A dynamic approach: 8 essential metrics to track the ever-evolving employee experience

Employee experience (EX) is a multi-faceted concept, but many organizational leaders see it as a strictly linear journey. As a result, they only analyze metrics they feel are relevant to specific stages of that journey, such as recruitment, onboarding, and offboarding. However, those stages represent limited dimensions of the broader, more nuanced reality of the employee experience.

In addition to these typical “steps” of the employee experience journey, EX also encompasses how team members feel about the company’s mission, their managers, their colleagues, and their ability to maintain work-life balance. It reflects their daily interactions and tasks. According to recent research from the World Economic Forum, realistic expectations, recognition, and respect from leadership also have a major impact on the EX (1).

Because EX is so personal and multidimensional, employers need a wide range of metrics to measure employee experience across their organizations. With only one in three HR leaders tracking the most essential metrics like engagement or retention (2), this is a critical process for people teams to implement.

Have you ever wondered: “How do you measure employee experience?” If so, this article will teach you how to use eight key employee experience metrics to monitor and improve EX within your organization.

1. World Economic Forum, 2023
2. Leapsome Workforce Trends Report, 2023
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Why is measuring employee experience important?

Measuring employee experience allows you to understand what drives engagement, satisfaction, retention, and turnover at a granular level. Rather than operating from instinct and speculation, EX metrics mean you can use people analytics to make evidence-based conclusions to inform your organization’s employee experience strategy.

Creating repeatable, standardized processes for measuring employee experience is also more difficult without metrics. When HR and people ops professionals establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that they can return to for monitoring each stage of the EX lifecycle, such as recruitment, onboarding, development, and offboarding, they’re better positioned to respond to issues and readjust their approach quickly.

Moreover, employee experience metrics make setting EX goals easier. For instance, a recent Deloitte survey found that 72% of employees believe executive bonuses should be tied to employee satisfaction metrics. While this may not be feasible for every company, monitoring EX indicators often prompts organizational leaders to incorporate satisfaction and engagement-related goals into their high-level strategies.
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8 useful EX metrics

Most people professionals are aware that EX is important, but may not know how to measure employee experience effectively. That’s where EX metrics come in — employee experience KPIs and metrics mean that you can investigate and assess EX issues from different angles. 

Below, we’ve outlined eight employee experience metrics, complete with formulas and useful questions to help you get to the heart of how you can improve EX within your organization.
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1. Employee net promoter score (eNPS)

The employee net promoter score (eNPS) is one of the most useful EX metrics as it allows you to quickly gauge how team members feel about your organization, which makes it easy to track consistently. It’s based on a single question: “On a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to recommend our company as a great place to work?”

To calculate your score, start by determining the number of promoters — the happy employees who answer with a nine or ten — and the number of detractors — the less satisfied respondents who provide a score between zero and six. The individuals who respond with a seven or eight are considered passives and will be neutral in your final score.

Then, you simply subtract the number of promoters by the number of detractors.

• The eNPS formula: Percentage of promoters – percentage of detractors

Let’s say that 348 employees respond to your survey. 37 are promoters, and 112 are detractors, so 32% and 11%.

32% – 11% = 21%

In this case, your eNPS would be 21.

The data the eNPS score yields is simple, but it’s also one-dimensional. To understand why employees answer the way they do, you may want to include one or two additional questions in your short survey:

• What’s the reasoning behind your score?
• What would prevent you from recommending us to your friends, family, or community?
• How can we improve as a company?

🔎 The eNPS is a useful, simple metric, but it doesn’t tell the whole engagement story.

For instance, employees can be considered promoters but not necessarily feel engaged. That’s why it’s essential to conduct additional research and surveys to understand your people’s main satisfaction and motivation drivers.

2. Employee retention

Recent Gallup analysis found that 50% of employees are currently open to leaving their jobs. While pay and benefits contributed to 20% of the respondents‘ motivations for moving on to other opportunities, there were various other reasons behind the remaining 80%. These additional factors included a lack of work-life balance and “not being treated with respect.”

As a lagging indicator, retention itself can’t illuminate why employees are having a negative experience, but low retention definitely reflects a negative EX. 

There are a few ways you can measure retention to get a holistic view of the issue:

• Company-wide retention = (Number of employees at the start of the period – number of employees at the end of the period) / Number of employees at the start of the period x 100
• Average tenure = (The sum total of all employee tenures) / Number of employees
• Turnover rate = (Number of employees who left during a certain period / Average number of employees at any time) x 100

🔎 Use these metrics to measure retention for each department so you can determine which teams are facing the most issues. Be sure to account for both voluntary and involuntary turnover, as some employees will likely leave due to layoffs or termination.

3. Employee engagement

Engagement has to do with how connected employees feel with their work and colleagues, and it’s a factor that HR leaders and managers should prioritize throughout the employee experience journey. If team members feel detached or excluded in their professional lives, it’ll affect their overall experience. 

The great news is that most of the factors that impact engagement also impact EX. For instance, according to the latest Gallup data, employees who are currently disengaged feel that way due to a lack of clear expectations, connection with the company mission, and growth opportunities.

With that information at hand, you can target these and other relevant factors in your engagement surveys and pulse surveys. Ask questions like:

• Do you feel that you get enough feedback on your work and performance?
• Does your work feel meaningful to you?
• Do you feel that your manager actively supports your development?

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Leapsome Surveys can reveal the hidden impact drivers you should focus on in future EX initiatives.

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4. Staff wellness

Companies worldwide are facing increased employee exhaustion, with burnout rates increasing from 38% in 2021 to 42% in 2023. In addition, in our 2023 State of Employee Enablement report, 74% of survey respondents cited a lack of work-life balance as one of the reasons for leaving their jobs.

If you assume that wellness is hard to measure, think again. Let’s look at a few metrics you can use to get a sense of how team members are doing:

• Overtime rates — These may indicate who’s overworked and on the brink of burnout.
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• Vacation or personal days taken — Look for employees who are currently underutilizing their available PTO.
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• Use of mental health and wellness resources — If team members aren’t taking advantage of these resources, you may need to investigate the underlying reasons.
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• Productivity levels — In particular, compare current data against past data to see what’s changed.
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• Reported stress levels — Analyze open comments in surveys and reach out to managers for their insights on how their reports are feeling.
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5. Internal promotions

Our research uncovered that nearly one out of every four employees rates their compensation and promotion management processes as bad. Additionally, many companies fail to implement formal promotion and professional advancement processes at all. In a Leadership IQ study, only 19% of respondents said the career advancement path in their current role was clear, and only 20% reported that their assigned goals would help them make progress along an advancement path.

Organizations clearly have work to do when it comes to tracking their promotion metrics and improving their internal hiring processes, especially if they don’t want to lose valuable talent. As a best practice, they should utilize metrics such as:

• Promoted team members — The percentage of employees who are promoted in a given time frame.
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• Time in role — The average amount of time that team members spend in a role before getting a promotion.
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• Diversity and inclusion — For instance, use a tool like Leapsome Compensation to determine how well promotions are distributed across different demographics within your organization.
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• Performance — Investigate how employees perform before and after getting promoted and see how that compares across the company.
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• Skills and competencies — Use Leapsome’s Competency Framework feature to investigate how employees’ current skill sets match their new roles. ‍
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6. Participation in learning & development initiatives

According to SHRM’s 2022 Workplace Learning and Development Trends report, 76% of employees agreed they were more likely to stay with a company that offered continuous learning and training. 

Professionals need training to feel more confident in their roles. In addition, when they get the right development opportunities, they’re 3.2 times more likely to report feeling happy in their current positions. Still, people teams need to track training participation and usage to determine which programs employees appreciate and utilize the most. Specifically, they should monitor:

• Enrollment rates — This will show you which learning paths and skills team members are most interested in.
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• Course progress and completion rates — These help determine how engaged employees are with current learning offerings.
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• Post-training feedback — Assess how relevant individuals found their training and how well it prepared them for current and future challenges and opportunities.
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• Performance improvement — Track performance scores before and after team members complete training to see what impact their learning has made.

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7. Performance review data

It goes without saying that a great employee experience strategy can positively impact how effectively team members work, which will be reflected in performance evaluations. The Harvard Business Review even found that better EX can result in better results and more revenue over time.

While performance scores may point to specific EX successes or issues, HR and people ops should dig deeper and explore the feedback employees share with their managers. For instance, team members might share with their team lead that they’re unclear about certain aspects of their role or are having some difficulty with how the company is managing current changes. In particular, you can review employees’ comments via:

• Self-assessments — If your organization conducts 360-degree evaluations, team members may have helpful thoughts to share about how EX has impacted their ability to work.
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• Manager feedback — Look at the level of support and guidance individuals say their team lead provides them with.
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• Anonymous channels — Platforms like Leapsome provide anonymous feedback tools like Q&A boards and suggestion boxes for people to share their input and receive answers to their burning questions from leadership. 

🔎 Managers and leaders can use AI-backed platforms like Leapsome to provide more constructive, intentional feedback and ensure all employees have the same performance review experience.

8. Team member productivity

When employees are thriving at work, they tend to work more productively. Indeed, 82% of respondents to Slack’s 2023 State of Work report said, “feeling happy and engaged is a key driver of their productivity,” and 22% agreed that a chaotic work environment hinders their ability to get work done. 

Variances and slumps in productivity can also indicate a problem with your current employee experience. Keep an eye on output and efficiency by tracking:

• Task completion rates — This tells you the percentage of assigned tasks or projects that team members complete within a given time period.
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• Efficiency rates — This compares the time people spend on tasks against the output and outcomes they achieve.
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• Goal completion — Leapsome Goals allows you to monitor how individuals and teams progress with their objectives and make sure they stay in close alignment with company targets.

Measure & improve employee engagement & experience with Leapsome

Meaningful employee experience measurement requires looking into a wide variety of metrics so you can address every stage of the EX journey. It’s also essential to consider a broad range of indicators to address team members’ everyday needs and challenges. 

Thankfully, with Leapsome, you no longer need a stack of dispersed tools and platforms to track and manage your EX metrics:

• With Surveys, you can track engagement, retention, and turnover.
• With Compensation, you can assess salary and promotion data.
• With Learning, you monitor your success with development and training.
• With Reviews, you can evaluate employee performance and productivity.

Leapsome is the go-to solution for companies that are looking to revitalize their EX processes and transform their work environments for the better.

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