Improving Employee Experience for Remote IT Teams in Europe

🚨 Currently, 36% of highly skilled professionals in Europe are considering changing employers, and employee well-being remains a top HR challenge. This means people experience, especially in remote work settings, isn’t something to ignore. This guide helps you improve employee experience if you are a founder or executive at a US/European company; an HR manager addressing IT retention challenges; a CTO or engineering leader managing remote IT teams in Europe; or a team leader who wants to reduce turnover in your department.

What is employee experience?

Employee experience is every interaction your team members have with your company, from the first job interview to exit. It covers digital workspace quality, technology tools, manager relationships, company culture, and career development.

Employee experience vs employee engagement

To be clear on the terms, let’s break down the difference between employee engagement and employee experience:

👉 To define employee experience: it is everything that happens to your team member during their time at your company. It’s objective and tangible:

• the laptop they receive;
• the tools they use;
• how their manager communicates;
• the career opportunities you offer, etc.

👉 In comparison, employee engagement is how your remote IT team feels about their work and connection to the company. It’s subjective and emotional: their motivation level, passion for work, and commitment to staying.

The key relationship: It’s engagement that comes from a positive experience with company, not the other way around. You can’t have engaged employees without good experience. Still, a good ​​remote work experience can exist without full engagement.

Why this matters: You can measure and fix experience at work directly. If employees complain about slow laptops, you buy faster ones. If they hate your project management tool, you switch it. 

However, you can’t directly fix engagement by just telling someone, “Be more engaged.” But with improved employee experience touchpoints, engagement naturally increases.

Below is a more detailed answer to “Why is employee experience important?” 👇

Why improve employee experience for your remote IT team

Improving employee experience impacts revenue and profitability, reduces turnover, boosts productivity, and lowers recruitment costs. 👇

The math is clear. Invest in workforce experience now, or pay more in turnover costs later.

Building employee experience strategy 

Your employee experience strategy must focus on:

• Digital workspace – to ensure your team has the tools, technology, and systems they need to perform efficiently and feel connected.
• Flexible work arrangements – to let employees control where and when they do their tasks, respecting time zones, personal needs, and productivity patterns.
• Career development programs – to provide clear growth paths, learning opportunities, and visibility into future roles.

Below, we break down each element of the employee experience framework with practical implementation steps 👇

1. Digital workspace

Your digital workspace determines how successfully your remote IT team operates and how well it is synced. Poor technology doesn’t just frustrate people. It drives them away.

According to Ivanti’s 2025 employee experience statistics, workers face tech interruptions 3.6 times per month, plus 2.7 more from mandatory security updates. Each interruption takes at least 15 minutes to resolve. That’s 1.6 hours of lost productivity per employee monthly.

For positive employee experience, you need to invest in reliable tools and proactive IT support that keep work flowing.

What this includes

How to implement this

Do the following:

• Survey your team – to uncover what’s slowing them down and what they actually need.

• Fix the top 3 issues – to make quick, visible improvements that build trust and momentum.

• Create a tech refresh cycle – to prevent recurring problems and keep everyone’s setup up to date.

• Involve employees in tool decisions – to boost adoption and ensure new tools actually solve real problems.

Step 1: Survey your team (this week)

Send a 5-question anonymous survey:

1. What tech tool frustrates you most in your daily work?
2. What equipment would improve work experience and productivity?
3. How often do tech issues interrupt your work?
4. Rate our IT support response time (1-10)
5. What’s one tool you wish we used?

Step 2: Fix the top 3 issues (within 30 days)

Don’t try to solve everything. Tackle the three most-mentioned problems first. For example, if 60% of your team complains about slow VPN speeds, that’s your priority.

Step 3: Create a tech refresh cycle (quarterly)

Set a budget for equipment upgrades. Replace laptops every 3 years, not when they die. Give employees $500-800 annually for home office improvements.

Step 4: Involve employees in tool decisions

Before you buy new software, run a 2-week trial with actual users. Let them vote on options. People adopt tools they helped choose.

2. Flexible work arrangements

When you manage teams across Europe, rigid 9-to-5 schedules create friction. A developer in Bucharest, Romania, experiences different peak productivity hours than one in ​​Ponta Delgada, Portugal. Parents need school pickup flexibility. Some people do their best work at 6 AM. Others hit their stride at 10 PM.

To stay competitive, you need to make flexibility a core part of how your team operates, not an optional benefit.

What this includes

How to implement this

For small teams (under 30 people)

You’ll need to:

• Define your core hours – to ensure collaboration across time zones without forcing everyone into the same schedule.
• Shift to async-first communication – to reduce unnecessary meetings and give people flexibility to focus.
• Train managers on output-based evaluation – to build trust and measure performance by results, not presence.

Week 1: Define your core hours

• Survey the team: “What 3–4 hours daily work for everyone?”
• Pick a window where all time zones overlap (usually 2–6 PM CET)
• Announce: “Be responsive during these hours. Work whenever else works for you.”

Week 2: Shift to async-first communication

• Create written meeting notes templates
• Record all meetings (Loom, Zoom recordings)
• Use threaded Slack conversations with context
• Replace status meetings with written daily updates

Week 3: Train managers on output-based evaluation

• Define clear deliverables for each role
• Create weekly/sprint goals (not daily check-ins)
• Judge results, not screen time or Slack activity
• Remove time-tracking software if you use it

For larger teams (30–500 people)

Follow the small team steps, plus:

• Pilot with one department – to experiment with new async and flexibility policies on a small scale before company-wide rollout.

• Create location flexibility guidelines – to ensure remote work across countries stays compliant and consistent.

• Implement formal documentation practices – to keep knowledge organized, accessible, and sustainable as the team grows.

Month 1-2: Pilot with one department

Test async work with engineering or marketing first. Collect feedback. Adjust policies based on what breaks.

Month 3: Create location flexibility guidelines

• Which countries can employees work from?
• How do you handle different tax jurisdictions?
• What’s your equipment shipping policy across Europe?
• Partner with an Employer of Record for compliance

Month 4: Implement formal documentation practices

• Create a company handbook (Notion, GitBook, Confluence)
• Document all processes and decisions
• Make information searchable
• Assign documentation owners for each department

3. Career development programs

Remote employees often feel invisible when promotion time comes. They miss hallway conversations where opportunities emerge and don’t know what skills to develop. Furthermore, they see the same job title year after year and start updating their LinkedIn profiles.

But if an employee can’t see where they’re going, they’ll find a company that shows them. So you need career development programs that make progress clear and motivate people to stay.

What this includes

How to implement this

If you have fewer than 50 employees

Take the following steps:

• Create a career framework – to clarify roles, levels, and growth paths, so employees know how to advance.
• Train managers on career conversations – to ensure meaningful discussions about development without overpromising promotions.
• Allocate learning budgets – to give employees the resources to build skills and celebrate continuous growth.

Month 1: Create a career framework

• List all roles in your company
• Define 3–4 levels for each role
• Write what distinguishes each level (skills, impact, scope)
• Share it publicly in your handbook

Month 2: Train managers on career conversations

• Create a career conversation template
• Run a workshop: “How to discuss growth without making promises”
• Practice scenarios: What if someone wants a promotion you can’t give?
• Set expectations: Every manager holds quarterly career conversations

Month 3: Allocate learning budgets

• Start with $1,000 per person per year
• Create a simple approval process (manager approval under $500)
• Track what people learn and share it company-wide
• Celebrate when people complete courses or certifications

If you have 50–500 employees

Do everything above, plus:

• Create mentorship programs – to support skill development, guidance, and retention for junior employees.

• Build internal mobility paths – to give employees opportunities to grow, explore new roles, and keep tech talent within the company.

• Measure and iterate – to track progress, identify barriers, and continuously improve career development initiatives.

Month 4: Create mentorship programs

• Pair every junior person with a senior colleague
• Set expectations: 1 hour monthly, focused on growth
• Provide conversation guides (“What to discuss in mentorship”)
• Track outcomes: Do mentored employees stay longer?

Month 5: Build internal mobility paths

• Require posting all jobs internally first (7 days before external)
• Create a quarterly “skills showcase” where people present projects
• Allow trial periods (30 days) to try different roles
• Don’t penalize managers when team members transfer internally

Month 6: Measure and iterate

• Track: How many people get promoted annually?
• Survey: Do people know what skills they need for the next level?
• Monitor: Are remote employees promoted at the same rate as on-site?
• Adjust: What barriers prevent growth?

Balanced action plan for improving employee experience

You can’t fix digital workspace, flexibility, and career development at once. To enhance employee experience without overwhelming your team or budget, follow this phased plan:

• Assess and fix quick wins – to identify and resolve the most pressing pain points that immediately impact productivity and satisfaction.
• Implement core systems – to build the foundational processes and programs that support long-term growth, flexibility, and learning.
• Measure and scale – to track progress, gather feedback, and expand successful initiatives across the organization.

7 mistakes to avoid on the way to improved employee experience

Even the best-intentioned employers make mistakes that harm team member experience. Here are the common pitfalls you must prevent:

• Silicon Valley perks without substance
• Headquarters-biased policies
• Employee surveys without follow-up
• Excessive changes at once
• Overlooking the manager’s impact
• Remote work burnout misconceptions

Silicon Valley perks without substance

Don’t add ping-pong tables and free snacks while ignoring broken processes. Remote European teams don’t care about office perks. They want clear communication, good tools, and growth opportunities.

Headquarters-biased policies

If you require attendance at in-person events for promotion consideration, many remote employees may choose to leave or sacrifice career growth. Remember the famous case where 50% of Dell’s US workforce chose to remain remote despite limitations on promotions.

Employee surveys without follow-up

Survey fatigue occurs when employees perceive the organization won’t act on the results. If you ask for feedback, you must do something visible with it, even if it’s explaining why you can’t fix certain things.

Excessive changes at once

To maintain your focus, you’d better pick 2–3 initiatives per quarter. Let people adjust. Measure impact. Then add more.

Overlooking the manager’s impact 

Workers at organizations with poor management are more likely to be stressed. Train your managers before you change systems.

Remote work burnout misconceptions

Burnout stems from excessive hours and poor work-life separation, not remote work itself. Fix boundaries rather than location.

First steps to an employee’s positive experience with company

Enhancing employee experience isn’t a long-term commitment. But you can start today.

Remember: Every dollar you invest in a positive experience at work returns through retention, productivity, and company reputation.

The businesses that win in 2025 won’t be the ones with the biggest budgets. They’ll be the ones where people genuinely want to work. Start building that business today.

Frequently asked questions about how to improve employee experience