In a groundbreaking study first released in 2019, WTW identified the key drivers that shape and deliver differentiated employee experiences that lead to consistent financial success. Introducing the High Performance Employee Experience (HPEX) framework, this trailblazing research became the first of its kind to unveil the essential components for organizations to cultivate a dynamic employee experience, fostering both heightened engagement and unparalleled financial performance.
Global transformation has inspired companies to reinvent workplace practices, fostering a shift in the employee experience. We recently took a fresh look at the data that informs global High Performance Employee Experience to see how the factors changed, or remained the same, between 2019 and 2023. What did we learn?
Let’s look a little closer at the influence of total rewards on the overall value proposition and what makes a high-performance employee experience.
The human impact of the last few years has underscored the significance of holistic wellbeing as a fundamental aspect of the employee experience. Organizations that prioritize wellbeing as an integral part of their culture and approach have consistently outperformed the average organization. By offering curated programs to improve physical, financial, emotional, and social wellbeing, organizations can enhance their employee value proposition and foster a culture of wellbeing that drives exceptional performance.
Wellbeing, has become a must-have rather than a nice-to-have. The leading indicator of wellbeing is based on a strong employee belief that their leaders care about their, and their family’s wellbeing.
By re-prioritizing wellbeing as an essential element of employee experience, organizations enable their employees to thrive both inside and outside of work – ultimately, for collective benefit.
The past few years have presented organizations with unforeseen, and often uncontrollable, challenges, leading to critical talent skills gaps and layoffs, and a heightened sense of uncertainty among employees. High-performance organizations have responded by revisiting their talent strategy. They're focusing on recruiting talent for their future needs, providing clarity on career path options and possibilities, reskilling or upskilling current talent to deliver on the evolving business needs and clearly articulating performance criteria and promoting those who deliver results.
Employees need purposeful career growth. They need clarity on the different pathways to progression, meaningful support regardless of their chosen path, and to trust in the interplay between their performance and recognition. And ultimately, that their career opportunities and recognition are fair and equitable.
Employees in high-performance organizations have more visibility to the opportunities available to them, are provided with relevant training to build skills for the future and receive support from leaders to help them achieve their potential – creating differentiated employee experiences.
Today, with new legislation on pay equity and transparency, uncertain economic environments and further ongoing global disruption, employees value pay and benefits offerings as never before. Leaders in high-performance organizations understand this. They have been modernizing programs to focus on fair pay and recognition practices, flexible and inclusive health and benefits programs that are affordable and accessible and retirement and savings programs that improve employees’ financial resilience while ensuring equity across employee segments. Without doing so, they face the risk of losing valued talent and difficulty attracting the talent needed to progress the business forward.
High-performance organizations are prioritizing pay equity that recognizes individuals based on contribution and merit. They understand that to remain competitive, they need to provide recognition that makes employees feel seen and meets their individual and loved ones’ needs. They focus on driving higher levels of awareness and education to increase transparency, understanding and appreciation.
In early 2023, the gap of employee perception that they are paid fairly for the work they do widened between the Global High-Performance Organizations and the Global Averages. However, throughout 2023, as more organizations invested in education for managers and employees on how pay is determined, the percentage of employees who trust in the organization increased by 10% and perceptions of pay equity increased by 11%.
Global high-performing organizations achieved nearly three times the revenue growth, eleven times the profit margin, and two times the return on equity compared to global averages. This shows that a better employee experience is associated with better financial performance. WTW’s Global High Performance group members whose financials were available to the public, outperformed the WTW global average group by these margins in 2023.
High-performing organizations continue to differentiate their employee experience from the average company and see superior financial performance as a result. Embracing the power of High-Performance Employee Experience in today's ever-changing world, where disruption, workforce transformation, and labor market shifts are the norm, leading organizations understand the importance of accelerating change by prioritizing the employee experience. It is the key differentiator between soaring success, average financial performance, or even failure. Through an inspiring purpose, trust in leaders, and motivation to perform, organizations can unlock the full potential of their workforce.
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We studied data from 2019 through 2023 that we’ve collected in our employee opinion survey database* and tracked publicly available financial performance for each company. We assessed employee experience in two groups:
The original 2019 research identified foundational (essential) and differentiating experiences (excellence) of global high-performance organizations. From this we developed the Global High Performance Employee Experience framework, which we now use to support hundreds of organizations in their efforts to improve their employee experience and achieve high performance.
* WTW’s global employee engagement database includes more than 50 years of employee survey data collected from more than 250 million surveys representing an average of more than five million respondents globally each norm year.
| Title | File Type | File Size |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 High Performance Employee Experience Framework | .2 MB |
