Build an Employee Experience that Inspires Engagement and Loyalty

HR leaders know this truth all too well: recruiting and retaining top talent has never been more complex. Every day brings a fresh challenge, from competing job offers to burnout to disengaged teams wondering if their work even matters.

But here’s the hard part—these issues rarely start with pay or perks. They start with how employees feel. Overwhelmed during onboarding. Stuck with outdated tools. Unseen by their manager. Misaligned with the culture. When the employee experience breaks down, productivity, wellbeing, and retention do too.

That’s why it’s time to stop treating employee experience like a soft skill. It’s a business strategy—and a powerful one. From the first job ad to the offboarding process, every interaction shapes how someone shows up at work.

Transform your office by designing every stage of the employee journey with intention.

What is Employee Experience?

Employee Experience is the sum of every interaction an employee has with your organization — from the moment they see your job ad to the day they exit (and beyond). It includes the tangible (like tools, processes, benefits) and the intangible (like culture, inclusion, trust, and wellbeing).

Think of it as the employee’s journey through your company: how supported they feel, how connected they are to your mission, how easy it is to do their job, and how their work life fits into their whole life.

• Pre-Hire
  • Recruiting experience: The ease, clarity, and responsiveness candidates experience when applying for a job.
     
  • Employer brand perception: How potential hires view your organization based on your reputation, values, and online presence.
• Onboarding
  • Welcome process: The first impression a new hire gets, including introductions, day-one logistics, and team integration.
     
  • Training and development: The initial learning opportunities that help employees build the skills they need to succeed in their role.
     
  • Access to tools and systems: How quickly and seamlessly employees receive the technology and resources they need to do their jobs.
• Daily Work
  • Relationships with managers and peers: The quality of everyday interactions, support, and collaboration among team members.
     
  • Communication practices: How information flows through your organization, including clarity, transparency, and tone.
     
  • Workload and expectations: Whether employees feel their responsibilities are manageable and aligned with their job description.
• Growth Opportunities
  • Career development and learning:Ongoing access to learning resources, mentorship, and skill-building programs.
     
  • Performance feedback:How frequently and constructively employees receive insights to help them grow.
     
  • Promotions and advancement: The fairness and clarity of internal mobility, and how employees can progress in their careers.
• Culture & Belonging
  • Inclusion and equity: Whether employees of all backgrounds feel respected, represented, and valued.
     
  • Psychological safety: Employees’ confidence that they can speak up, make mistakes, or ask for help without fear of judgment.
     
  • Recognition and appreciation: How often and meaningfully employees are acknowledged for their contributions.
• Wellbeing
  • Flexibility and autonomy: The ability to make decisions about how, when, and where work happens.
     
  • Health and wellness benefits:Access to physical, mental, and emotional health resources that support overall wellbeing.|
     
  • Support for emotional and mental wellbeing: Programs and policies that help employees manage stress, avoid burnout, and feel emotionally safe.
• Exit
  • Offboarding experience:How thoughtfully and respectfully an organization handles resignations, retirements, or layoffs.
     
  • Alumni engagement and ongoing connection:Efforts to maintain relationships with former employees as brand ambassadors or potential boomerang hires.

When done well, a great employee experience boosts retention, productivity, and engagement — and it has a measurable impact on the business. In fact, 88% of employees value their wellbeing at work just as much as their salary, according to Wellhub’s 2025 State of Work-Life Wellness study.

Want to improve yours? Start by asking: Are we making it easy for employees to thrive — at every stage of their journey here?

Stages of the Employee Experience

Each stage of the employee lifecycle will impact the employee experience for better or worse, and management can help determine those positive or negative outcomes. You can think of the employee lifecycle as a model that outlines the specific stages that an employee experiences at one company. Each stage will influence an employee in different ways, so designing a healthy and appealing life cycle at every step will have a lasting impact on both the employee and the company.

Stage 1: Attraction & Recruitment

An employee’s experience begins long before their first day — it starts during recruitment. How you attract talent and guide candidates through the hiring process shapes your culture and sets expectations.

Start by reviewing how easy it is to apply. Are the instructions clear? Is communication timely? Is the interview process respectful and professional? If you’re slow to respond or inconsiderate of a candidate’s time, you’re already undermining the experience.

Then, consider how you present your company. Do your job postings highlight your values, benefits, and workplace culture? Are you upfront about qualifications? Clear, honest messaging helps attract candidates who are the right fit and more likely to thrive.

Ultimately, showing care and professionalism during hiring builds trust and signals that employee experience matters from day one.

Stage 2: Onboarding

Once you’ve hired the right person, onboarding becomes the next critical step in shaping their experience. It’s where expectations are set, tools are introduced, and support systems are explained.

New hires need time to understand their role, benefits, workflows, and how they fit into the bigger picture. Rushing this process or offering little support can leave them feeling overwhelmed and disengaged.

Instead, take an active role in their first few months. Provide clear resources, follow up regularly, and ensure managers are patient and present. A strong onboarding program not only builds confidence — it builds loyalty.

Stage 3: Development

Around six months to a year in, employees enter the development stage. The pace may feel steadier, but growth and support are still essential. Without new challenges or feedback, the experience can start to feel stagnant.

Development can mean learning new skills, taking on new responsibilities, or preparing for a promotion. Managers should offer opportunities for growth and recognize high performers to keep them engaged and valued.

At this stage, the goal is simple: help employees feel needed, appreciated, and confident they have a future with your organization.

Stage 4: Retention

As millennials and younger generations take over the workforce, retention hinges on more than just pay. Today’s employees want a work life that supports — not drains — their overall wellbeing.

If your company can’t offer a positive experience, another one will. A strong retention strategy, grounded in employee wellbeing, helps people stay engaged, perform better, and remain loyal to your mission.

Stage 5: Exit

Every employee will eventually leave — whether for a new opportunity, retirement, or termination. It’s not always the employer’s fault, but a poor employee experience can accelerate the decision.

By supporting employees throughout their journey, you reduce the chances of a negative exit. When someone does leave, use exit feedback to strengthen your employee experience moving forward.
 

Why is Employee Experience Important? 

Some people may begin to feel skeptical about prioritizing the employee experience in management; after all, someone’s experience is what they make of it, right? To an extent, sure—an employee who makes zero effort isn’t going to contribute or produce as much.

However, especially if employers put in more effort at the beginning of the employee lifecycle by hiring the right people, it’s largely the environment and culture of a workplace that changes an employee’s experience. It is a leader’s responsibility to create a workspace that fosters positive experiences for employees.

Plus, intentionally sculpting the employee experience isn’t just a cliche technique to help “boost morale” in the office to keep people appeased. Studies show again and again that sincerely happy employees significantly improve a company’s overarching success—trust us, the numbers speak for themselves. Let’s talk about those benefits in greater detail.

Employee Experience Drives Retention

Avoiding a high turnover rate means tailoring the employee experience to unique and valued individuals. This requires employers to listen to the needs of their employees instead of demanding certain levels of performance with little care. Your best talent is going to go with the company that can give them the best experience from start to finish, and the longer you can keep and invest in an employee, the more established your business will be. 

Don’t forget about the cost of losing and replacing an employee, either; SHRM research showed that, on average, it costs a company 6-9 months’ worth of an employee’s salary to replace them. There are endless benefits to employee retention by optimizing the employee experience—check out our Employee Retention Guide if you want to learn more.

Boosts Productivity  

If better employee retention didn’t catch your attention, this just might: did you know that happy employees are up to 20% more productive? Productivity drives your business, and people that are happy and inspired at their job do a better job. Those individuals are more engaged and invested in the work they do, and when they are reinforced with a trustworthy work environment, they can avoid burnout, stress, and excessive absenteeism.

That’s not the half of it, either. Actively disengaged employees, meaning employees who are checked out and unfulfilled, can cost your company billions of dollars. Again, who you hire will impact someone’s productivity, but so does the employee experience that you as an employer cultivate. You can get the best work out of your employees by providing a better experience—and honestly, most businesses can’t afford the losses that come with tired, unhappy, and unproductive employees.

Higher Customer Satisfaction

Companies that provide a great employee experience also provide a better customer experience. Employees who are happy at work and feel like their work is a positive part of their life will provide better service, strive for excellence, and care about business results. In fact, an IDC survey showed that 85% of respondents agreed that an improved employee experience (and better engagement) results in a better customer experience, higher customer satisfaction, and higher revenues for their organization. 

A Happy Employee is a Healthier Employee

People who are satisfied at work also tend to be healthier. Caring about your employee’s health is already a noble (and expected) quality to have as a company, but healthier workers benefit employees, too. The physical and emotional well-being of employees affects their ability to perform, especially long-term. Promoting good nutrition in the workplace, offering a gym on-site, and supporting mental health practices are all examples of a positive employee experience. Employees that feel good take fewer sick days, rely less on expensive healthcare, and help boost morale at work.

Strengthens Your Brand Reputation

If your employees are content with their experience, this is only going to bring in more high-performance workers in the future. Especially in the age of social media, people share how they feel about their workplaces frequently, and happier employees add to your overall brand. Higher quality employees apply, and with 35% of employees getting their current job from a referral, how people advocate for your business outside of work matters.

How to Improve Employee Experience

Give Employees Tasks to Help Them Feel Fulfilled

No matter their position, people want to know that what they do matters and makes a difference. When you know your employees, you can enhance their individual experience by giving them responsibilities that challenge them, suit their strengths, and empowers them to strive for excellence. If employees are only expected to perform monotonous tasks that offer no real satisfaction, their overall experience is going to eventually take a turn for the worse.

Prioritize Company Culture

An inviting and healthy workplace is one of the most sought-after features of a job. Even if someone loves what they do, the environment can make someone quit or have a negative employee experience. Consider the perks of working at your company. Are communication and collaboration supported? Do people, especially marginalized groups, have the support they need work-wise and socially? Do you offer flexibility and consider work-life wellness for employees? People will have more energy and concentration which adds to their personal and business-related success. Culture can absolutely make or break the employee experience.

Create Ways to Receive Feedback from Employees

Feedback is the best way to examine the employee experience. Instead of waiting to receive negative feedback when someone quits, it’s so much more effective to start gathering all feedback at every stage of the employee lifecycle. Survey how people feel after you hire them, or even survey those that were not hired or decided not to take the job. Seeking honest feedback from the beginning—and continuing that practice throughout someone’s employment—is how you can hone in on one process and improve it.

Act on Feedback

No empty words or promises here! Collecting data is a very important first step, but the second step is even more critical; employers have to be willing to implement actual improvements based on employee feedback. It may have to do with the work environment, growth opportunities, training process, or management styles, but putting the feedback to work is a surefire way to optimize the customer experience.

Optimize Employee Experience with Wellhub’s Insights

Your employees deserve the best, so if you haven’t already, it’s time to ask yourself: what can you do to improve their experience at your company? 

Self-diagnosis can be tricky—it isn’t always easy to recognize where your employees are feeling frustrated, neglected, or underappreciated. Some employees don’t know how to share their struggles or dissatisfaction, and other times, employers don’t know how to measure that dissatisfaction so that they can act on it.

Most companies need a little help with analyzing their culture, gathering useful feedback, and most importantly, implementing changes that will move the needle. Stress less and get in touch with Wellhub! We can help you learn more about your current employee experience management and how to find new ways to support your employees.

Talk to a Wellbeing Specialist today to get started.

Resources

• Essential Elements of Employee Retention. (2017, October 29). Lynchburg Regional SHRM. Retrieved August 2, 2023, from https://lrshrm.shrm.org/blog/2017/10/essential-elements-employee-retention
• Muscolino, H. (2021, September 17). The Employee Experience & Customer Experience Connection. IDC. Retrieved August 2, 2023, from https://blogs.idc.com/2021/09/17/employee-experience-and-customer-experience-what-is-the-connection/
• Pérez, M. (2022, April 1). Why Employee Experience Matters: 9 Stats That Prove It. Nailted. Retrieved August 2, 2023, from https://nailted.com/blog/why-employee-experience-matters-9-stats-that-prove-it/
• Sgroi, D. (2015, October). Happiness and productivity: Understanding the happy-productive worker. Social Market Foundation. Retrieved August 2, 2023, from http://smf.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Social-Market-Foundation-Publication-Briefing-CAGE-4-Are-happy-workers-more-productive-281015.pdf?
• van der Merwe, M. (2022, April 1). Employee Retention Statistics You Should Know in 2023. People Managing People. Retrieved August 2, 2023, from https://peoplemanagingpeople.com/employee-lifecycle/employee-retention-statistics/