Building a Workplace Experience For Performance and Engagement

“Using our Employee Experience (EmployeeXM) products, we learned that the majority of our employees want to come in one or two days a week with the goal of connecting with their colleagues and customers, so that’s what we’re expecting many teams will do. Some teams will come in more frequently and others less, based on their roles.” 

• We believe now is the time to embrace a new work experience model for the future.
• The vast majority of our employees will continue to work in a hybrid role.
• We want to empower employees to do their best work.

During the last year, many of us at Qualtrics have started working more regularly in the office, and we’ve increasingly started to travel to see each other and our customers. Connecting as teams injects renewed energy into the work we’re doing. I’ve reunited with team members I hadn’t seen in years, and I’m meeting many new people for the first time.
Over the past several months, we’ve listened to our employees about their experiences in and out of the office. And we’ve learned that:

• Almost two-thirds of our employees work across time zones every day.
• Three out of four Qualtrics employees said flexibility of where they work matters.
• Half (47%) missed hallway conversations.
• And the majority of employees (88%) -- and even more among women and high performers -- said they were able to be productive while working remotely.

We’re in the business of listening and taking action to improve experiences. And, today we’re sharing a new work experience plan that empowers teams to do their best work– when and how they want to do it.

Using our Employee Experience products, we learned that the majority of our employees want to come in one or two days a week with the goal of connecting with their colleagues and customers, so that’s what we’re expecting many teams will do. Some teams will come in more frequently and others less, based on their roles.

Our leaders will work with their teams to make decisions about when they come into the offices based on the nature of their work and what will drive the highest levels of performance and engagement.

We’ll be making updates to our offices to make sure they have spaces for collaboration, focused work and casual conversation. We will need larger meeting rooms, so big groups can meet comfortably. And, we’ll also be experimenting with technology to help people across locations collaborate and connect more effectively.

It’s clear that the tremendous business growth we have achieved at Qualtrics over the past two years has been driven in part by the fact that the relationships we build with co-workers matter more than ever. Our employees have delivered amazing results while demonstrating amazing flexibility during these pandemic years. Our growth has shown that these new ways of working will continue to contribute to our success as we work together to improve experiences around the world.  

People’s expectations for work have changed dramatically. We’ve seen firsthand that we don’t need to be in the same place all the time to produce great work. We can alternate between focused and collaborative tasks. That’s how we’re going to work, and that’s how we’re going to succeed in our new work experience.