It would be an understatement to say the past few years have been a time of great volatility for both employers and employees. Fluctuating labor trends, economic ups and downs and the HR “phrase of the month” have created chaotic environments for companies and employees.

While we are more solidly in the post-pandemic period, there is still quite a bit of instability when it comes to the employee-employer relationship. Some industries have seen high merger and acquisition activity, causing leadership transitions and lots of change. Managers are in a tough position of needing to be not only strategists but also coaches all while trying to meet the high expectations of a changing workforce. Hiring and retention are at the top, or near top of the list of concerns of almost every HR professional right now with economic consequences of turnover. On the other side, mass layoffs have resulted in a lot of institutional knowledge heading out the corporate door. 

All this change is hard to navigate, but from our view, we see employee experience (EX) technologies as a strong support in both calm and turbulent times. The EX market is being shaped by:

• Rising expectations and multiple generations in the workforce
• The move to hybrid and increased needs for communication and connection
• Increased focus on supporting all organization levels and employee types 
• Heightened Interest in the EX to CX link
• The rise of artificial intelligence for internal purposes
• Acknowledgement of burnout and the need for a variety of supports

Coming out of the pandemic, we saw a pretty rosy picture regarding the appetite to look holistically at an employee’s journey, with a focus on becoming more human-centered with an eye towards overall experience, employee health and well-being. 2023 is proving to be a challenging year for many companies with many competing priorities for time and money, and while we are still seeing acknowledgement of the benefits of employee experience, when it comes to the battle of X (Experience) dollars, it is taking a greater amount of proof points for investment. The good news is that those proof points are developing and EX is a growing part of C-level strategy discussions. 

In our latest Market Insight Report, Employee Experience Technology Provides Stability Amid Uncertainties, we detail:

• Each of the forces shaping the employee experience market
• Top challenges in the employee experience market
• Solutions that support employee experience
• Top five trends to watch

We continue to feel that investments in employee experience technologies should be part of any company’s strategic and operational planning and these solutions can provide a buffer to the fluctuating economic and labor trends. While macro forces can’t be ignored, it seems prudent for companies to look inward at their own workforce and not get too twisted up in the latest stats of the month. Companies need to do the work to understand the factors most important to their own organization and then prioritize, communicate and act using the wide range of options available.