September 26, 2025

Leadership & Employee Experience: The Impact of Executive Accountability on EX

By David Dungay

Work is messy these days. People are balancing shifting hybrid routines, office return demands, and AI tools showing up faster than anyone can adapt. The pressure is clearest in places where leadership & employee experience aren’t pulling in the same direction.

The cracks are showing. Gallup’s latest data says only about a third of U.S. employees are engaged. Globally, it’s closer to one in five. That disengagement is adding up to hundreds of billions in wasted productivity.

But if you’ve walked a floor recently, you don’t need Gallup to tell you what’s happening. People are showing up, sure. But are they switched on? Usually not – and that’s a problem you can’t just pass over to the HR team.

When execs pass EX off to HR and hope for the best, employees notice. They see the gap between what someone says in all-hands meetings and how decisions actually land. Once that trust goes, it’s hard to win back. Flip it around, and the upside is enormous. Workers who rate their day-to-day experience highly are three times more likely to stay.

In the UK, companies with the best workplaces have beaten the FTSE 100 by 400% over two decades. That’s what EX leadership strategies do when they pay off.

Leadership & Employee Experience: The ROI of EX

When leaders get employee experience right, the benefits show up everywhere. When they don’t, the costs pile up fast. When EX is a priority for everyone:

• Retention goes up: Happy employees stick around. That alone saves a fortune, given the cost of replacing one person often runs to half or even twice their salary. Even simple things can make a difference – 79% of workers said they’d stick around if their employer looked after their physical and mental health.
• Productivity improves: When leaders back employee experience with the proper support, output improves. AI can boost output by as much as 40%, but the same studies show heavy users burning out and are twice as likely to consider leaving. Tools on their own aren’t enough; employees need to know how to use them well.
• Customer experience gets better: Nine in ten employees say their experience at work shapes how they treat customers. If they feel supported and respected, it shows.
• Reputation improves: In 2025, employer brand is written on Glassdoor, TikTok, and Reddit as much as in official press releases. Contented staff speak up for you. Frustrated ones speak louder.

So, yes, the return on experience is obvious: less attrition, higher productivity, better customer outcomes, and a stronger reputation. But it doesn’t happen by luck. It happens when executives stop calling EX a “perk” and start running it like a strategy.

The Leadership & Employee Experience Accountability Gap

Most leaders still treat employee experience like it’s someone else’s job. Usually HR’s.

That mindset creates a gap. On one side, you’ve got employees asking for clarity, recognition, and a sense of purpose. On the other side, you’ve got senior leaders pushing strategy, cutting costs, and assuming HR will “handle the people stuff.”

That gap appears in various ways. We’ve seen plenty of return-to-office policies introduced lately that had no intention of aligning with actual team needs.

We’re seeing new employees who are eager for training that’s never delivered, and wellbeing programs that never get backed by leadership actions.

Without executive accountability, EX efforts stall. A new survey platform gets launched, but managers never mention the results. A wellbeing initiative runs, but senior leaders never model the behaviour themselves. People spot the disconnect instantly.

McKinsey’s transformation research backs this up: large-scale change efforts are more than five times as likely to succeed when leaders visibly role-model new behaviours. In employee experience, that means executives showing, not just saying, that EX is a priority.

The Leadership Blind Spots Sabotaging EX

Most executives don’t wake up thinking, “How can I make life harder for my employees today?” But blind spots creep in, and they’re often the very things that undermine the employee experience.

Here are some of the biggest offenders in 2025:

• Training Gaps Masquerading as Talent Gaps: Leaders often say Gen Z lacks skills. The reality? Most young workers say they don’t know which skills they need to build. 61% of 18–24 year-olds report nobody has ever flagged their specific skill gaps. It’s not a motivation problem; it’s a communication failure.
• Recognition That Never Happens: Another blind spot is assuming “no news is good news.” It isn’t. Younger workers in particular expect regular recognition. A lack of feedback can be a red flag for poor leadership.
• Over-Reliance on AI Without Alignment: The tech can deliver real productivity gains, but it also wears people down. Leaders who treat it only as a cost-saving tool miss the bigger job – aligning it with wellbeing and purpose.
• Wellbeing Programs with No Follow Through: Leaders say they care about health, but many still treat it like a perk, free fruit, yoga classes, etc, instead of a serious commitment. That gap between promise and practice is noticeable to employees.
• Poor Communication Around Hybrid Work: The hybrid debate has turned into a tug-of-war. Leaders call people back to the office without explaining why or what employees will gain. Without clarity and collaboration, employees read these policies as a lack of trust.
• Diversity & Inclusion Gaps: Despite endless talk about diversity, nearly a quarter of employers admit they have no initiatives at all for underrepresented groups. That’s a blind spot that directly limits access to talent in a tight labour market.

The Leadership Employee Experience Framework

Employee experience doesn’t improve because of slogans, perks, or the latest HR software. It improves because leaders take responsibility and act in ways employees can see and feel every day.

That sounds simple. It isn’t. Leaders juggle a dozen priorities already, and EX can feel abstract. So here’s a framework to make it tangible – step-by-step actions leaders can take to move from theory to practice.

Step 1: Audit the Experience You Actually Have

Most employers think they know what it’s like to work for their company. Few actually do. Engagement surveys give you a glimpse, but they’re often annual, top-down, and easy to dismiss. Employees live the reality every day, and their view is often very different from what leaders see.

Leaders need to start with an honest audit. That means:

• Using quick pulse surveys, not just once-a-year questionnaires.
• Looking at behavioural data: attrition rates, absenteeism, internal mobility.
• Hosting listening sessions that don’t feel like PR tours.
• Tracking friction points in the flow of work, where tech slows people down, where policies create bottlenecks.

Done right, this is less about collecting more data and more about building trust. Employees see when their input is taken seriously. They also see when it vanishes into a slide deck. EX leadership starts with listening and acting on what you hear.

Step 2: Invest in Training That Actually Closes Gaps

Training is what keeps people engaged over the long haul, yet plenty of companies still treat it like an optional extra. Often, it’s bland modules that no one finishes. Leaders talk about a “talent shortage,” while employees are waiting for clear direction and a chance to grow.

Here’s what leadership needs to do:

• Show commitment: Keep development visible, not a line to cut in tough times.
• Aim for the gaps: Training should align with strategy and individual ambitions, not just tick compliance boxes.
• Make it continuous: Learning can’t stop at onboarding; it needs to run through every stage of the employee journey.

When leaders own this, training stops being an HR checkbox and becomes a real retention lever.

Step 3: Strengthen Communication & Collaboration

Trust often rises or falls on communication. People don’t just want the decision; they want the reasoning behind it. When leaders stay quiet, employees fill the silence, and the story they invent usually isn’t flattering. Leaders who take EX leadership seriously build habits that cut friction instead of adding to it:

• Be transparent. Share the “why,” not just the “what.”
• Bring energy. Don’t just plod through slides; show up ready to engage.
• Ask for input. Not lip service, but genuine space for employees to influence outcomes.

No, it doesn’t mean everyone gets their way. It means they feel heard, and that changes everything.

Step 4: Align Employee Values with Company Vision

Paychecks matter, but people also want meaning. The problem is that company visions often live on websites, while daily decisions go the other way. Cynicism grows fast in that gap.

Leaders have to act as translators, connecting vision to everyday work:

• Show how a new strategy links back to the values employees care about.
• When investing in tech or reorganising, explain how it supports purpose, not just efficiency.
• Share stories where people’s work directly impacts customers or communities.

HBR research shows that purpose is one of the five pillars of a strong employee experience. Purpose doesn’t come from posters – it comes from what leaders consistently reward.

Step 5: Recognise & Reward Consistently

Many leaders still undervalue recognition. Not the big awards dinner once a year, but the everyday thank-yous. “Appreciate you catching that,” or “this made a real difference.” Those words stick.

Gen Z especially expects more of it, and they notice when it’s absent. It’s not ego, it’s clarity. People want to know where they stand. Silence breeds doubt.

Recognition doesn’t require big budgets. It’s about attention. Weekly shout-outs, public thank-yous, a note on a workplace intranet – all signal that effort matters. The best leaders turn it into a habit.

Step 6: Invest in the Right Tech

Technology is supposed to make work easier. Too often, it does the opposite. Clunky tools, endless log-ins, and “shadow IT” where employees secretly use apps that actually help them.

Leaders can’t leave this to IT alone. Digital friction is an EX problem. At RLI Insurance, a proactive digital experience platform fixed issues before employees even noticed, saving time and frustration.

A practical move? Involve employees before buying tools. Let them test options. Ask what slows them down. It sounds obvious, but a lot of companies miss this step and invite shadow IT as a result.  

Step 7: Prioritise Flexibility and Wellbeing

The hybrid tug-of-war is still going. Some leaders demand that people return to the office, while others double down on remote work. But employees are clear: they want choice.

Rigid return-to-office rules are draining productivity and morale. Not every company will be able to offer remote or hybrid work, but most can give their employees more choice. Even if that’s just letting them choose which hours they work on certain days.

More investment in wellbeing makes a difference. Not the fruit bowls or a new app, but basics done well. Leaders taking breaks themselves, encouraging people to actually use benefits, and setting workloads at levels that don’t grind people down.

Step 8: Build a Continuous Feedback Loop

Most companies still treat feedback like a box-ticking exercise – a big survey once a year, slide deck for the board, then nothing.

A genuine commitment to leadership & employee experience looks different. It’s lighter, more frequent. Quick polls after a new policy lands. A short pulse survey every month. Even an old-school suggestion box, if it gets people talking. The format matters less than the follow-up.

What people really want is proof that their words don’t vanish into thin air. “Here’s what we heard. Here’s what we’re changing.” Even “we can’t fix that yet” is better than silence. Silence is where trust goes to die.

Step 9: Model the Behaviours You Expect

This is easy to preach and hard to live. If leaders talk about balance but fire off emails at midnight, employees take the hint. If meetings are supposed to be energising, but the execs sit on mute, that’s the culture right there.

People copy what they see. That’s why executive accountability isn’t just dashboards and KPIs. It’s the everyday stuff. Leaders thanking people in public, taking breaks without apology, and owning mistakes. Turning cameras on and actually leaning into the discussion.

Culture spreads fast. If leaders want teams that are engaged, collaborative, and resilient, they have to lead the way.  

Building Accountability into Leadership & Employee Experience Strategies

Even when leaders mean it, employee experience often slides to the background. Not out of malice, but because there’s no framework to keep it top of mind. Without real accountability, EX drops behind revenue goals, quarterly numbers, and whatever crisis pops up next.

If leaders want employee experience to stick, they need systems that hold them and their peers accountable. So:

• Make EX a Board-Level Priority: If EX sits only in HR, it gets squeezed. The fix is putting employee experience alongside customer metrics and financials at board meetings. Some companies are even creating cross-functional EX councils with HR, IT, Finance, and Operations all at the table. When multiple departments own the outcome, it stops being “someone else’s job.”
• Tie EX to Leader Incentives: Nothing sharpens focus like linking results to pay. Leaders should have part of their bonus tied to EX outcomes: retention, wellbeing participation, recognition scores, and digital experience ratings. If those numbers dip, it should matter as much as a sales miss.
• Give Leaders an EX Assessment Tool: Most leaders think they’re better at this than they are. A simple self-assessment can be eye-opening. Score yourself on listening, recognition, transparency, wellbeing, and digital support. Share results with peers. Use it in coaching.
• Invest in Development for Leaders Too: EX isn’t only about training frontline staff. Executives need support as well: coaching on communication, training on hybrid leadership, and peer groups to compare notes. Left alone, even good intentions get lost.
• Don’t Ignore Resistance: There will be pushback. “We can’t measure this.” “It’s too expensive.” “That’s HR’s job.” The way around it? Tell the story with outcomes, not just ideals. For example, CXM highlighted that workplace friction over return-to-office mandates is already draining productivity (CXM: Workplace friction draining productivity.
• Equip Leaders with the Right Words: Not everyone is a natural communicator. Give leaders templates they can adapt for: a CEO email starting a new EX strategy, a town hall discussion on wellbeing, or a one-to-one recognition checklist.

Leadership & Employee Experience: Action Plan Roadmap

Employee experience isn’t free fruit in the kitchen or a survey once a year. It’s the daily reality of how people are treated, supported, and trusted.

Right now, too many leaders still push it onto HR. That’s the old way, and it’s costing billions in lost productivity. The companies winning on this front aren’t the ones with the biggest budgets. They’re the ones where leaders step up and take executive accountability for experience.

Here’s one way to break it down:

• Phase 1: Listen & Diagnose (first 90 days): Run a quick audit. Ask people what gets in their way, where they waste time, and what support they miss. Look at the data, too: turnover spikes, sick days, exit interviews. Don’t just bury the bad news. Share it. If you try to spin, employees will know.
• Phase 2: Pilot & Align (90–180 days): Test fixes in the areas that hurt the most. Training gaps. Hybrid headaches. Wellbeing support. Start a recognition habit. Keep it simple with weekly shout-outs and small wins. Let employees help choose the tech they’ll use every day. They know what slows them down.
• Phase 3: Embed & Scale (after 180 days): Put EX measures in leader scorecards. Retention, recognition, and wellbeing. If it matters, measure it. Create an EX council. HR, IT, Finance, Ops. Shared ownership, no silos. Publish updates about what you learned, what you tried, and what’s next.

That’s EX leadership. Not speeches or endless perks. Just leadership that employees can feel.