Example EX measures and how to use them
May 26 · 8 min read
![](jpg/example-ex-measures-and-how-to-use-them.jpg)
So, your IT department has decided to measure its employee experience—but where does it start? Of course there’s the long-used IT service desk customer satisfaction (CSAT) questionnaire that’s sent out after every nth ticket is closed (for both incidents and service requests). There’s also the annual long-form employee survey related to the wider IT organization’s capabilities. However, as with the CSAT questionnaire, the employee response levels are likely low. But the mandated CSAT targets are being met, so everything is OK, right? The answer is that it might be. But it might not be.
The measurement of employee experience by early adopters, and studies by organizations such as Forrester Research, increasingly show that CSAT survey results, along with many of the traditional IT service desk metrics, can hide a variety of employee issues that are adversely affecting their service experience and—importantly—their ability to be productive. With the knock-on adversely affecting business performance.
So, what should your organization be measuring relative to employee experience?
First, remember that the IT department is only one contributor to employee experience
While IT traditionally measures CSAT in isolation—it’s all about IT’s performance—employee experience relates to every part of an employee’s workplace experience, from before they’re recruited until after they’ve ceased employment. The human resources (HR) department obviously plays a big part, especially at the start and end of the employee life cycle. But, for example, so does something as simple as the availability of meals and snacks in the workplace, or as contentious as the allocation of limited on-site car parking spaces.
These non-IT employee experience influencers are included in the later examples of employee experience measures to reflect that the measurement of employee experience is not simply how well the IT department is doing.
Second, start from the top—and make it your “top,” not someone else’s
As with most challenges, there are a number of ways to tackle the measurement of employee experience. Your organization could simply pick up and run with a couple of employee experience measures that have proved valuable elsewhere. This is either the “add-on approach,” where the metrics are simply thrown into the existing IT service desk metric portfolio, say. Or the “bottom-up approach,” where we hope that we can eventually do something good with the new metrics.
Then there’s the “top-down approach” as shared by the new ITIL 4 body of IT service management (ITSM) best practice and the new measurement and reporting practice in particular. This advocates a performance measurement “flow” from objectives, through critical success factors (CSFs), to key performance indicators and metrics. Hence, when measuring employee experience, it’s important to start with your objective, or objectives, for measuring it, followed by the CSFs that will allow your IT department—or wider organization—to understand if the objective or objectives have been met.
So, please bear this in mind when reading through the many example employee experience measures and metrics below. It’s not a case of using them all. Instead, it’s a case of using the ones, or variations of them, that will best support your CSFs and objectives.
Third, aim for fewer metrics rather than more
IT service desks, in particular, have long had large portfolios of metrics, often because they’re available in the ITSM tool. But as with the need here, there’s a need to measure the things that will make the most difference—that “less is more.” If nothing else, the wise words of ITSM industry luminary Ivor Macfarlane are relevant: “If you measure the wrong things, then you’ll get better at the wrong things.”
So, while this article lists 50 possible employee experience measurement points, your organization mustn’t blindly try to measure them all. Instead, it needs to select a small portfolio of metrics that align with the agreed-on objectives and CSFs for employee experience and business improvement.
Fourth, what you don’t measure might be as important as what you do
IT service desks, in particular, have a long history of certain metrics driving the wrong behaviors. For example, average handling time might encourage the swift closure of tickets at the expense of end-user productivity, if the issue isn’t resolved, and the employee experience. Or the measurement of first-contact resolution might again encourage a service desk analyst who’s behind target to retain control of tickets until resolved, again at the expense of end-user productivity and the employee experience.
The same is true here. Don’t just look at potential measures and metrics in terms of the employee experience objects; also understand how they will drive the right, and potentially the wrong, employee behaviors.
Example employee experience measures
Please remember that your organization’s use of these and other potential employee experience measures and metrics should directly reflect its objectives and CSFs.
There will be various employee experience influences or factors to measure that then have different metrics associated with them. Some can be measured on a transaction-based basis, while others will be periodic “pulse” checks. Each will ideally be compared to industry averages or similar. For example, trending internal performance and direction over time in the absence of a suitable external benchmark.
Employee experience factor |
Example measures or metrics |
Employee productivity |
|
Employee “effort,” i.e., how hard things are to do |
|
Employee self-sufficiency |
|
Employee wellness (by business function) |
|
Employee retention |
|
Employee recruitment |
|
Employee development |
|
Employee performance management |
|
Leadership and management |
|
Workplace environment |
|
Employee feedback provision |
|
Employee experience progress measurement |
|
Business impact |
|
There are some overlaps in the above list. Plus, of course, there will definitely be other employee experience measures and metrics that might be more appropriate for your organization. This list is provided as “food for thought” for any organization looking to employ employee experience measures, not as “the 50 employee experience measures your organization must use.”
The most important thing is to ensure that whatever metrics your organization chooses are best suited to its needs in terms of understanding the current employee experience position and facilitating improvements in the right direction(s). With sufficient focus to encourage real improvement rather than the creation of even more corporate metrics data.