Decoding employee experiences during pandemic through online employee reviews: insights to organizations

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to unearth various dimensions of employee experience (EX) and explore how pandemic impacted various EX factors using online employee reviews. The authors identify employee-discussed EX-factors and quantify the associated sentiments and importance.Design/methodology/approachThis paper employs Latent Dirichlet Allocation on the online employee reviews to identify the key EX-factors. The authors probe sentiments and importance associated with key EX-factors using sentiment analysis, importance analysis, regression analysis and dominance analysis.FindingsThe result of topic modeling identifies 20 EX-factors that shape overall EX. While skill development plays a major role in shaping overall EX, employees perceived Salary and Growth as the most important EX-factor and expressed negative sentiments during the pandemic. Employee sentiments significantly influence overall EX.Practical implicationsWhen employees have extensive change experience, managers should consider various facets of EX to manage the smooth change and deliver a better EX. This research offers key EX-factors to be considered by managers while dealing with employees. Online employee reviews websites are recommended to include the identified key EX-factors to comprehend the holistic EX.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the growing literature on the employee experience as a concept by identifying various EX-factors. The authors expand the extant EX scales by identifying an inclusive and updated set of EX-factors.

Unlocking the voice of employee perspectives: exploring the relevance of online platform reviews on organizational perceptions

“…It is, therefore, not surprising that employees who develop their skills have higher satisfaction (Jones et al, 2009;Osewe and Gindicha, 2021). Further, when organization offers skill development opportunities, it enhances employee positive experience at workplace, likely impacting their overall ratings towards their organization (Joshi et al, 2023). However, not all skill development results in enhanced satisfaction.…”

“…With the technological disruptions and pandemic outbreak, many skills have become redundant, demanding employees learn new skills to keep them industry relevant and secure their jobs. Consequently, employees perceived their organizations positively, when the latter offered skill development during this phase (Joshi et al, 2023). Further, with pandemicinduced flexibility at work, employees had more time to upskill.…”

“…A recent study reports that absenteeism is more among employees who perceive their commutation to the workplace as a pain point (Ma and Ye, 2019) and experience lower OES and subjective well-being (Sha et al, 2019;Zhu et al, 2019). Similarly, when employee perceive their salary and benefits offered by the organization as lower, they tend to have negative perception towards their employer (Joshi et al, 2023). However, these negative impacts associated with commuting get nullified when they receive a better salary and benefits (Sha et al, 2019).…”

“…Besides the direct effect of perceived job security on satisfaction, it impacts organizational turnover and employee turnover intention through employee satisfaction (Falatah et al, 2021). Further, job security positively impacts employees' overall rating of their organization (Joshi et al, 2023). Job security act as a simulator to have positive orientation towards their organization, as reflected in the positive reviews of employees on online sites (Joshi et al, 2023).…”

“…It is noted that there are differences in the job attributes listed for employees' ratings on different online platforms. The recent work of Joshi et al (2023) identified the most critical job attributes in the workplace by examining qualitative OERs. It includes organization culture, job security, salary and growth, work-life balance, job experience, work intensity and employee safety that form employee experience.…”