Best Employee Experience Books to Read in 2025

These top employee experience books offer winning strategies to enhance engagement, productivity, and retention.

Understanding and optimizing the employee experience (EX) is a competitive advantage for brands. Employees want to feel that their organizations value their talent and feedback, and investing in EX means you’re actively listening to and engaging with your workforce to make better decisions. By keeping a close watch on employee feedback, as well as satisfaction and sentiment, you’ll reduce burnout and turnover.

Not only that, EX and customer experience (CX) are connected. When businesses empower their employees and harness their insights and suggestions, they are better positioned to deliver on their brand promise and foster stronger customer outcomes, including satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.

If you’re looking to make the most out of your employee experience program and EX strategies, this roundup of the best employee experience books from top thought leaders, management and operational executives, industry experts, and award-winning academics will help you take efforts to the next level in 2025.

8 Must-Read Employee Experience Books to Add to Your Reading List

Whether you work in human resources (HR) or other areas of the business responsible for the EX, these resources will help you build and strengthen your knowledge, so you can reap the benefits of employee experience, including achieving gains in workforce productivity, engagement, and loyalty.

FUSION: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies

• Author: Denise Lee Yohn
• Where to read: Amazon, IndieBound

What do the world’s top organizations do differently when it comes to building their businesses? In FUSION: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies, bestselling author and brand leadership expert Denise Lee Yohn explores why aligning your organization’s brand with your culture is key to unlocking new levels of success.

The book includes exclusive case studies and learnings from interviews with executives from category leaders like Airbnb and Salesforce, and draws upon Yohn’s expertise from over 25 years working with household names like Burger King, Land Rover, Unilever, ASICS, Sony, and more.

Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers

• Author: Fred Reichheld
• Where to read: Amazon, IndieBound

Geoffrey Ryskamp, VP, Executive Advisor for Hospitality at Medallia, who has held management and operational roles with Hilton Worldwide, Marriott International, and more, says Winning on Purpose by Fred Reichheld, the creator of Net Promoter Score (NPS®), a Bain & Company Fellow, Medallia Experience ’24 speaker, and frequent Medallia contributor, is one of his favorite employee experience books.

“It emphasizes the importance of creating a customer-centric culture where employees are empowered to deliver exceptional experiences,” he explains. “It also has practical strategies for building a sustainable and profitable business by putting employees and customers at the center of your purpose.”

The Great Engagement: How CEOs Create Exceptional Cultures

• Authors: Tom Willis and Brad Zimmerman
• Where to read: Amazon, IndieBound

This pick comes from Mathias Axelsson, Client Director, EX lead at the insights division at Medallia’s partner Kantar. 

“Organizational culture is something that is close to our hearts here at Kantar,” he explains. “We have seen over and over again how a strong company culture supports building attractive and successful brands. This great read explores how to build strong workplace cultures where employees feel genuinely connected to their work and the company’s mission.”

In The Great Engagement, authors Tom Willis and Brad Zimmerman, partners at Phoenix Performance Partners — a consulting firm that helps CEOs create stronger organizational cultures — “offer clear guidance and actionable insights into how focusing on your company’s people development can boost your organization’s growth, retention, quality, and profitability,” he adds. 

“This is an inspirational resource for leaders looking to create engaged and motivated teams.”

The Four Factors of Trust: How Organizations Can Earn Lifelong Loyalty

• Author: Ashley Reichheld and Amelia Dunlop
• Where to read: Amazon, IndieBound

From Medallia’s partner Deloitte’s Ashley Reichheld, Principal at Deloitte Consulting, and Amelia Dunlop, Chief Experience Officer at Deloitte Digital, The Four Factors of Trust leverages the co-authors’ more than 40 years of combined experience helping companies reimagine their experiences to fuel growth. 

“This book offers a blueprint for fostering trust across the entire organization — which in turn can create a competitive advantage for brands across industries,” says Marc Solow, Leader, Workforce Analytics at Deloitte. “The formula the authors present is simple: focus on the four factors that matter the most — humanity, capability, transparency, and reliability.”

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

• Author: Daniel Pink
• Where to read: Amazon, IndieBound

Drawing upon four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Daniel Pink’s New York Times bestselling Drive reveals what high-performing teams with high satisfaction have in common. They’re empowered to be autonomous, learn and create new things, and feel a purpose to do better on the job, and that’s important because as the author explores, the three factors that drive motivation are autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In the book, Pink provides practical ways these factors can be put into action. 

“This is a great book for diving into how employees are intrinsically motivated,” says Mike Debnar, Vice President and Executive Advisor for Retail at Medallia, who previously led customer experience and digital innovation at 7-Eleven.

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

• Author: Daniel Coyle
• Where to read: Amazon, IndieBound

This selection on our list comes from Medallia’s blog editor, Samantha Finken Rayner. And it’s no wonder why — The Culture Code from New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle, who has served as an advisor to Microsoft, Google, and more, was named “Best Business Book of the Year” by Bloomberg, BookPal, and Business Insider. This pick takes readers inside some of the world’s leading organizations to reveal what they do differently to cultivate cohesion, cooperation, collaboration, and innovation.

“I’m sneaking in my recommendation because this is my all-time favorite business book,” she explains. “With my own team, I’m always citing the example from this book of how the Pixar team surpasses everyone’s expectations time and again because they set up a culture to solicit honest, direct feedback every day in their creative workflow.”

I Love It Here: How Great Leaders Create Organizations Their People Never Want to Leave

• Author: Clint Pulver
• Where to read: Amazon, IndieBound

Employees should love where they work, right?

Emmy Award-winning speaker Clint Kulver was “The Undercover Millennial” for several years, working with brands such as AT&T, HP, and Keller Williams to improve their cultures and decrease turnover. He conducted thousands of undercover interviews with employees across industries and is uncovering the key factors that shape employee retention in I Love It Here.

According to the book’s listing, “Your company can be a place where people don’t just survive, but thrive. I Love It Here shows you how.”

Experience, Inc.: Why Companies That Uncover Purpose, Create Connection, and Celebrate Their People Will Triumph

• Author: Jill Popelka
• Where to read: Amazon, IndieBound

Jill Popelka, CEO at the cybersecurity AI firm Darktrace and a former executive at Snap and SAP, has over 25 years of experience leading large, global organizations through change. It’s safe to say Popelka knows what it takes to guide an organization’s people and culture to succeed.

In Experience, Inc., Popelka harnesses her experience as well as insights from other global thought leaders to walk readers through the process of laying the foundation for a great employee experience, one that delivers growth across employee well-being, productivity, and effectiveness as well as adaptability, resilience, and growth.

Why You Should Read the Best Employee Experience Books

We’ve curated a list of the best employee experience books to create a positive and engaging workplace culture. Each book offers valuable insights, strategies, and real-life examples you can use to enhance employee engagement, boost productivity, and attract (and retain) top talent.

Whether you’re a leader, HR professional, or aspiring to improve employee experience in another type of role, this list is a go-to resource for transforming your workplace into a thriving environment where all employees succeed.

In 2025, you’ll want to read these best employee experience books for the following reasons:

1. Translate insights into best practices: Employee experience is a crucial aspect of any organization’s success. The best employee experience books listed here provide valuable insights into the strategies, techniques, and best practices that can enhance the overall employee experience. They often feature case studies, real-life examples, and expert advice, allowing readers to learn from successful organizations and apply those principles in their own workplace.

2. Drive increased employee engagement and productivity: A positive employee experience fosters higher levels of engagement and productivity among employees. By reading the best employee experience books we’ve recommended here, you can gain knowledge on how to create an environment where employees feel valued, empowered, and motivated. Implementing the concepts and ideas from these resources can lead to increased employee satisfaction, which in turn positively impacts overall productivity and organizational success.

3. Enhance talent attraction and retention: A strong employee experience is crucial for attracting and retaining top talent. When employees have a positive experience in the workplace, they are more likely to stay with the organization, reducing turnover rates. The best employee experience books our experts have selected provide guidance on creating a supportive culture, effective leadership, and opportunities for growth and development, all of which contribute to attracting and retaining top performers.

4. Foster employee well-being: Employee experience encompasses not only the work environment but also the overall well-being of employees. These best employee experience books often address topics such as work-life balance, mental health, and creating a healthy and inclusive workplace culture. By reading these titles, you can gain insights and ideas on how to prioritize employee well-being and create a work environment that promotes overall health and happiness.

5. Fuel continuous learning and improvement: The field of employee experience is constantly evolving, and reading the best employee experience books allows you to stay updated with the latest trends, research, and ideas. These guides provide opportunities for continuous learning and personal development, enabling you to enhance your skills as a leader or HR professional. By staying informed and adapting to new approaches, you can continuously improve the employee experience in your organization.

Reading the best employee experience books is essential for gaining insights, implementing best practices, enhancing engagement and productivity, attracting and retaining talent, prioritizing employee well-being, and staying updated with the latest trends. By investing time in reading these must-read employee experience books, you’ll make a positive impact on your organization’s employee experience and overall success.

Schedule a demo with a Medallia expert — we’ll share where your employee experience is today and what our award-winning platform does to accelerate its impact on the workforce and business as a whole.