The Intersection of User Experience and Employee Experience

Episode Timestamps

0:00 – Intro

1:38 – What is Employee Experience?

2:15 – How UX and EX relate to each other?

5:44 – What makes a good employee experience?

9:34 – What are the challenges for EX in a hybrid working environment?

12:54 – Companies with good Employee Experience

14:54 – What role do Researchers play in Employee Experience?

17:34 – The trend of EX in coming years

23:52 – Thank you

Main Insights From The Conversation

When you call customer support frustrated and encounter someone who clearly hates their job, that interaction doesn’t just reflect poorly on that individual—it reflects poorly on the entire company. Conversely, when you speak with someone empowered, engaged, and passionate about the product they support, it can transform your relationship with that brand.​​

This connection between employee experience (EX) and user experience (UX) is often overlooked, treated as separate organizational concerns handled by different departments. But Kelly Jura, VP of Brand & User Experience at ScreenPal (formerly Screencast-O-Matic), sees them as inextricably linked.​​

“They are incredibly interconnected,” Kelly emphasizes. With a career spanning brand strategy, UX research and design, and most recently leading ScreenPal through a comprehensive global rebrand in 2023, Kelly brings unique insights into how internal culture shapes external customer experiences.​

In this conversation, she shares why investing in employee experience isn’t just an HR concern—it’s a competitive advantage that directly impacts product quality, customer satisfaction, and profitability.​​

Defining Employee Experience

Before diving into the connection between EX and UX, Kelly offers a clear definition often missing from academic and business discussions.​

“Employee experience is really interesting, and it’s often an afterthought. But it is the experience that an employee has when they’re interacting with your company and their day-to-day jobs, and kind of the impact that it has on their lives”.​​

Simple, yet profound: EX encompasses every interaction employees have with your organization and how those interactions affect their overall well-being.​​

The Customer Support Example: Where EX Meets UX

To illustrate the EX-UX connection, Kelly walks through a relatable scenario: reaching out to customer support.​

“You’re probably in a spot where you’re somewhat frustrated. You’re trying to solve a problem. You’ve probably tried all of the tools that you have in your toolbox to solve this problem, and you’re reaching out to the support team for this organization”.​​

The Positive Experience

“I could have a really phenomenal experience where the person is empathetic, where they understand where I’m coming from, where they’re able to problem-solve with me, make me feel empowered to solve the problem with them. That could really solidify my relationship with that company”.​​

The Negative Experience

“On the flip side, if you call customer support and you think, ‘Wow, this person just hates their job. This was not helpful. They didn’t help me at all. I still have the same problem I had before,’ I’m much more likely to go to another company, to bring my business elsewhere”.​​

The Human Element in Journey Mapping

Kelly emphasizes looking beyond digital touchpoints.​

“When you think about user experience, I think about journey mapping and looking at every single touchpoint—beyond just the digital touchpoint, that human aspect. Because that really does have this great impact on the end user experience”.​​

Whether someone reaches out on social media, encounters an insensitive tweet, or contacts customer support, “the human element is really important in the end user experience”.​​

Why Good EX Leads to Good UX

The mechanism is straightforward but powerful.​​

“The more that you can have an employee experience where the people are engaged, where they understand and they’re passionate about the product that you’re producing, the better the end user experience will be,” Kelly explains.​​

Why? “Because the more likely they’ll be able to speak on behalf of the brand. They’ll be able to provide that really consistent good experience and meet and potentially exceed expectations for customers”.​​

You Are the Brand

Kelly recalls her first corporate job: “There was always this point that you are representative of this brand. You’re not just what you are or what your position is, but you are living and moving around a brand which you have joined”.​​

This identity connection matters immensely. When employees internalize brand values and mission, every customer interaction becomes an authentic brand expression rather than a scripted transaction.​​

What Creates a Good Employee Experience?

Kelly points out a curious irony.​

“It’s really interesting because we put so much thought into the end user experience. We make sure that the experience is beautiful. We make sure that it delights our users”.​​

But then: “You start looking at the tools that internal people are using, and they’re often just antiquated systems. You’ve maybe added a bunch of Band-Aids to these systems just to make them functional”.​​

The Daily Friction

Consider what employees endure:​

• Training on clunky software that barely works​
• Opening 15 tabs to complete one task​​
• Attending unnecessary meetings for their role​
• Being inundated with information that doesn’t apply to them​

“That little friction in their day—they’re like, ‘Ah, I’ve got to open 15 tabs to do this one thing,’ or ‘I have these extra meetings that really aren’t necessary for my role'”.​​

Applying UX Principles Internally

“Being able to look at their experience much like you would look at a user experience and see those friction points, those points where there are inconsistencies—’I’m expecting my company to behave in this way, they behave in a different way,’ that’s a point of friction”.​​

Kelly advocates applying the same UX processes internally:​​

Journey mapping: “I love journey mapping. I look at what an employee’s experience is throughout the journey of their employment with a company”​​

Task analysis: “Where is this person spending a lot of their time, and is it necessary?”​​

Friction identification: “I’m expecting to be able to quickly cross this off my list, and it takes me 15 minutes. That’s a point of friction”.​​

The Growth Stage Challenge

Kelly typically works with high-growth, entrepreneurial, agile companies. “It’s really interesting because sometimes the employee experience when you’re 30, 40, 50 employees is one thing. You feel like you have a good handle on it because you know every single person on the team. You know their life, you know their career, you interact with them daily”.​​

But as companies scale: “It becomes even more important to look at the employee experience because if you’re not actively looking at that employee experience, the employee experience happens organically, and it happens whether you look at it or you don’t look at it”.​​

The Organic Problem

“You don’t want something to take shape that you’re not endorsing,” Kelly warns. “So it’s really important no matter what stage your company’s at—whether you are a small startup or you’re a large corporation—to understand what that experience is like and take action on it to improve it”.​

The Hybrid Work Challenge

When asked about the shift to remote and hybrid work, Kelly acknowledges both benefits and complications.​

“I find working remote to be something that is incredibly beneficial to a lot of people, but it is another variable. It’s another challenge that you have”.​​

The C-Suite Blind Spot

Kelly references a Deloitte report on the C-Suite’s impact on employee wellbeing.​

“They were saying that people in management and C-Suite roles vastly overestimate how their employees are doing. So that’s physical health, mental health, financial health. Across the board, if you asked a manager or a C-level person ‘how are my employees and how is my team doing,’ they would say, ‘Oh, they’re doing really well'”.​​

But when you ask employees: “They’re not as confident. They don’t feel like they are succeeding in the ways that they want to succeed”.​​

The Intention Gap

“I think in a remote and a hybrid world, it takes much more intention to connect with employees. You have to make space to hear your employees, see your employees, and understand what’s going on in their lives”.​​

Things that might organically happen in an office—witnessing something, hearing something, quick conversations between meetings—”you may not have that as easily in a remote or a hybrid situation”.​​

Not a Lack of Empathy

Kelly is careful to clarify: “In the Deloitte report, I don’t personally think that it’s because the C-Suite isn’t empathetic or they don’t care about their employees. I don’t think that that’s the case at all”.​​

“I do think, though, it does take actively meeting with your team to really understand what’s going on and just making the time to connect with them. These are more variables, these are more things that could get in the way of really illustrating a complete picture”.​​

Benefits Still Outweigh Challenges

“Hybrid and remote work—I personally work remote, I love it. I certainly think that it opens up opportunities for people across the globe to take part in teams that they otherwise would not be able to work with and for”.​​

But: “You have to be much more intentional about the culture and much more intentional about the employee experience to make change happen and to really get that complete picture”.​​

Companies Leading the Way

When asked about organizations excelling at employee experience, Kelly points to consistency as the key indicator.​​

“I think the companies that come to mind are the ones that are incredibly consistent across channels”.​​

The Slack Example

“I cannot speak from experience—I’ve not worked for Slack—but I think that they probably have a really good definition within their company of how each employee lives the brand of being a Slack employee”.​​

Why? “Because when you read the release notes, when you look at their social presence, when you look at their responses when you reach out to support, when you see the materials that they produce, everything is incredibly consistent”.​​

“And that to me is a sign that there is a strong company culture and there’s a good focus on employee experience”.​​

The Data Behind EX Investment

Kelly references Deloitte’s 2024 report on the global workplace.​

“They were saying that when organizations increase the number of engaged employees, they improve organizational outcomes”. Specifically:​​

• 78% less absenteeism​
• 30% less inequality defects (which translates to end user experience)​
• 23% increase in profitability​
• 10% increase in customer loyalty​​

“When I think about employee experience and when I think about companies that really have a strong employee experience, I think about the companies that have that strong brand presence regardless of where you’re seeing them—whether that’s in advertising and marketing and the product itself and in the human element”.​​

“I think that those are all signs that people are really managing that experience”.​​

The Researcher’s Role in Employee Experience

When asked whether EX should just be pushed to HR or the C-Suite, Kelly is emphatic.​

“It’s funny because so many times HR is taking responsibility for employee experience, and really it’s up to everyone at the company to take an active role in employee experience”.​​

Leveraging Existing Skills

“One of the things that can certainly improve the employee experience is getting that research to really illustrate the full picture of what’s happening”.​​

“As I said earlier, the C-Suite often overestimates how employees are doing. So having somebody who has a research background and being able to tap into your existing team and the skill sets that they have is certainly something that could really move the needle on a positive experience”.​​

Transferable Methods

Kelly lists familiar UX research methods that apply directly to EX:​​

Surveys: Gather quantitative data on employee sentiment​

Observation: “Look at somebody’s day and get a complete picture of all of the different things that happen throughout that day”​​

Journey mapping: Map the employee journey from hiring through exit​​

Task analysis: Understand where time is spent and whether it’s necessary​​

“These are a number of things that we already do for user experience. So being able to tap into our own teams and use the skills that we already have and partner on employee experience is definitely something that I haven’t seen done frequently. I don’t see people talking about that a lot, but it seems like a missed opportunity for me”.​​

The Business Case

“Happy employees are probably advocates of your brand, and then every moment of truth they have with customers are likely to bring in more customers or create more happy people around. So it does make full sense”.​​

“It’s just that, like you say, we also don’t see that happening so much in practice”.​​

The Trend: Where Is EX Headed?

Kelly observes that the pandemic created intense focus on employee experience that has since waned.​

The Pandemic Disruption

“The pandemic and moving to remote and hybrid work was really disruptive. I think there was a lot of talk about it during that time, trying to figure this out”.​​

But now: “Unfortunately, it’s not as talked about as it was in 2020, 2021. I think people are just at a point where they’re kind of just living with their circumstances”.​​

Tech Industry Instability

“I know in tech there’s certainly some instability in the job markets right now. So I think unfortunately it’s keeping people in positions that they aren’t really passionate about”.​​

“At least in the United States, people are hesitant to leave their jobs if they have jobs, or the jobs just aren’t there for them to move seamlessly into. So unfortunately, you do have a lot more people who are staying in roles a little bit longer than they would have normally been staying in those roles”.​​

Quiet Quitting and Burnout

“As you look at burnout and you look at employees that just aren’t engaged in the day-to-day activities, the quiet quitting, things like that—it’s not great for the work experience at large, and it’s not good for company and employee morale”.​​

“So that’s what I’ve been seeing as a trend, and just in speaking with other tech leaders, there’s definitely this instability that is not helping employee experience right now”.​​

Contributing Factors

The discussion touches on additional pressures: “A lot is to do with the uncertainty and the anxiety surrounding the AI onset, I would say, because nobody knows what’s happening. So everybody seems to be playing a cautious game and slowly coming to terms with reality”.​​

There’s also role confusion: “People are trying to take up multiple roles. Sometimes user experience researchers aren’t very clear which role they should take. Should they take a UX research role, or should they expand across product manager? There are all these funny job posts with all kinds of things”.​​

The Return Is Inevitable

Despite current downplaying of EX initiatives, Kelly is confident it will resurge.​

“It seems that EX is right now a little bit downplayed as such, but it has to come back because the facts remain as they were”.​​

When Organizations Focus on EX

Kelly notes that companies typically address employee experience during major disruptions.​

“People will look at employee experience when there’s a major problem to solve, typically. And that’s a merger, an acquisition, things like that, or a global pandemic. You start looking at those internal tools, you start looking at the employee experience”.​​

But the critical insight: “In the day-to-day, that’s when it’s really important to look at the employee experience because the experience again happens whether you want to focus on it or not. And unfortunately, things can turn into something that you don’t want to happen if you’re not actively nurturing it”.​​

Case Study: The ScreenPal Rebrand

When asked if she’d participated in any EX initiatives herself, Kelly shares a powerful example.​​

The Challenge

“When Screencast-O-Matic was going to rename and rebrand as ScreenPal, that was a really, really exciting time. But to execute something like that when you’re dealing with a global company that has a presence on desktop software, Chrome extension, mobile apps, web platform, marketing, all these third-party integrations and listings and things like that—that was a really important time for our company”.​​

The Critical Success Factor

“It was a really important time for every single employee to really get on the same page. I think that was critical for us all to really believe in the mission, to believe in what we were doing”.​​

“It was just such a highly orchestrated effort that I’m very proud of, but it required every single person in our company to really believe in it”.​​

The Result

“As such, we were able to rename and relaunch with a whole new design system, new name, new brand across all of these different platforms within 24 hours, which is really just an incredible achievement”.​​

Why it worked: “That would not have happened if we didn’t really have this close connection with every single employee. Because every single person on the ScreenPal team really did play that pivotal role in making it happen. If we didn’t have all of that support from our teammates, we wouldn’t have been able to do something so big in such a small amount of time”.​​

The Multiplier Effect

“It’s a big motivator. I think it’s a way where people start to look in one direction. It’s the famous exercise of everybody looking at one direction, and that really multiplies the power of a company when everybody in the company is unidirectionally thinking of success and what goals of the companies are”.​​

Key Takeaways: Why EX Can’t Be Ignored

Kelly’s insights reveal several crucial truths about the EX-UX relationship:​​

1. EX happens whether you manage it or not​

Ignoring employee experience doesn’t mean it goes away—it just means it develops organically in ways you might not endorse.​​

2. The human element defines brand perception​

Every customer interaction with an employee is a brand moment. Disengaged employees create negative brand experiences, regardless of how beautiful your digital UX is.​​

3. Internal tools deserve the same care as external products​

The irony of polished customer experiences built by employees struggling with antiquated internal systems is both common and counterproductive.​​

4. Remote work demands intentional connection​

The C-Suite overestimates employee wellbeing, and remote/hybrid work makes this gap worse without deliberate efforts to connect.​​

5. UX researchers have untapped EX potential​

Journey mapping, task analysis, surveys, and observation all apply directly to understanding and improving employee experience.​​

6. Consistency signals strong EX​

Companies with consistent brand expression across all touchpoints likely have engaged employees who understand and embody the brand.​​

7. The ROI is measurable and significant​

Deloitte data shows engaged employees drive 78% less absenteeism, 23% higher profitability, and 10% more customer loyalty.​​

8. Everyone owns EX, not just HR​

Employee experience is a company-wide responsibility that requires collaboration across departments.​​

Final Thoughts: The Inseparable Link

Kelly’s perspective challenges the traditional separation of employee experience and user experience into different organizational silos. The reality is simpler and more powerful: happy, engaged, empowered employees create better products and deliver better customer experiences.​

Organizations that recognize this connection and apply the same rigor to internal experiences as they do to external ones gain competitive advantages. They reduce absenteeism, increase profitability, strengthen customer loyalty, and build brand consistency that resonates across every touchpoint.​

The tools already exist—UX research methodologies transfer directly to understanding employee needs. The challenge isn’t capability; it’s prioritization and intentionality.​

As the ScreenPal rebrand demonstrates, when every employee believes in the mission and feels connected to the outcome, organizations can achieve remarkable things in remarkably short timeframes. That’s the multiplier effect of great employee experience.​​

In an era of remote work, AI uncertainty, and market instability, investing in employee experience isn’t optional—it’s essential. Because ultimately, your employees don’t just work for your brand. They are your brand.​

Thank you for reading!

If Kelly’s insights on the powerful connection between employee experience and user experience resonated with you, share this article with HR leaders, UX teams, and executives who care about building better workplaces and better products.

Have questions about applying UX research methods to employee experience? Connect with us at hi@uxarmy.com

Special thanks to Kelly Jura for sharing her expertise on the EX-UX intersection and for her thoughtful approach to creating experiences that empower both employees and users.

And thank you to all of you for being part of the User Insights community.

⚡ This podcast is brought to you by UXArmy, an all-in-one UX research tool.