For years we've spoken about employee experience as something that improves engagement, retention and wellbeing. Important outcomes for sure, but really what the Board and shareholders care about is performance.
The future of work demands a much bigger conversation.
Today's organisations are navigating AI, changing employee expectations, economic uncertainty and skills shortages—all at the same time. Success increasingly depends on an organisation's ability to adapt quickly. And adaptability doesn't come from technology alone. It comes from people.
That's why I found the latest research from Welliba so interesting. Looking across companies in the S&P 500 and Euronext 100, Welliba found that organisations delivering a stronger employee experience also achieved 5–13% higher Total Shareholder Return (TSR) than their peers.
For me, that's a significant shift. Employee experience is no longer simply an outcome to improve. It's becoming a leading indicator of organisational health and future business performance. And when the world is changing at the pace it is now, and when budgets are questioned by all, and when employee engagement is seen as a 'fluffy HR' initiative by many, we change the conversation. We talk to our Board and shareholders in the language they understand - business performance and return.
I invited some of my network to attend a Welliba event in Paris, in partnership with Harpoon . They commented on how the data helped them explore hidden people and culture signals that influence business success. What really brought the research to life was hearing how L'Oréal has evolved its listening strategy over more than a decade.
Their mantra—"we measure what we treasure"—captures something many organisations are still learning. Listening isn't about collecting more data. It's about creating better decisions.
For years I have talked about combining internal data and external data. L'Oreal does exactly that, they combine internal employee listening with Welliba's EXcelerate public sentiment analysis, to validate what it hears internally while also gaining an outside-in perspective on the moments that matter most to employees. That richer picture helps leaders make more confident investment decisions and continue building an inclusive employee experience.
Emma Bridger often reminds us that communication is itself part of the employee experience. Employees don't judge organisations by the number of surveys they complete—they judge them by whether anything changes afterwards.
Patrick Coolen has also argued that employee listening is becoming a core capability within people analytics maturity. The future belongs to organisations that connect multiple data sources into meaningful insight rather than treating listening as a standalone exercise.
As work becomes more complex and change becomes continuous, organisations need earlier, richer and more human signals to guide decision-making. Employee experience is proving to be one of the strongest signals we have—not just of how people feel today, but of how organisations will perform tomorrow.
Three questions every leadership team should be asking:
- Are we treating employee experience as a strategic business measure, or simply an HR score?
- Are we combining internal and external insight to understand the whole employee experience?
- Most importantly, are we acting quickly enough on what our people are telling us?
I continue to be fascinated by the organisations we meet and partner with at AmpliTask. From becoming skills led, to employee engagement, human connection and re engineering HR around a human, agent, AI team, we are able to see a future of work that is only positive for the human. If you'd like an introduction to the Welliba team, or to hear more about their research, let me know,