Employee Experience 2.0: the cross-functional super team every company needs in 2026

Photo by Yulia Matvienko on Unsplash

Every January, every company rushes to set intentions – new engagement targets, new culture initiatives and new digital tools. But too often these resolutions sit on top of the same old structures – siloed teams, fragmented ownership and disconnected decisions. The problem isn’t ambition, it’s architecture.

In 2026, employee experience (EX) has become one of the most powerful levers for attraction, engagement, productivity and retention. But it’s also outgrown the capacity of any single function to manage alone. Employees don’t experience work as HR policies, IT systems and internal messages. They experience it as one interconnected system which is seamless when it works, frustrating when it doesn’t.

To get ahead and stay ahead in 2026, companies need to recognise one simple truth – EX is no longer a departmental responsibility, it’s a cross-functional product that requires cross-functional thinking and cross-functional action.

EX is too interconnected to live in one department

The EX Super Team exists to solve a problem everyone feels, but no one truly owns – the complexity of the modern workplace. Twenty years ago, employee experience was relatively contained. HR managed policies and culture, IT ran systems and internal comms shaped the narrative. The boundaries were clear and manageable. That world no longer exists. Today, EX is shaped by a web of interconnected forces. From digital workplace tools and hybrid work models to people analytics, psychological safety, cultural belonging, leadership visibility, and constant transformation. Of course employees don’t experience these as separate streams, they experience them as one system. So if communication is inconsistent or the culture feels misaligned, employees don’t stop to ask who owns what, they simply experience friction, confusion or disengagement.

That’s why traditional ownership models, siloed, linear, and territorial by nature, can’t keep pace with this reality. HR cannot deliver EX without the right technology. IT cannot deliver EX without understanding people and culture. Internal comms cannot deliver EX when messages contradict policies, systems or behaviours. It’s all connected, even if your departments aren’t.

So what does an EX Super Team actually look like?

The EX Super Team is not a soft collaboration model, it’s an operational accelerator that brings HR, IT and Internal Communications together into a single strategic unit with:

• one shared mandate (employee experience),
  
• one set of priorities and KPIs,
  
• one coordinated roadmap, and
  
• one aligned approach to change and communication.

The application may vary, but the intention is the same. Microsoft co-developed its Viva employee experience platform by integrating HR, IT and Comms into one design process, running EX like a product, not a service lane. Airbnb aligned HR, IT and Internal Comms under a Chief Employee Experience Officer, treating employee experience with the same intentionality, emotional intelligence and rigour as its guest experience. Unilever operates “Connected Experience” committees where people, culture, systems and communication are designed together – particularly critical for large, frontline-heavy workforces. These organisations understand something fundamental – you can’t deliver a cohesive experience with a fragmented structure.

5 reasons the EX Super Team model works for the modern workplace:

1. Better digital adoption

When HR and Comms are embedded with IT, employees receive stronger onboarding, clearer guidance and better support, reducing frustration and accelerating productivity.

2. Faster, more cohesive change

Change fails when technology, communication and people readiness move out of sync. The EX Super Team removes this fragmentation by design, as much as delivery.

3. One united voice, not multiple competing messages

Employees experience greater clarity and trust when communication is integrated with policy and platform decisions.

4. Stronger culture and belonging

When systems, behaviours and messages reinforce the same values, the culture becomes something employees live and own, not something they’re told about and oblige.

5. Measurable EX outcomes

Shared KPIs align teams around engagement, retention, time-to-productivity, wellbeing, inclusion and manager effectiveness.

All aboard? Beware these pitfalls

Building an EX Super Team is powerful, but it’s not effortless. Common obstacles include territorialism (who owns what), misaligned KPIs, differing operating rhythms (IT sprints, HR governance, Comms storytelling), unclear governance, budget fragmentation, and leaders unfamiliar with shared ownership models. But the biggest challenge is often mindset. This model requires each function to let go of siloed identity and step into a shared one. It demands trust, transparency and a willingness to think systemically. That’s a big ask, but the payoff is a unified, intentional employee experience that every function benefits from.

10 practical steps to make it work in 2026

1. Set a single EX north star: design an employee experience that enables people to thrive and the business to grow.
2. Create shared KPIs: align HR, IT and Comms around the same success measures.
3. Build one joint EX roadmap: ensure decisions move together, not in parallel streams.
4. Map the employee journey end-to-end: from recruitment to exit, identify friction, duplication and silence.
5. Form an EX steering committee: include senior leaders who can unlock budget and remove blockers.
6. Integrate comms early: involve internal comms at inception, not change rollout.
7. Treat digital tools as cultural tools: understand that the digital workplace is the employee experience.
8. Share data dashboards: create transparency and build trust through one source of truth.
9. Co-own employee listening: analyse and act on feedback together.
10. Celebrate joint wins: reinforce the identity of the EX Super Team by highlighting shared success, not departmental victories.

EX is not an option, it’s an intention

In 2026, EX stops being accidental and starts being intentional. Driven by the EX Super Team, where HR, IT and Internal Comms operate as one aligned powerhouse, organisations move faster, communicate with clarity, support people more effectively and build cultures that feel consistent – from login to leave day. In this high-functioning reality, the EX Super Team is just a matter of time, and priority.