Why Employee Experience Is a Business Imperative: Key Findings from the 2025 Integral Index 

Ethan McCarty, CEO & Co-Founder, Integral :

At Integral, we don’t just study the employee experience with our clients — we live it, challenge it, and design it to be better, more human, and more impactful every year. The fifth edition of the Integral Index affirms what we’ve long suspected but now have the data to prove: investments in employee experience directly drive employee behavior — and those behaviors power enterprise outcomes. 

This year’s Index, developed in partnership with The Harris Poll and Dr. Rita Men from the University of Florida, uncovers a critical insight for business leaders: experience, mindset, and engagement are the precursors to activation — the set of behaviors employees exhibit that either support or sabotage business outcomes. 

Let’s start with the data. Employees who are emotionally energized by their work, connected to a sense of purpose, and who believe their work matters are significantly more likely to engage in the supportive behaviors that drive business outcomes. We call this activation, and we’ve measured its relationship to key psychological factors: 

• Employee engagement and supportive behaviors: r = 0.58, p < .001
   

• Positive emotions and supportive behaviors: r = 0.27, p < .001
   

• Positive mindset and supportive behaviors: r = 0.34, p < .001
   

These behaviors aren’t theoretical. They’re the actions that move companies forward: helping colleagues, mentoring new hires, advocating for the company publicly, and staying loyal through turbulent times. They are also a hedge against risk — reducing the likelihood of behaviors like quitting abruptly, ignoring safety and security protocols, or speaking poorly of the company externally to customers and candidates. 

So, what drives those crucial engagement metrics most?  

The answer is consistent and unmistakable: managers and senior executives. 

Managers, especially first-line managers, are the linchpins of culture. They interpret strategy into action, reinforce norms, provide feedback, and — when they’re supported — become trusted guides. But when they’re overwhelmed, inconsistent, or misaligned with leadership, they become a source of confusion and disconnection. 

Our data shows that employees’ experience of their direct managers has a disproportionate influence on their mindset and performance. Workers who believe their manager enables their growth, provides resources, and lives the organization’s values report significantly higher activation levels. 

But what about Gen Z? 

And these beliefs — and their effects — start early. Among Gen Z workers (ages 18–24), who are quickly becoming the largest cohort in the workforce, only 56% feel their company genuinely cares about them, and 66% feel they have the tools and support to do their jobs well. Perhaps most concerning: 51% say senior leaders’ behavior doesn’t align with the company’s stated values. 

That kind of misalignment doesn’t just erode trust — it bleeds out into performance, motivation, and retention. In fact, Gen Z is the most likely generation to believe their company’s best days are behind it, and the least likely to say their employer’s values align with their own. They’re proud of their work and emotionally energized, but significantly less motivated. The gap is leadership at all levels — and we can close it. 

Executive communication and behavior set the tone for belief.  

When senior leaders embody the organization’s stated values, act with transparency, and regularly communicate about purpose and strategy, belief in the future rises. When they don’t, employees fill in the blanks — and the blanks are rarely generous. 

An old friend and former IBM colleague of mine, Rob Purdie, used to say something like ”people fill voids with negative assumptions.” We were leading some pretty complex digital innovation programs and he was a very, very effective Agile coach. To me, his expression translated to, “absent clarity from leadership, working teams tend to fill in organizational ambiguity with their worst fears.” 

This has practical implications. In organizations where managers are trained communicators, trusted coaches, and effective translators of strategy, employees are more likely to stay, grow, and advocate. We’ve seen this firsthand with our clients. Whether it’s helping a business unit within a company like Johnson & Johnson elevate belief in its vision from 70% to 87% in under a year, or driving 126% growth in content engagement through improved manager communication at a multi-billion dollar semiconductor company, the results are clear: when you activate managers, you activate the enterprise. 

Meanwhile, everything is digital (and everything is changing) 

These dynamics are especially crucial in environments shaped by digital transformation, remote/hybrid work, and technological disruption. Our Index shows that 75% of employees aged 18–24 report the adoption of new digital tools in their organizations, but only 61% say adopting those tools has been easy. And Generation Z are the most likely — at 40% — to fear that AI adoption will imperil their careers.  

Attitudes toward these tools are significantly more positive when managers explain their purpose, provide training, and connect the change to business strategy. 

We also saw that social media remains a critical communication channel, especially for younger employees. But usage varies widely by role and age. 94% of senior managers follow their organization on social platforms — compared to only 63% of non-managers. For younger workers, TikTok and Instagram are core engagement platforms, whereas older workers rely more on LinkedIn and Facebook. These differences highlight the need for multi-channel, audience-specific communication strategies that account for demographic preferences and digital fluency. 

So what’s the takeaway?  

It’s not just that employee experience matters — we know that. It’s that employee experience is the starting point of everything else. If you want business transformation, brand advocacy, innovation, and customer loyalty, you must begin by equipping, engaging, and empowering your people — especially your managers and leaders. 

Employee experience isn’t a perk. It’s not a line item in a budget. It’s not “HR’s problem” or “comms’ responsibility.” It’s a strategic lever that every business should prioritize if it wants to compete and grow. That means investing in manager training. It means holding executives accountable for culture. And it means creating feedback systems that actually get used, not just lip-serviced. 

Let’s build workplaces that don’t just function — but flourish — as we change the future of work, for good. 

Written by: Editor