Right now, the conversation about employee experience ROI isn’t just happening in HR. It’s on the desks of CFOs, CIOs, and real estate directors, and it’s backed by hard numbers.
90 percent of employees who like the workplace feel proud of the business, and they’re three times more likely to stick around. Plus, one report found that over 2 decades, the UK companies with the best workplaces have outperformed the FTSE 100 by 400 percent.
The shift to hybrid work has amplified the stakes. Businesses are spending millions on underused real estate and collaboration tech that sits idle because it doesn’t align with how employees actually work. Without workplace experience, ROI visibility, powered by integrated booking tools, IoT sensors, and analytics platforms, that spend is impossible to justify.
This isn’t about beanbags or free snacks. It’s about controlling costs, attracting talent, and creating environments that supercharge performance. Thanks to modern workplace experience management platforms, the ROI of employee experience is easier to prove than ever before.
- Workplace Experience Management Unpacked: The Ultimate Guide to Workplace Management
- Workspace Experience Tools: Building a Tech Stack for Employee Experience
Calculating Employee Experience ROI
Proving employee experience ROI starts with understanding both the spend and the payoff, and neither is as straightforward as a one-line budget item.
On the cost side, organizatuins are investing in more than just “workplace apps.” The real value comes when integrated booking platforms like Robin and Deskbird work hand-in-hand with IoT occupancy sensors, planning tools, and employee experience systems.
Companies also need to invest in training and change management to ensure adoption of new tools and processes, not to mention space design strategies. Fortunately, the upsides are huge too.
When people stay, hiring slows down, recruitment fees shrink, and whole weeks of onboarding disappear from the calendar. Energy-efficient spaces reduce operating expenses and support ESG reporting. Real-time analytics prevent costly overbuilds, while also providing hard evidence to the CFO when defending budgets.
Here’s a closer look at the key factors driving employee experience ROI.
Improved Retention & Reduced Turnover
Replacing seasoned employees carries a steep price tag. Depending on the role, the total can run 50 percent to 200 percent of annual salary once you factor in hiring costs, onboarding, lost output, and disrupted client relationships. In a large organization, the expenses multiply quickly.
Workplace experience is now one of the strongest predictors of whether people stay. Gensler’s latest survey found that employees who like their workspace are three times more likely to remain with their employer. The physical and digital environment acts as a daily signal of how much the organization values its people.
At Tracelink, deploying Robin to optimize meeting and collaboration spaces increased utilization by 166 percent. People used the office more often, and engagement scores climbed.
These changes ripple into recruitment. Candidates talk. High satisfaction rates lead to stronger reviews, better LinkedIn visibility, and faster offer acceptance. The cost-per-hire drops, and the business holds on to more institutional knowledge.
Less Absenteeism & Better Wellbeing
CFOs don’t need a spreadsheet to recognize the cost of empty chairs. Output falls, temps get called in, deadlines slip. Bad working conditions only make it worse. Stale air, erratic heating or cooling, constant noise, and poorly planned layouts all chip away at energy levels.
One global study found that cleaner air alone can lift output by as much as 11 percent and reduce sick leave. In sectors where every shift matters, that’s worth millions, and it’s a textbook case of employee experience ROI. The good news is that the fixes are easier to implement.
Air-quality sensors, AI climate control, and live occupancy data flag problems as they happen, then make adjustments on the spot. When absences fall, overtime bills drop, temp contracts shrink, and fewer projects run late. For big organizations, that’s money in the bank.
Productivity, Efficiency, and Innovation Gains
One of the biggest drains on productivity is simply wasted time. In many offices, employees still spend 20 to 30 minutes a day searching for an available desk or meeting room. Multiply that across a 5,000-person company, and you’re looking at tens of thousands of paid hours disappearing every month.
The right workplace experience management stack can reclaim that time and redirect it into higher-value work. For The Knot Worldwide, real-time floor planning removed bottlenecks in collaborative spaces. Teams could self-serve space bookings without a coordinator in the middle, reducing delays and frustration.
These efficiency gains also set the stage for stronger innovation. Deloitte reports that cross-functional teams in well-managed spaces are more likely to generate fresh ideas. When booking systems are tied to UC performance monitoring, meetings start on time, technical glitches drop, and IT spends less time on troubleshooting – small wins that accumulate across a large workforce.
Better Customer Service
It’s rare for customer experience to outshine the employee experience that supports it. If your people are fighting with clumsy software, muddled communication, or a workspace that works against them, it shows up in every client call. Nine out of ten employees say the quality of their day-to-day experience shapes the service they provide.
Give them the tools and environment to succeed, and you’ll see it reflected in faster responses, fewer mistakes, and stronger results, the kind that move net promoter scores, repeat business, and churn rates.
Ultimately, employee experience ROI and customer experience ROI go hand-in-hand. If you want to retain and impress customers, you need to start by focusing on your team.
Real Estate & Operational Cost Savings
In cities like London and New York, prime office space can cost £1,200 or $1,500 per square meter each year. For a global enterprise, even a 10 percent reduction in wasted space can mean millions in savings.
The problem is that many offices are still managed on guesswork, with fixed seating plans, underused meeting rooms, and climate control running in unoccupied areas. Modern workplace experience management replaces guesswork with live data.
A great example of employee experience ROI in action comes from Quantum Health – a company that saved $13.5 million in renovation costs just by gaining insights into how spaces were used with the OfficeSpace platform.
Compliance has its own hidden costs. Occupancy sensors can help by automatically keeping buildings within fire code, enforcing return-to-office requirements, and maintaining health and safety standards, all of which lower the risk of fines or forced closures.
Better Return on Workplace Investments
Enterprises already spend heavily on AV systems, training programs, and collaboration hubs, yet without the right environment and usage patterns, much of that spend underperforms.
Workplace experience management helps companies get the most out of their existing investments. Integrating booking platforms, UC performance tracking, and space analytics provides a clear picture of how, when, and by whom resources are used.
Some organizations take it further, pairing workspace data with UC service management insights to decide more effectively where to allocate desks, licenses, and technology, and to cut down on waste.
Sustainability & ESG Impact
For many candidates, sustainability goals are a deciding factor in whether they’ll accept an offer. Over 40 percent of Gen Z and millennial workers have turned down roles with companies whose environmental record didn’t match their expectations.
Today’s workplace experience management platforms make it easier to show progress, not just promises. IoT sensors can track exactly how much energy is used per occupied seat. AI climate control adjusts heating and cooling automatically when rooms are empty. Those changes, rolled out across a large estate, can deliver double-digit percentage reductions in energy use.
The benefit isn’t only lower utility bills. It’s also having credible, granular data to share in ESG reports, investor briefings, and recruitment campaigns.
Continuous Employee Experience ROI Tracking
Most companies track employee engagement once or twice a year. By the time results come in, the moment has passed, and the issues have moved on. For organizations serious about employee experience ROI, that lag is too costly.
A Net EX Score combines traditional engagement metrics like eNPS with workspace data such as utilization, service ticket volumes, and energy use to give a more immediate view. Trends can be spotted in weeks, not quarters.
The ASEE group used YaRooms to track space utilization and employee engagement rates and made changes to office setups accordingly, saving around £200,000 per year.
This kind of ongoing tracking turns EX into a live performance indicator that facilities, HR, and IT teams can influence together. It keeps spending decisions anchored in real data.
Understanding Employee Experience ROI Today
Investing in a stronger employee experience, better workplace management, and more efficient, flexible spaces might seem expensive at first, but the returns are impossible to ignore.
The data, case studies, and tools exist to connect better workplace experiences to measurable business outcomes, from lower turnover and absenteeism to reduced space and energy costs.
If you’re leading a business, the playbook isn’t complicated. Start by knowing exactly where you stand today. Run a small, focused trial of workplace experience tools. Watch the numbers, see what moves in the right direction, then roll out the winners. Treating workplace experience as something you can measure and improve constantly puts you ahead of the pack. You’ll hire faster, spend less, and be able to adapt when conditions shift.
