Executives reported a 7 percentage point increase in engagement over the past year after falling in 2022

Executives in the C-suite have a dramatically different employee experience than individual contributors, scoring much higher across the top drivers of employee experience, according to new data from Qualtrics (Nasdaq: XM).

This data comes from the Qualtrics 2023 Employee Experience Trends Report. Qualtrics surveyed nearly 29,000 working professionals across 27 countries in Q3 2022 to understand their sentiment about the workplace. This included nearly 1,700 top-level leaders (VP and C-suite), 5,600 employees in mid-management, 6,400 frontline managers and 14,000 individual contributors.

The Employee Experience Trends Report follows Qualtrics’ EX25 model, a scientifically validated approach to measuring employee engagement that identifies key performance indicators of engagement and the drivers that have the most impact on them.

Among all employees, engagement held relatively level, increasing from 66% a year ago to 67% for 2023.

As leaders within an organization, executives have more power to influence their own experience, while individual employees may feel less control over their interactions with a company. Even as companies make efforts to keep their employees happy and productive, introducing trendy new benefits to address the changing workplace, individual contributors remain less engaged than executives.

Compared with the previous year, executives reported increases in engagement, intent to stay, experience versus expectations, inclusion, and well-being. Executives were already the most engaged employee group, and saw the biggest increase in engagement score from 2022 to 2023, growing from 79% to 86%.

By contrast, individual contributors saw small improvements in engagement, experience versus expectations, and inclusion, and declining scores in intent to stay and well-being. A concerning trend is individual employees’ declining belief in the company values, one of the top drivers of engagement, which fell three percentage points while executives improved by five percentage points.

“These numbers point to an alarming gap developing between the perception of executives and the perception of frontline employees in terms of their work experiences,” said Sarah Marrs, Qualtrics’ Director of Product Science. “It’s hard to know why this is, and likely differs between organizations. For example, it could be that leaders have not managed to replace in-person interactions with remote mechanisms to effectively communicate and listen to people. It speaks to the urgent need to reach across the gap and listen to those valuable frontline perspectives on how to create a workplace primed for high performance and retention.”

Notably, 64% of executives say their experience exceeds their expectations, while just 29% of individual contributors say the same. There is a similarly large gap between the share of executives (86%) and individuals (54%) who believe their career goals can be met at their current company, which is the top factor in whether expectations are met for individuals.

About Qualtrics

Qualtrics, the leader and creator of the experience management category, is changing the way organizations manage and improve the four core experiences of business—customer, employee, product and brand. Over 16,750 organizations around the world use Qualtrics to listen, understand and take action on experience data (X-data™)—the beliefs, emotions and intentions that tell you why things are happening, and what to do about it. The Qualtrics XM Platform™ is a system of action that helps businesses attract customers who stay longer and buy more, engage employees who build a positive culture, develop breakthrough products people love and build a brand people are passionate about. To learn more, please visit qualtrics.com.

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