Uncorrected Author Proof Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems xx (20xx) x–xx DOI:10.3233/JIFS-179467 IOS Press 1 Evaluation of positive employee experience using hesitant fuzzy analytic hierarchy process 1 2 3 Didem Yildiz, Gul T. Temur, Ahmet Beskese ∗ and Tunc Bozbura 4 Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, Turkey 5 Abstract. In contemporary business world, employees are one of the core competencies of organizations and to attract, retain, and engage talented employees is crucial for organizations for sustainable success. Understanding and leveraging employee experience is one of the tending topics for organizations because positive employee experience affects employees’ attachment, engagement and loyalty to the organization. Human resource management departments and leaders can apply different strategic initiations to boost employee experience in their organizations. In this study, we aim to design an integrated model for leaders and organizations to guide them for creating positive employee experience to have engaging, enjoyable, and productive work environment. The integrated model includes two phases: (1) evaluation of criteria affecting positive employee experience by hesitant fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (HFAHP) and (2) developing a practical scoring procedure to help companies with their self-assessments by using fuzzy simple additive weighting (FSAW) method. In the first phase, four main and sixteen sub-criteria are taken into consideration. For the second phase, the application of the integrated model is demonstrated with a numerical example from real world. The results indicate that for positive employee experience, leadership has the highest importance followed by human capitals’ development opportunity, positive organizational culture, and communication. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Keywords: Employee experience, employee engagement, hesitant fuzzy sets, hesitant fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, fuzzy simple additive weighting, multi criteria decision making 19 20 1. Introduction 21 ‘War of talent’ is one of the trending topics in 22 human resource management (HRM) as business 23 world shifts from service to knowledge-based indus- 24 try and innovation has become indispensable for 25 organizations. Attract, retain, and engage talent have 26 become the main objectives of organizations [1] as 27 talent is rare and difficult to find in labor market [2]. 28 Moreover, employees are one of the core competen- 29 cies of organizations for promoting effectiveness and ∗ Corresponding author. Ahmet Beskese, Faculty of Engineer- ing and Natural Sciences, Bahcesehir University, Ciragan Caddesi No: 4 – 6 34353 Besiktas, Istanbul, Turkey. Tel.:+90 212 381 0561; E-mail: ahmet.beskese@eng.bau.edu.tr. 30 efficiency. Talented employees bring success to the 31 organizations [3] and create competitive advantage 32 [4]. Millennials started to become more dominant in 33 work life and they prefer to have productive, enjoy- 34 able, and engaging work experience [5]. As a result 35 of these, organizations started to focus on their mar- 36 keting view from outside to inside and employees are 37 considered to be internal customers [6]. 38 Human Resources (HR) departments organize and 39 apply several actions to retain talent [7] and increase 40 their satisfaction, engagement, performance, and 41 motivation [8]. Creating positive employee experi- 42 ence in organizations is one of the HRM actions that 43 can bring employees together to create synergy in 44 organizations. Employee experience is a new form of 45 ISSN 1064-1246/19/$35.00 © 2019 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved