PSA: Employee expectations are rising

Last week, Qualtrics released its 2024 Employee Experience Trends Report.

If you work with or manage people, it’s worth a read. Make sure to bring your critical thinking caps, because even well-researched reports have agendas.

If you read nothing else, here’s my takeaway:

Employee trust is diminishing, but their expectations are higher than ever.

Leaders need to figure out how to provide better growth opportunities, faster in the employee lifecycle, and increase the transparency they operate with.

Here are the five trends they identified and my take on each one:

1. Employees would rather AI assist them than manage them

💡Employees are most comfortable getting help from AI with writing (generative AI)

💡There’s a gap between executive comfortability with AI (at 65%) and manager’s comfortability with AI (at 45%), showing that managers have less time and energy to devote to new technology.

This makes total sense to me. ChatGPT did not exist a year ago 🤯, so we will gravitate to what we know: writing. It feels lower stakes and more straightforward than using AI in a job interview or for performance management. There’s also a gap in trust between technology and its accuracy.

My take: Transparency is the future. Organizations that adopt AI successfully will have transparent policies about their use (👋OpenOrg) , and employees who deploy AI effectively (read: consistently) will gravitate toward LLMs and tools with data transparency.

2. Frontline employees are the most unhappy, poorly supported, and least trusting

💡Frontline workers reported trusting in leadership -10 points less than non-frontline workers

💡Frontline workers believe they are paid less fairly than non-frontline workers (by -14 points)

This one just makes me sad. We marketed the heck out of supporting frontline workers during the pandemic and did little to recalibrate and fix the working conditions they were left with. Coupled with staffing shortages, low pay, and customers with higher expectations than ever, we’ve totally abandoned this faction of workers.

My take: Something is going to give! We’re seeing this with unionizing and strikes for better labor conditions. We’re about to hit an era where frontline workers will not just “take it” because there aren’t enough people to fill their seats.

3. The new-job honeymoon phase has vanished

💡Employees who have the lowest levels of engagement, intent to stay, and inclusion leave a new job after only 6 months

💡Yet, HR leads place more importance on talent attraction and hiring than they do on onboarding, which is a crucial component of employee retention

There’s an outsized emphasis on getting the right candidate, but I see little out there about how crucial the onboarding phase is to retaining talent. Outside of the data that the first 45 days are the most crucial, how are organizations prioritizing this AND helping managers with it? As a new hire, you usually have to prove yourself before your growth is prioritized. And that’s contributing to this problem.

My take: While the cost to re-train and rehire is high, the urgency for organizations to get people in the door and being productive ASAP is creating a gap in the crucial onboarding step. Employers will start to reprioritize the first 30-60-90 days of an employee’s journey to make sure they’re set up for retention and impact.

4. Employees don’t want you to use their social media as an engagement barometer

💡70% of workers are comfortable with their organization using email data to better understand and improve their experience at work, ie social listening

💡41% of employees feel comfortable with their organization listening to their social media posts – even anonymously – to improve their experience

To this one, I say a resounding no sh*t. Social media is becoming more and more weaponized against employees and the thought of an employer tapping into it to understand sentiment is uncomfy.

My take: we’re about to see employee data privacy be a bigger thing, especially with AI. I want to opt-in to these tools, not have them forced onto me as an employee.

5. People still need an in-person connection to feel engaged, but not 5 days of it

💡Employees in hybrid working arrangements have the highest levels of engagement, intent to stay, and feelings of well-being and inclusion, compared to employees who work full-time in the office or fully remote

💡79% of employees felt included when working 1-3 days from home

I get it, I get it! Even Qualtrics wants to work with fully in-person organizations. This one feels like leading the witness away from remote work – which, by the way, is the most inclusive option when onsite work clearly benefits White men the most.

My take: remote work with intentional, regular in-person opportunities will continue to be a talent magnet.

What I enjoyed most about this report is the lessons for leaders that they pulled out in the end. It specifically targets their champions, buyers, and decision-makers: CEOs, CHROs + HR execs, HR leaders, and frontline managers.

Here are the high-level takeaways:

CEOs

• Focus on the benefits and assess the risks of AI: recognize and address employees’ fears.

• Be (more) visible: take the time to understand what your employees are going through.

• Close the gap on survey follow-up: communicate changes

CHROs and HR execs

• Connect EX to organizational growth: always show ROI alongside employee data

• Ready your organization for the next era of EX: develop the vision

• Nurture cross-functional collaborations: strengthen your partnerships

HR leaders

• Focus on growth and development: connect employees, but especially new hires with existing growth programs

• Close the gap in the new employee experience: align your new employee experience programs

• Provide operating frameworks: create new structures

Frontline managers

• Engage employees in conversations about AI: and keep the dialogue open as new developments emerge

• Practice two-way communication: ask employees what’s in their way from doing their jobs, drive and communicate action; and advocate for your people

• Support employee growth and development: get to know your employee’s unique skills & abilities and encourage your team

Read the full report here.