The modern economy is at once connected, global, and fiercely competitive. For people with the right skills, there’s no reason to stay at a company that doesn’t treat them well. Better offers are out there. This has become an even more prevalent theme with COVID-19, as many workers have straight up quit their jobs due to w unacceptable working conditions—a trend now being dubbed as “The Great Resignation.”

While it has yet to be seen how this will affect firms and the greater economy longer term, in the near-term it’s causing huge labor shortages across the board. This, in turn, is leading to supply-demand imbalances and inflation. These factors spell trouble for businesses—especially those whose models are reliant upon tight margins and cheap labor.

It’s clear that employees have grown tired of the status quo. The job of businesses of all sizes is to determine how to attract good workers while still remaining profitable. Measuring and enhancing the employee experience can go a long way toward making this possible.

Why Take the Time to Measure the Employee Experience?

There are many reasons taking the time to measure and enhance the employee experience makes sense for enterprises today. Fortunately for all of us, most modern countries have moved past the world of lords and serfs in which you’re locked into a role and if you don’t like it, too bad. In today’s world, keeping employees happy is the only way you’re going to keep them working at your firm. And you can completely forget about attracting or retaining top talent if you’re not doing this.

Engaging workers is another reason it makes sense to measure the employee experience. There are two parts to this. First, you want employees to be engaged with their everyday work, as this will lead to better products and services for customers. Employees will be less likely to want to engage in their work if they don’t feel their experience matters to management.

The other side of engagement is the act of getting employee feedback to better understand their experiences. Utilizing an employee engagement survey is one of the best ways to do this, as it gives straightforward data that can be measured and modeled into action plans.

There are additional corporate culture-related reasons to measure the employee experience. Taking the time to do this will allow for stronger relations between co-workers across all levels and departments. Bringing everyone together for common goals and aspirations boosts morale and makes people feel valued.

Further, measuring the employee experience helps organizations recognize people who have the potential to lead or grow into other positions. Making this a priority allows organizations to gauge who might make sense to promote down the line, while building loyalty to the company in the process.

How Can Enterprises Get a Better Read on Employee Thoughts and

Feelings?

Now that it’s clear that measuring the employee experience is important—how does an organization go about doing it? Employee engagement surveys have already been mentioned. These need to be done continuously and in different forms in order to get a diverse data set.

But this isn’t the only option out there.

Leveraging different technologies can help facilitate digital focus groups, which are another of the top ways to gain in-depth metrics on the employee experience. Not all answers are going to be expressed in multiple-choice responses. Some things require an outlet with more opportunity for expression. Giving employees these outlets to collect and share their thoughts will create a better workplace, as well as make workers believe their employer cares about their wellbeing.

Working to improve the employee experience is a key part of running any enterprise today. Measuring and analyzing this with tried-and-true methods will yield the best results.