How Software Helps Employee Experience Thrive in 2023

Software helps your employee experience thrive in 2023 by enabling real-time feedback, flexible surveys, and recognition tools that give employees a genuine voice throughout their journey.

Your organisation can thrive without many things, but the employee experience is not an area to compromise on. It's not easy to get right, and it takes time to build an experience employees truly value.

There are several reasons the employee experience should sit at the top of your organisational strategy. Before the pandemic, employee engagement had been steadily rising for almost a decade. Since COVID began, however, engagement dropped to just 21% of employees feeling engaged in their work or company.

This article explains why you shouldn't neglect your approach to building a strong employee experience, and how employee experience software can help you deliver results other organisations will envy.

What is the employee experience and why does it matter?

The employee experience covers everything someone encounters while working for your organisation, from recruitment and onboarding to performance management, compensation, culture, workplace and communication.

Attracting, motivating and retaining talent depends on getting this right. But the employee experience is constantly shifting, and it can be easily disrupted by organisational change, restructuring, mergers, acquisitions, management changes or new policies and tools.

Both major and minor changes can affect the employee experience, sometimes temporarily and sometimes long-term if issues go unaddressed.

Without measuring and assessing the employee experience across the employee journey, it's impossible to understand how your people truly feel — and that gap can hurt morale, productivity, revenue and retention.

How do you measure the employee experience?

There are several ways to collect, analyse and act on employee experience data, but the most effective approach is using the right technology.

In the past, employee surveys were often distributed on paper or as email documents. While this captured feedback, collecting and analysing it manually was time-consuming, especially when tracking responses and inputting data into spreadsheets.

Software that automates collection and analysis in one place saves time, improves accuracy, prevents data loss, and lets you track metrics like completion rates and response times.

Why employee satisfaction surveys aren't enough

Research shows only 22% of organisations get good results from employee surveys, often because surveys try to cover too many areas at once. Well-planned satisfaction surveys are valuable, but they work best alongside other engagement-measurement methods.

Surveys offer useful insights whether run annually, as regular pulse checks, or to gather onboarding feedback. Since the organisation controls timing, it decides when feedback requests go out.

But employees often want to share feedback in the moment or right after a specific event. Offering instant feedback tools signals that you value their voice at all times, not just on a schedule.

With hybrid working now common, the days of gathering everyone in one office are gone, making feedback harder to capture. An app where employees can share feedback, shout-outs and celebrations anytime, from anywhere, helps build a genuine feedback culture.

What employee experience software should you use?

Before purchasing employee experience software, clarify what you want to measure, how often, and whether you need a tool for one specific area or a broader platform.

Some software focuses purely on designing, sending and tracking surveys. If that's your main need, this type of tool will work well.

If you want a wider view beyond surveys, look for software that captures feedback and performance data in multiple ways.

Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) are standard in most HR departments and excel at managing personal data, medical records and compensation. However, they typically can't measure engagement, feedback or sentiment.

Sorwe employee experience options

With Sorwe, you can empower employees by giving them a voice whenever and wherever they want. Our survey function lets you design and distribute various survey types, while giving individuals flexibility to respond at a convenient time and place.

By keeping it separate from HRIS, Sorwe becomes more than an HR portal — it's a space where people can genuinely speak up.

We also let employees make suggestions and share feedback at their convenience through our mobile-accessible platform. This feature lets your team contribute ideas and insights that strengthen workplace culture and give them ongoing ownership over their voice.

Understanding the employee experience takes more than one-off feedback. To build an accurate, ongoing picture of what employees think about working at your organisation, you need multiple feedback channels and the flexibility for people to speak up anytime, anywhere.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can software help your employee experience to thrive in 2023?

Software helps by enabling continuous feedback, surveys, and suggestion tools that give employees a voice anytime, anywhere, boosting engagement and morale.

Why aren't employee satisfaction surveys enough on their own?

Surveys only capture feedback at set times and often focus on too many issues at once, missing the in-the-moment insights employees want to share.

What's the difference between HRIS and employee experience software?

HRIS manages employee data like records and compensation, while employee experience software measures engagement, feedback, and sentiment in real time.

What should organisations consider before buying employee experience software?

Decide what you want to measure, how often, and whether you need a single-function tool or a broader platform covering feedback, surveys, and recognition.

How does Sorwe support employee experience management?

Sorwe offers customisable surveys, a mobile-accessible suggestion system, and real-time feedback tools that keep it separate from HR-only portals.