible).

At a time when people may feel that so much is out of their control, providing
stability and creating a consistent employee experience can help both individuals
and the business thrive. It promotes a focus at all levels to control what one
can control (versus trying to change things one cannot), and to build on what is
working as well as identify what can be expanded further or enhanced.

This can help to create an environment employees can count on — the work
experience will be what they expect (and need), even if and when things outside
the organization are not as certain. This enables people to focus and align to the
right priorities in their work (which helps with performance) and instills confidence
that the business is going in the right direction (which helps with retention).

30 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
GLOBAL EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE TRENDS 2023

Using employee experience as a competitive

edge to unlock business vitality
New realities, new employee demands and higher engagement maturity
all point toward the need for a bold refocus. What has worked for
organizations in the past may no longer drive the same results. Employee
engagement still matters, but our research shows that this is just one
of many powerful business outcomes that derive from the employee
experiences you create. Through the strength of consistency, the power
of connection and the courage of leaders, your employee experience can
lead to so much more for your business — creating a unique competitive
edge and unlocking organizational vitality.

31 Strength in the Beauty of Consistency. Translating Employee Experience into Business Outcomes
Contacts

Jeff Jolton, Ph.D. Amy Vinh Mumma Seymour Adler, Ph.D. David Perna
Research & Insights Culture & Engagement Leadership Assessment & HR & Talent Advisory
Managing Director Global Practice Leader Development Global Practice Leader
Contacts
[email protected] [email protected] Global Practice Leader [email protected]
[email protected]
Name
Managing Director
HR & Talent Advisory
We would like to thank the following contributors:
[email protected]
Chiara Miuccio, Ashley Hajnos, Réka Bakos, Katherine Waite, Sophie Oberkampf,
Robin Boesen, Dnika J. Travis, Ph.D., Michael McFarren, Ph.D.

We would like to thank the following contributors:

About Kincentric
Kincentric, a Spencer Stuart company, helps
organizations unlock the power of people
and teams to ignite change and drive better
business results. With decades of experience
and specialist expertise in areas such as culture;
employee engagement; leadership assessment and
development; HR and talent advisory; and diversity,
equity and inclusion, we use data-driven insights to
architect solutions that add value, enhance agility
and increase organizational effectiveness.
For more information, visit kincentric.com.

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