How Sykes lives it's EX

Summary

Employee experience has become a defining differentiator in the business process outsourcing industry, where retaining and motivating a large, distributed workforce directly shapes customer service quality. Examining how Sykes, a longstanding provider of multichannel demand generation and customer engagement services, structures its approach to employee experience offers a window into what a mature EX program looks like at scale.

The company's approach spans communication infrastructure that connects management and frontline staff in real time, a cloud-based service delivery platform designed to break down the walls of the traditional call center, and structured learning and development programs including peer mentoring and leadership advancement tracks. A dedicated initiative focused on training and empowering women in the workplace runs alongside broader diversity and inclusion commitments.

Sustainability and social impact goals are woven into the same framework, with targets around reducing paper use, cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and minimizing waste across company sites, reflecting how employee experience programs increasingly extend beyond traditional HR benefits into environmental and social governance territory.

• Cloud-based service delivery and internal communication tools
• Peer mentoring and leadership development programs
• Diversity, inclusion, and sustainability commitments

Looking at how these elements fit together raises a question relevant to any large customer-service employer.

What separates an employee experience program that merely meets baseline expectations from one that becomes a genuine talent magnet?