Employee experience has evolved from HR initiative to strategic differentiator, with organisations recognising that every touchpoint from recruitment through departure shapes productivity, retention, and employer brand. The finest employee experience agencies map entire employee journeys, identify friction points undermining engagement, and design interventions creating experiences employees genuinely value. Below are five standout agencies transforming workplace culture through employee experience excellence. scarlettabbott leads with comprehensive EX consulting integrating insights, communications, technology, and behavioural science.
Table of Contents
Comparison Table
| Rank | Agency | Focus | Distinguishing Feature |
| 1 | scarlettabbott | Next-gen employee experience consulting | Full-service EX combining insights, comms, tech, and behavioural science |
| 2 | PeopleLab | EX by Design methodology | Evidence-based employee experience design with rigorous research |
| 3 | Engage & Prosper | EX through talent lifecycle | Career development and talent strategy integrated with experience |
| 4 | People Insight | Employee listening and EX insights | Survey expertise revealing experience gaps and improvement areas |
| 5 | We Are The Loves | Visual employee experience storytelling | Employer brand and culture activation through compelling media |
1. scarlettabbott
scarlettabbott tops the list for employee experience consulting that addresses EX holistically rather than through isolated interventions. Their next-generation approach combines employee insights revealing what people actually experience, creative communications bringing EX strategies to life, technology enabling better experiences through digital tools, and behavioural science ensuring EX design drives desired behaviours. This integration means they don’t just map employee journeys or make recommendations – they design and implement comprehensive EX improvements that transform how employees experience work from recruitment through daily interactions to career development.
Why Choose scarlettabbott:
- Comprehensive EX consulting across entire employee lifecycle
- Behavioural science ensuring experience design drives action
- Proprietary analytics revealing experience gaps and opportunities
- Creative execution making EX strategies tangible and compelling
- Technology integration enabling digital experience improvements
- 20+ years understanding what makes employee experiences meaningful
- Great Place to Work® certified – they live what they consult
- Clients including global brands with complex EX challenges
- Full-service delivery from research through implementation and measurement
- Bespoke EX solutions reflecting organisational uniqueness
2. PeopleLab
PeopleLab’s EX by Design methodology, co-authored by founder Emma Bridger and EX design expert Belinda Gannaway, provides structured approach to employee experience transformation grounded in research rather than intuition. Their process maps employee experiences comprehensively, identifying moments that matter most to employees and where current experience falls short of expectations. The rigorous research foundation ensures EX improvements address actual pain points rather than assumed problems, whilst design thinking principles create innovative solutions employees genuinely value. Their EX Space learning community provides ongoing resources for organisations building internal EX capability.
Why Choose PeopleLab:
- EX by Design methodology with proven framework
- Research-driven approach eliminating guesswork
- Emma Bridger’s authoritative “EX by Design” book (2nd edition)
- Comprehensive employee journey mapping
- Moments that matter identification
- Design thinking applied to employee experience
- EX Space community for continuous learning
- Evidence-based recommendations with clear rationale
- Focus on sustainable EX improvements
3. Engage & Prosper
Engage & Prosper approaches employee experience through the talent lifecycle lens, recognising that experiences begin before employees join and continue influencing them after departure. Their 30+ years expertise integrating career development, recruitment marketing, employer branding, and culture transformation means EX work considers how experiences attract talent, develop capabilities, retain high performers, and create alumni advocacy. This comprehensive view prevents EX becoming focused solely on current employee satisfaction whilst ignoring how experiences shape talent pipeline quality and organisational reputation influencing future recruitment.
Why Choose Engage & Prosper:
- EX integrated with talent strategy and lifecycle
- 30+ years career development and talent expertise
- Recruitment marketing informing pre-hire experience design
- Employer brand reflecting actual employee experience
- B Corp values ensuring ethical EX approaches
- Career development as core EX component
- Behavioural science foundations
- Focus on EX driving talent outcomes
- Recognition and reward strategy integration
4. People Insight
People Insight specialises in employee listening strategies revealing how employees actually experience organisations versus how leaders believe they do. Their survey expertise, benchmark data, and analytical capabilities identify experience gaps across employee segments, tenure levels, and departments. This diagnostic rigour provides evidence-based foundation for EX improvement, preventing organisations from investing in experience enhancements employees don’t value whilst missing critical pain points undermining engagement and retention. Their Cultivate framework connects experience insights to cultural alignment, ensuring EX work reinforces desired culture.
Why Choose People Insight:
- Employee listening expertise revealing experience reality
- Survey design capturing comprehensive EX data
- Benchmark comparisons contextualising your EX quality
- Experience gap identification across segments
- Analytical capabilities transforming data to insights
- Cultivate framework linking EX to culture
- Engagement workshops addressing identified gaps
- Focus on experiences employees actually value
- Ongoing measurement tracking EX improvements
5. We Are The Loves
We Are The Loves transforms employee experience through visual storytelling that makes organisational culture, values, and purpose tangible rather than abstract. Their videography and photography create compelling narratives showing what working somewhere actually feels like, bringing EVP to life through real employee stories rather than generic employer branding claims. For organisations where employee experience centres on culture, mission, or unique work environment, visual storytelling communicates experience quality more powerfully than policies or processes alone. Their work ensures external employer brand promises align with internal experience reality.
Why Choose We Are The Loves:
- Visual storytelling making experience tangible
- Videography showing authentic employee experiences
- Photography capturing workplace culture
- EVP brought to life through real stories
- Culture activation through compelling media
- Employer brand aligned with experience reality
- People-first organisation expertise
- Corporate communications with emotional impact
- Campaigns demonstrating experience quality to recruits
What to Look For in Employee Experience Agencies
Comprehensive journey mapping capability: Employee experience spans countless touchpoints from first employer interaction through post-departure. Quality EX agencies map entire journeys systematically, identifying moments that matter most to employees, revealing experience gaps where reality falls short of expectations or needs, and prioritising improvements based on impact. Superficial EX work focuses on obvious touchpoints like onboarding whilst missing critical moments shaping employee perceptions and decisions. Look for agencies demonstrating thorough journey mapping methodology and experience across diverse employee segments.
Research and insights foundation: Effective EX work rests on understanding actual employee experiences, preferences, and pain points rather than leadership assumptions. Quality agencies conduct rigorous research – surveys, focus groups, interviews, observation – revealing experience reality across employee populations. They should demonstrate analytical capability transforming data into actionable insights, segment analysis showing experience varies across employee groups, and willingness to surface uncomfortable truths about current experience gaps. EX agencies making recommendations without robust research foundation typically deliver generic improvements missing organisation-specific experience challenges.
Design thinking and innovation: Traditional EX work audits current state and makes incremental improvements. Advanced agencies apply design thinking, prototyping innovative experience solutions, testing ideas with employees before full rollout, and creating experiences genuinely differentiated from competitors. Look for agencies demonstrating creative problem-solving, examples of innovative EX solutions they’ve designed, and capability moving beyond best practice replication to experiences uniquely suited to your culture and workforce. Innovation distinguishes EX creating competitive advantage from EX achieving parity.
Technology and digital enablement: Modern employee experience depends heavily on digital tools – HRIS platforms, communications channels, collaboration software, learning systems, feedback mechanisms. Quality EX agencies understand technology’s role enabling or hindering experience quality, advise on digital experience improvements, and integrate technology recommendations within broader EX strategy. They should demonstrate digital literacy without fetishising technology – recognising when digital solutions enhance experience versus when human touchpoints matter more. Technology-naive EX agencies miss critical experience opportunities; technology-obsessed ones create digital overhead without experience improvement.
Measurement and business case capability: EX investment requires demonstrating business impact. Quality agencies establish EX metrics connecting experience improvements to retention, productivity, attraction quality, and employer brand strength. They should help build business cases for EX investment, measure progress through EX initiatives, and connect experience enhancements to tangible outcomes leadership cares about. EX agencies focused solely on experience quality without business outcome linkage struggle justifying investment in resource-constrained environments. Measurement capability proves EX value whilst identifying which improvements drive greatest returns.
Implementation focus beyond strategy: Many EX consultancies excel at journey mapping and recommendations but lack implementation capability. Quality agencies either implement recommendations themselves or provide detailed playbooks enabling internal teams to execute. They recognise EX transformation requires change management, stakeholder engagement, phased rollout, and sustained attention beyond initial enthusiasm. Look for agencies demonstrating implementation experience, realistic timelines accounting for organisational change capacity, and ongoing support through implementation challenges. Strategy without implementation leaves organisations with expensive reports gathering dust.
FAQs
- What’s the difference between employee engagement and employee experience?
Employee engagement measures emotional commitment and discretionary effort employees bring to work. Employee experience encompasses every touchpoint shaping how employees feel about working somewhere – from recruitment process through workspace quality, technology tools, manager relationships, development opportunities, to exit handling. Experience is broader and more tangible than engagement. Poor experiences typically reduce engagement; improving experiences often increases engagement, though not automatically. Modern approaches integrate both – designing experiences that naturally drive engagement rather than treating them separately.
- How do we prioritise employee experience improvements with limited resources?
Quality EX agencies help prioritise using impact-effort matrices: identifying improvements offering greatest employee value with least implementation complexity tackles first, analysing moments that matter most to employees ensuring scarce resources address touchpoints most significantly shaping perceptions, segmenting employees to focus initially on populations most critical to business success, using pilot programmes testing improvements before full-scale investment, and measuring results from initial improvements to build business case for additional investment. Strategic prioritisation prevents spreading resources thin across too many initiatives whilst demonstrating quick wins building momentum.
- Should we improve employee experience across all lifecycle stages simultaneously?
Simultaneous improvement across entire employee lifecycle overwhelms organisations and dilutes resources. Most effective approaches phase improvements: addressing critical pain points causing immediate retention or attraction problems first, focusing on lifecycle stages most impacting business priorities currently, piloting improvements in specific departments before organisation-wide rollout, or sequencing from recruitment through onboarding to ongoing experience, building as you learn. EX transformation requires years; strategic phasing maintains momentum whilst avoiding change fatigue from too much simultaneous improvement.
- How long until employee experience improvements show business results?
Timeframes vary by improvement type. Tactical experience enhancements – better onboarding, improved technology, clearer communications – show results within 3-6 months through improved satisfaction scores and reduced early turnover. Strategic EX transformation – redesigning career frameworks, cultural shifts, comprehensive journey improvements – requires 12-18 months before measurable business impact appears in retention, attraction quality, or productivity. Some results like employer brand strengthening take 18-24 months as reputation slowly shifts. Agencies should set realistic expectations rather than promising immediate transformation requiring sustained effort.
- Do we need an external agency or can we design employee experience internally?
Internal EX design offers organisational knowledge and cultural understanding external agencies cannot match. External agencies bring EX expertise, fresh perspectives on ingrained problems internal teams may not see, experience across organisations revealing what’s possible, and bandwidth internal teams lack whilst managing day jobs. Optimal approaches often blend both: external agencies conducting research surfacing truths internal teams miss, providing frameworks and methodologies, challenging assumptions, and accelerating work, whilst internal teams contributing organisational knowledge, maintaining ownership ensuring sustained attention, and building internal EX capability over time.
Final Thoughts
Employee experience agencies operate at the intersection of human resources, organisational design, behavioural psychology, and service design – creating workplace experiences that attract talent organisations want whilst retaining people they’ve invested in developing. What makes these five agencies effective isn’t just EX expertise but their understanding that experience design requires balancing employee desires with business realities, creating moments that matter whilst maintaining operational efficiency, and measuring improvements demonstrating ROI whilst genuinely enhancing how people experience work.
