Paul Cohen
Disengaged employees cost organizations over $8 trillion globally each year in lost productivity, turnover, and poor service. But the greatest risk isn’t global, it’s local. Within your organization, low engagement quietly erodes performance. In contrast, strong employee experience (EX) drives profitability, customer satisfaction, and retention. Research shows that highly engaged teams can achieve up to 21% higher profitability.
At the heart of that experience lies the Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Every organization has one, either by design or by default. Sometimes it’s clearly defined and intentionally delivered. Other times, it emerges organically through disconnected practices, leadership behaviors, and cultural norms. Regardless of how it forms, employees experience it, and that experience is what ultimately shapes engagement, performance, and retention.
Before diving into how to fully understand EX, let’s clarify a few key concepts:
- Employee Value Proposition (EVP): Everything an employer provides in return for their time, knowledge, and effort. It includes HR practices, leadership behaviors, organizational culture, and peer interactions.
- Employee Experience (EX): Begins before hiring, through online presence and recruitment, and continues across every touchpoint: onboarding, benefits, development, and career progression. Organizations that are intentional with their EVP ensure a thoughtful design of such touchpoints to shape a consistent experience.
- Organizational Climate: The collective perceptions of employees at a given point in time. It captures how people perceive the organization now—typically across areas like leadership, communication, and well-being.
- Engagement: A key element of climate, reflecting how emotionally connected employees feel about their work and organization.
- Organizational Culture: The deeper, enduring layer of shared values and assumptions that guide behavior over time. Unlike climate, culture is more stable and less visible, but ultimately more influential.
If organizations don’t measure the employee experience, how can they know whether the EVP is working?
The Role of Climate Surveys
The gold standard for gauging how employees feel is the climate survey. It provides a snapshot of day-to-day perceptions, giving leaders insight into what’s working, what’s not, and where to act.
ECO and the Climate Index
Employees don’t experience EX in pieces; they experience it all at once. Our ECO (Engagement & Commitment Outlook) tool translates employees’ perceptions into a measurable Climate Index, focusing on 10 variables grouped in three categories:
- Leadership & Governance
- Engagement & Well-being
- Innovation & Enablers
Whether used for a pulse check or a broader transformation, ECO as well as other climate assessment tools, show the highlights and lowlights helping organizations prioritize its improvement efforts. It enables more precise, people-focused decisions that fuel real change.
Yet while essential, climate data only shows part of the picture. To fully understand EX and how the EVP is “lived”, it’s critical to look deeper, into the leadership practices, HR practices and cultural dynamics that shape experience. These elements can be observed, measured, and adjusted.
What Else Should Organizations Monitor, and Why
Human Capital Practices
HR shapes key experiences through practices like compensation, performance management, training, and workforce planning. These influence how employees perceive fairness, opportunity, and recognition.
At V2A, we use a Human Capital Management Framework (HCMF) structured around four pillars, supported by a foundational infrastructure:
- Organization & Capacity: Aligning roles and talent with strategy
- Compensation & Benefits: Fair and motivating rewards
- Performance Management: Setting expectations and accountability
- Talent Development: Fostering learning and growth
- Infrastructure: Both tangible (offices, tools, tech) and intangible (governance, norms, policies) elements that enable work.
Each decision in these areas impacts EX. We use maturity rubrics and climate data to assess how these systems are perceived in practice, not just how they’re designed. We also incorporate client feedback (voice of the client) to understand external impacts on customer-facing teams.
This integrated view helps align HR practices with business strategy and design interventions that are both human-centered and performance-driven.
Management Practices
Leaders shape EX daily through how they plan, decide, execute, and monitor progress. These behaviors influence clarity, trust, and empowerment across the organization.
V2A’s Management Practices Model assesses leadership styles and their alignment with strategy. It evaluates leadership across four core behaviors:
- Planning: Setting clear goals or promoting adaptive priorities
- Deciding: Inclusive vs. centralized decision-making
- Executing: Agile delivery vs. strict adherence
- Controlling: Active tracking vs. self-management
The model helps leaders understand whether their approach is more mechanical (rule-based) or organic (adaptive), and how well it supports the strategy and employee needs.
Ideal assessment moments include post-strategy cycles, leadership transitions, or during M&A integrations. Climate surveys add further insight into how employees interpret and respond to leadership behaviors.
Culture
Culture—the shared values, beliefs, and assumptions that shape behavior, it determines how people collaborate, adapt, and define success. It’s the invisible container where everything unfolds, shaping and being shaped by daily interactions and decisions.
While culture can’t be managed like systems, it can be observed and influenced. At V2A, we assess culture by examining language, stories, and behavior patterns. Cultural diagnostics are particularly valuable when:
- Driving strategic shifts
- Addressing persistent challenges
- Assessing readiness for transformation
Used effectively, these tools help leaders determine whether their culture supports or hinders organizational goals—and how to realign it to enhance both EX and performance.
Real-World Examples
- State Health Agency: A culture assessment revealed resistance to a new eligibility system but highlighted strong patient-centered values. Leadership reframed the change around patient benefits, driving acceptance.
- Cargo Company: A climate survey showed frustration with rigid procedures. Leadership introduced innovation initiatives and more flexible practices, balancing consistency with creativity.
- Professional Services Firm: One department had lower engagement due to limited interaction with other teams. Cross-functional staffing improved connection, engagement, and delivery quality.
- Financial Institution: Disparate engagement across branches was traced to inconsistent management practices. Standardizing leadership expectations and training improved trust and performance.
EX Is Strategy
Thriving organizations treat EX as a strategic priority, not an afterthought. They measure it, manage it, and align it with business goals. When culture, HR policies, and leadership practices reinforce one another, people thrive, and performance follows.
To explore how V2A can help you make EX a strategic advantage, visit our website or contact paulcohen@v2aconsulting.com.
