What makes for an exceptional employee experience? Take these real-life examples from some of our customers as inspiration.

Delivering exceptional experiences to your employees is paramount. When your employees feel valued, engaged, and connected to their work, they are more likely to be happy, healthy, and to stick around.

Creating a positive employee experience with thoughtful strategies that foster collaboration, inclusion, and recognition can be the difference between a thriving organization and one that struggles to stay afloat.

Achieving an exceptional employee experience does not have to be complicated, and the right technology can make all the difference. In fact, Oracle reports that just 6% of organizations don’t use any technologies to track, manage, or influence employee experience.

There’s no time like the present to get inspired! Learn how some of our customers here at Workvivo are leading the charge below.

A seamless digital experience is critical to an exceptional employee experience

It might sound obvious, but the easier it is for people to do their job and communicate with their colleagues, the more likely they are to do it – and actually enjoy it. 

At Bus Éireann, every team member – whether they’re a bus driver out on the road or an office employee working at a desk – has a central hub (Workvivo) from which they can jump to all the apps they need in a matter of clicks. 

Bus Éireann wanted rosters and payslips to be easily accessible for everyone, not just those with a company computer. They needed a solution with the ability to launch third-party apps, meaning that once a user was logged in, they could navigate to those external apps from one central hub.

Not only did implementing Workvivo make rosters and payslips more accessible for all Bus Éireann employees, paving the way for a more inclusive workplace and a great employee experience, but it also helped the company cut down on printing and postage costs – a win on multiple counts!

Creating a culture of kudos and recognition

Infusing that seamless digital experience with shows of appreciation, such as shoutouts, naturally paves the way for a well-rounded work environment.

Digital Marketing Institute’s ‘Cheers From Your Peers’ program is a great example. It encourages employees to nominate and vote for each other for monthly awards. 

Not only is each person getting a window into the impact they’re making, they’re also getting to know their colleagues better by celebrating their accomplishments.

The outcome? An employee experience that aligns people around shared values, shows them the impact of their work, and instills their day-to-day with purpose – all hallmarks of an exceptional work environment.

Inviting people to bring their whole selves to work

Employees want a workplace experience that encourages them to be themselves. Making room for conversations about things other than work isn’t giving people a reason to slack off, but showing them that they’re valued as whole individuals with interests beyond their day job.

We’re back to Bus Éireann for this example: dedicated online Spaces where coworkers can come together to socialize and develop a rapport. These can cover anything from a shared love of sports to tried-and-tested home recipes.

Here at Workvivo, we have Spaces for dog owners, runners, film buffs, diversity, and sustainability – the list goes on. 

Understanding that people can get their jobs done while bonding with their colleagues is a crucial mindset shift leaders need to make if they want to deliver a memorable employee experience. It builds trust and helps forge meaningful connections – both of which are critical to EX. 

Championing diversity and inclusion

Invest in company-wide internal campaigns to bring your people together, too. It could be a sustainability drive that tasks teams with doing a beach clean-up, a wellbeing challenge where departments compete to walk the most steps, or a D&I campaign that celebrates communities.

At DIY retailer Woodie’s, Pride Month is an annual celebration that takes place on Workvivo, meaning every staff member can get involved with the hashtag #PrideInWhoWeAre.

The company’s former CEO, Declan Ronayne, says it’s “fabulous when employees can tell the whole organization that they’re standing up and they’re proud of themselves”.

Letting your community lead your culture

For Staffordshire University, embracing progressive community-based internal comms, in which every employee has a voice, has been transformative for its culture and employee experience. 

Employees want a work experience built on authenticity and a sense of belonging, and opening up communications at Staffordshire has helped the university cultivate trust. Colleagues feel safe in the knowledge that they can be themselves at work and ask questions of leadership. 

And when there’s such an open relationship between an organization’s leadership and employees, it helps those employees shape the company culture through knowledge sharing, honest feedback that’s actually actioned, and opportunities to implement new initiatives.

Since employees are the people who’ll have to experience the culture every day, it makes perfect sense that they have a large hand in molding it. 

At A+E Networks EMEA, VP of Human Resources, Karl Burnett, believes that championing open comms is one of the reasons Workvivo’s rollout has been so successful in the company. He says, “I would say the most important thing that we do as a leadership team and a wider organization, is we spend time talking about our culture and we dedicate the time to it.

“One person can develop a strategy, but it takes every single employee to really develop a culture.”

Inclusivity through accessibility

D&I campaigns like Pride, Transgender Awareness Day, and more are fantastic gestures, but to deliver a truly inclusive employee experience, employers need to practice what they preach.

If some of your employees can’t get involved with your culture, get to know their colleagues, or even do their job properly because of inaccessibility, that’s a serious problem. 

At Keyloop, accessibility is a priority. All of their campaigns and communications are hosted on Workvivo, which is just as easy to use on mobile devices as it is on a desktop. The company’s Head of Global Communications and Engagement, Caz Meech, says, “This allows people with the app to be able to access Workvivo whenever they want to. That’s really useful to them.”

Keyloop employees work across 40 different offices and speak 26 different languages, which can easily create distance between colleagues and between teams and their company’s culture. 

Giving every person the same opportunity to get involved and enjoy their work environment in their own language is key, and Keyloop is using Workvivo’s built-in translation tool to do just that.

“A unified platform that people could use globally, Keyloop didn’t have that before. One of the major barriers was we went from regional HQs to functional HQs in the UK. There was a huge language barrier and Workvivo now removes that barrier. With the language translation feature, we can now reach them in their own language.”

Building a flatter organization with open comms

As well as putting employees in the driving seat when it comes to shaping their workplace culture, open comms helps people get to know each other across all levels of an organization. In turn, this creates a relaxed and genuine environment where teams feel empowered to do their best work. 

Workvivo has helped more senior staff members at CluneTech, including CEOs, to become comfortable with having more personal and meaningful conversations with their teams, whether it’s chatting about their favorite book or sharing the advice they’d give to their younger selves.

The recordings of these conversations formed a ‘Meet the CEO’ video series at CluneTech and were “something we were not only able to share with people that joined during COVID,” Head of Employee Experience, Rachael O’Shea, says, “but through Workvivo Spaces too”. 

In fact, they have now become part of CluneTech’s official onboarding process for new staff.

This is just one example of the steps CluneTech took to develop an exceptional employee experience, the overall impact of which was a 30% jump in staff retention, a 336% increase in employee referral rates, and 91% of new joiners saying they felt welcome at the company. 

Elevating the onboarding experience 

Bringing it back to day one, how you make an employee feel from their very first day has a big impact. But some companies are going even further and investing in giving new hires an exceptional experience before they’ve even started their new role. 

A+E Networks EMEA, for example, uses Workvivo to house an external Space specifically designed for new hires to join in the weeks before their first day at the company. Called the ‘Newbie Network’, this space gives external contributors access to FAQs, the company’s values, employee benefits, a glossary, and more. 

Setting new joiners up with access to onboarding resources and info, and the chance to get to know other new joiners too, helps make their start with the company a lot less daunting.

The impact? An exceptional employee experience, not just from day one, but before a new joiner even clocks in for the first time.