The shifting sands of employee experience

The data was gathered from tens of thousands of employees globally over the past two years (June ’23 – May ’24 vs. June ’24 – May ’25). It provides a sobering yet insightful picture of the current employee experience.

The Headlines: A decline in key metrics

Our analysis reveals some significant and concerning shifts:

• 6% reduction in the overall Cultural Assessment score, indicating a general deterioration in workplace culture.
• 22-point drop in the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS), a strong indicator of employees’ willingness to recommend their workplace. Whilst there might be pockets of positive experience, many employees are hesitant to fully endorse their organisation. Indeed, we saw many ‘conditional recommendations’ where they would recommend their team, but not their organisation.

“The experience is AMAZING. But the workload and the pressure are something else. I wouldn’t recommend it to someone I care about. “

Unpacking the drop in happiness and engagement

Digging deeper, our insights highlight specific drivers behind these overall declines. We observed a 6% fall in overall happiness scores. This isn’t a singular issue but a multifaceted challenge driven by several key factors:

An 11% decrease in feeling valued – “Well given there was absolutely no acknowledgment for achieving goals it makes me realise that there’s no point in even trying.“

 

A 10% fall in not feeling listened to – “Valued and listened to by local managers, but feel ignored by those at the senior level, efforts go unrecognised.“

A 9% reduction in the level of trust in their employers – “Trust in the organisation has decreased due to leavers who were given little notice of role change/removal. It does give me concern that decisions are being made through a short-term lens.“

An 8% fall in work-life balance scores – “Far too busy, doing overtime seems to be becoming normalised. This level of work is unsustainable.“

Similarly, engagement scores have fallen by 5%. This decline is influenced by employees feeling:

A 10% drop in being inspired by their organisations – “The company’s only vision appears to be percentage growth figures – this is not an inspiring target to work towards.“

A 9% fall in feeling challenged in their roles – “I feel like I have stagnated. There is no challenge in my role and I am bored of doing the same thing day in day out.“

An 8% decrease in how well employees felt they were kept informed – “Communication is very poor. It leads to problems and creates conflict. The poor communication makes it look like something is being hidden which leads to employees feeling anxious.“

A 4% decrease in having access to the necessary resources – “Resources are too little and what we have are poor quality systems, so we’re constantly wasting time fixing, chasing, reinventing the wheel, etc.“

Identifying the key drivers: Where to focus

Our Key Driver Analysis, which identifies the underlying factors influencing behaviours and perceptions, showed a significant crossover between the key drivers of both happiness and engagement. 

Feeling inspired, valued, and trusted are crucial for both. Being kept informed is a key driver for engagement. The alarming truth is that these most important drivers have all significantly fallen, which can result in …

Actionable steps for a happier, more engaged workforce

Understanding these aggregated trends is valuable, but the real power lies in applying these insights to your own organisation’s cultural health. It’s crucial to move beyond assumptions and base your strategies on evidence. The Happiness Index excels at this…

To address these challenges, consider implementing strategies focused on:

• Boosting trust: Enhance senior leadership transparency and accessibility through initiatives like “Ask Me Anything” sessions and town halls, providing authentic answers even when the news is tough.
• Making employees feel valued: Re-communicate career pathing and the compensation philosophy by reviewing job gradings and salary bands with a focus on transparency. Define clear career pathways and communicate the organisation’s compensation philosophy to manage expectations.
• Improving work-life balance: Implement a “Right to Disconnect” policy to provide clarity on out-of-hours communication and conduct workload and resource audits to identify overstretched teams.
• Ensuring employees feel listened to: Create a “You said, We listened, We did” system to transparently track feedback and communicate actions taken, explaining the “why not” when something isn’t possible. This will help to build trust.
• Inspiring and challenging employees: Amplify your organisation’s ‘Why’ through authentic storytelling and impact stories, translating strategy into meaning beyond just the financial targets. Also, consider implementing stretch assignments to provide new challenges and growth opportunities for your people.
• Keeping employees informed: Develop a clear communications charter and change management communications framework to reduce communication overload, ensure consistent messaging, and foster a sense of being respected and ready for change.
• Providing resources: Conduct cross-functional resource audits and streamline resource request processes to address challenges like poor quality systems and insufficient tools.

The message from employees is clear: the current working environment presents significant challenges to happiness and engagement. However, by leveraging data-driven insights and focusing on these key drivers, organisations can begin to build more positive, productive, and sustainable cultures.

As Kevin Green (Chief People Officer at First Bus and FirstGroup) said on our commercial HR panel, “Culture is performance.” If you are interested in hearing more about how Culture leads into business performance, please listen to our podcast with Oxford Professor and co-author of The World Happiness Report, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve – a leading authority in economics and behavioural science from the University of Oxford. 

If you want to convert your culture into performance, feel free to have a quick chat with one of our friendly and expert staff members.