Employee Experience Questionnaire (EXQ)

Abstract

The Employee Experience Questionnaire (EXQ) is a German-language psychometric instrument designed to capture a holistic view of the Employee Experience (EX) within organizational settings. Employee experience is conceptualized as the major perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors exhibited by employees within their organizations. The EXQ is a hierarchical model consisting of 21 items loading onto four distinct, yet related, core constructs: Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Individual Engagement, and Collective Engagement. The scale demonstrates robust psychometric properties, including high internal consistency across all subscales. Substantial correlations with theoretically related and unrelated constructs provide strong evidence for the instrument’s convergent, divergent, and criterion validity, supporting its utility for both academic research and practical organizational diagnostics.

Keywords

Employee Experience, Job Attitudes, Organizational Psychology, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Individual Engagement, Collective Engagement, Psychometric Scale

Authors

Dr. Josef A. Fischer, Prof. Dr. Hendrik Hüttermann, Prof. Dr. Simon Werther

Purpose

The primary purpose of the EXQ is to provide an efficient and comprehensive measure for assessing the multi-dimensional construct of Employee Experience. By integrating four key attitudinal and behavioral components—satisfaction, commitment, and individual and collective engagement—the EXQ allows organizations to generate evidence-based insights into core aspects of employee well-being and attachment.

The instrument is highly versatile, suitable for diverse diagnostic applications, particularly within empirical organizational research and practical human resource management. Specific uses include measuring organizational attractiveness (especially critical in sectors facing a shortage of skilled labor), assessing employee retention strength, and supporting change management initiatives. The EXQ is particularly valuable for repeated, longitudinal measurements, enabling organizations to monitor changes in employee attitudes and evaluate the effectiveness of strategic interventions, restructurings, and transformation activities over time.

Construct

The EXQ measures the overarching construct of Employee Experience (referred to as the “EX-Factor”), which is conceptualized as a higher-order latent variable capturing shared variance among four distinct, yet correlated, first-order constructs. This hierarchical structure provides a comprehensive profile of employee experiences within an organization.

The four primary dimensions measured by the EXQ include: Job Satisfaction, which captures emotional reactions related to various facets of work life (e.g., colleagues, supervisor, compensation); Organizational Commitment, defined as the affective bond, identification, and emotional involvement employees feel toward their organization; Individual Engagement, which refers to the motivational state of an individual and the extent to which they invest their cognitive, affective, and behavioral resources into their work tasks; and Collective Engagement, which reflects the shared experience within a group (e.g., team or organization) and the collective mobilization of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral potential to meet shared challenges.

Validity

The validity of the EXQ was established through analysis of its convergent, divergent, and criterion validity, demonstrating that the scales measure distinct constructs and correlate appropriately with relevant external variables.

Construct Validity (Convergent and Divergent): Pearson correlations were calculated between the EXQ subscales and three theoretically relevant constructs: perceived meaning of work, psychological safety, and persuasive vision. The results supported the theoretical alignment: Individual Engagement showed the highest correlation with the meaning of work (r = .61), Organizational Commitment correlated most strongly with psychological safety (r = .58), and Collective Engagement had the strongest link with persuasive vision (r = .50). These differentiated patterns of correlation confirm both the convergent validity (high correlation with related constructs) and divergent validity (lower correlation where constructs are theoretically distinct) of the EXQ subscales.

Criterion Validity: Criterion validity was assessed by examining correlations with three key organizational outcomes: turnover intention (Wechselbereitschaft), employer attractiveness, and organizational adaptability. The overall EX-Score showed significant negative correlation with turnover intention (r = -.53) and positive correlations with employer attractiveness (r = .42) and organizational adaptability (r = .21). Furthermore, specific subscales demonstrated criterion-specific relationships: Collective Engagement correlated most highly with organizational adaptability (r = .39), while Organizational Commitment showed the strongest link with perceived employer attractiveness (r = .43), confirming the practical utility of the EXQ in predicting important organizational metrics.

Reliability

The reliability of the EXQ was assessed using measures of internal consistency, specifically Cronbach’s alpha (α) and McDonald’s omega (ω). The internal consistency across all four subscales was consistently found to be good to very good, confirming the reliability of the instrument.

• Job Satisfaction: α = .80; ω = .81
• Organizational Commitment: α = .91; ω = .91
• Individual Engagement: α = .85; ω = .86
• Collective Engagement: α = .77; ω = .79

Factor Analysis

The scale development involved rigorous factor analysis to confirm the hypothesized hierarchical structure of the EXQ.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA): An exploratory principal axis factor analysis using oblique Promax rotation extracted four factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, collectively explaining 61% of the total variance. While a clear simple structure was observed, minor cross-loadings were present, notably between satisfaction with compensation (.35) and developmental opportunities (.26) onto the Organizational Commitment factor, and satisfaction with colleagues (.26) onto the Collective Engagement factor. These moderate cross-loadings are considered theoretically explainable.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA): A hierarchical measurement model using structural equation modeling (SEM) was tested, positioning the four first-order factors (Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Individual Engagement, and Collective Engagement) as loading onto a single, higher-order latent “EX-Factor.” The model fit indices indicated a good fit for the hierarchical structure: χ² = 535.116, df=185, p =.00, CFI = .93, IFI = .93, TLI = .92, RMSEA =.06, SRMR = .05, AIC = 669.12. Standardized factor loadings ranged from .51 to .92. This hierarchical model was found to be superior to a simple one-factor model (which exhibited poor fit) and slightly preferred over a four-correlated-factor model, based on the lower Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) value, supporting the theoretical foundation of the EXQ.

Instrument

Test Type: Psychometric Questionnaire (Self-Report)

Format: 21 items distributed across four subscales, utilizing 7-point Likert scales. The response scales differ based on the construct being measured (satisfaction vs. agreement).

Language Available: German (deutsch). The scale was developed through rigorous back-translation procedures (Brislin, 1970) based on validated English-language scales.

Population Group: Employees in organizational settings.

Age Group: Adult working population (20 to over 60 years old in the validation sample).

Population Details: Validation sample comprised N=467 individuals from diverse industries including public administration, healthcare, medical technology, metal and electrical industries, and finance and insurance sectors. 44% male, 56% female. Data collection occurred via online survey (CSAQ; Internetumfrage) in 2018 and 2019.

Test Methodology: Computer-Supported Assessment Questionnaire (CSAQ), typically administered online. Estimated processing time is approximately 5 minutes.

Keywords

Arbeitszufriedenheit, organisationales Commitment, individuelles Engagement, kollektives Engagement, Organisationales Verhalten, HR Diagnostics, Employee Retention, Organizational Attractiveness

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses: Dr. Josef A. Fischer: [email protected]; Prof. Dr. Hendrik Hüttermann: [email protected]; Prof. Dr. Simon Werther: [email protected]

Correspondence Address: Prof. Dr. Hendrik Hüttermann, Lehrstuhl für Leadership & Organizational Behavior, Universität der Bundeswehr München.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Status of Development: Tested (erprobt).

Test Year: Data collection for validation occurred in 2018 and 2019.

Permissions/Fees: Information regarding formal licensing or fees is not explicitly provided in the source content, but contact details for the authors are available for inquiries.

Reference’s

The scale development and theoretical background draw upon established literature in organizational psychology, including:

• Barrick, M. R. et al. (2015).
• Bortz, J., & Döring, N. (2006).
• Brislin, R. W. (1970).
• Byrne, Z. S. et al. (2016).
• Christian, M. S. et al. (2010).
• Edmondson, A. C., & Lei, Z. (2014).
• Eldor, L. (2019).
• Fischer, J. A., & Hüttermann, H. (2020).
• Frazier, M. L. et al. (2017).
• Harrison, D. A. et al. (2006).
• Hüttermann, H., & Bruch, H. (2019).
• Judge, T. A., & Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D. (2012).
• Kahn, W. A. (1990).
• Kinicki, A. J. et al. (2001).
• Lu, Y., & Ramamurthy, K. (2011).
• Mathieu, J. E., & Zajac, D. M. (1990).
• Meyer, J. P. et al. (2002).
• Mowday, R. T. et al. (1979).
• Newman, D. A. et al. (2010).
• Newman, D. A. et al. (2016).
• O’Driscoll, M. P., & Beehr, T. A. (1994).
• Pearce, C. L., & Ensley, M. D. (2004).
• Rich, B. L. et al. (2010).
• Riketta, M. (2002).
• Schaufeli, W. B. et al. (2006).
• Schermelleh-Engel, K. et al. (2003).
• Smith, P. C. et al. (1969).
• Stegmann, S. et al. (2010).
• Tallon, P. P., & Pinsonneault, A. (2011).
• van Hoye, G., & Lievens, F. (2009).
• Webster, J. R. et al. (2014).
• Williams, L. J. et al. (2009).
• Young, H. R. et al. (2018).

Items of the Employee Experience Questionnaire (EXQ)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Instruktion

Bitte kreuzen Sie jeweils das Antwortfeld an, das am besten beschreibt, inwieweit Sie der jeweiligen Aussage zustimmen.

Items

Items des EXQ

Antwortvorgaben

Für die Skala Arbeitszufriedenheit erfolgt die Beantwortung der Items auf Basis der folgenden siebenstufigen Skalenanker:

1. sehr unzufrieden
2. unzufrieden
3. eher unzufrieden
4. weder unzufrieden noch zufrieden
5. eher zufrieden
6. zufrieden
7. sehr zufrieden

Die Beantwortung jedes Items der Skalen organisationales Commitment, individuelles Engagement und kollektives Engagement erfolgt auf Basis der folgenden siebenstufigen Skalenanker:

1. stimme gar nicht zu
2. stimme nicht zu
3. stimme eher nicht zu
4. bin neutral
5. stimme eher zu
6. stimme zu
7. stimme voll und ganz zu