What is employee journey mapping? [Benefits, stages & practices]

While everyone talks about the customer experience, it’s easy to overlook the crucial factor: employee experience. Fostering a positive work environment is what makes the brand a success. No doubt, customers are important, but without employees, there is no business. Yet, there are a lot of companies that overlook employee experience and miss out on opportunities to enhance employee satisfaction, retention, and engagement.

Employee journey mapping might sound complex, but it’s about understanding what employees go through and how to enhance their experience. Think of it as a roadmap, guiding us to create a workplace where employees are content.

What is the employee journey mapping?

“Employee journey mapping is a process to visualize the employee experience from hire to exit. “

It involves understanding and identifying the key touchpoints and interactions that employees have with the company. It assesses their emotional state and needs at each stage. It can be used to improve employee experience and retention, boost engagement, and create a positive and productive work environment.

Here are some stats that illustrate the importance of employee journey mapping,

• 72% of the employees feel that a positive onboarding experience makes them more likely to stay with the company for three or more years. (Source: LinkedIn Talent Solutions)
• 89% of employees say that a good employee experience is essential for overall job satisfaction. (Source: Culture Amp)
• 20% of companies have highly engaged employees with higher returns on investment, profitability, and sales. (Source: Gallup)

For instance, a company might discover that its onboarding process is too complex and lengthy. This is where employee journey mapping helps to identify areas where employee experience can be improved. Once these areas are defined, the company can take steps to improve them.

Overall, it’s a powerful way to map the employee journey and help companies create a positive and productive work environment.

Benefits of employee journey mapping

Employee journey maps provide a comprehensive view of an employee’s experience within an organization from the initial stages of recruitment to eventual departure. Just by delving into each touchpoint and understanding the associated emotions and challenges, businesses can gain more insights.

Understanding employee perspectives

Understanding the employee journey helps align the organizational goals with employee experiences, promoting collaboration across departments. Map the employee journeys to get insights into employee needs, pain points, and address their concern effectively. Foster empathy among leaders and decision-makers to lead better employee relationships and positive work culture.

Identifying pain points

Employee journey mapping helps in identifying customer-specific areas where employees face challenges, enabling organizations to focus their efforts and resources on resolving these pain points. By anticipating potential issues, organizations can proactively design interventions and prevent problems before they arise.

Improved engagement and retention

Enhancing positive experience leads to higher employee engagement levels crucial for productivity and organizational success. Employees are more likely to stay with an organization where their experiences are positive, reducing turnover rates and associated costs. One of the best ways to improve employee retention is by using the DevRev platform to keep your teams aligned and motivated.

Enhanced organizational culture

Employee journey map aligns with organizational value and culture with employees’ day-to-day experiences, creating a positive and cohesive work environment. All departments and teams should collaborate effectively after understanding the employee’s journey to foster a supportive workspace.

Driving innovation

Organizations that gain insight from employee journeys can inspire innovative initiatives and solutions. They can lead to new processes, programs, and technologies to enhance employee experience. Moreover, it helps to change the workplace by encouraging employees at different stages of the journey.

Enhanced customer experience

Satisfied employees are more likely to offer excellent customer service. When businesses enhance employee experience and simplify onboarding processes, it leads to fewer complaints. This reduction in issues results in increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Data-driven decision making

Employee journey mapping provides an organization with data-driven insights to make the process easier and focused on improving employee satisfaction and organizational effectiveness. Regularly updating the employee journey map allows the organization to track intervention on time, ensuring continuous adaptability and improvement.

Stages of employee journey mapping

A well-known entrepreneur, J. Willard Marriott, wisely said, “Take good care of your employees, and they’ll take care of your customers, and the customers will come back.

Understanding the stages of employee journey mapping is necessary for a positive employee experience and for maintaining a worthwhile company culture.

1️⃣ Pre-Recruitment

This stage involves attracting and building relationships with customers. It includes activities like,

• Employer branding - To create and promote a positive image of the company as an employer.
• Social media marketing - To use social platforms to connect with potential candidates and share company information.
• Attending job fairs - To meet potential candidates in person and learn about their skills and experience.

2️⃣ Recruitment

This stage is about identifying and hiring the best candidates who are open for the positions. Initially, a company should create a job posting by providing a concise job description and explaining the company’s values and culture to candidates. Next comes the candidate screening round, where candidates are filtered after reviewing resumes and cover letters.

Once the candidate qualifies screening round, an interview will be conducted to find out if they are a good fit for the position and the company. If the candidate successfully navigates all stages of the interview process, the company will extend an offer of employment.

3️⃣ Onboarding

This stage is about welcoming and integrating new employees into the company. Here, the new employees are given the information and resources they need to be successful in their role, including job descriptions, employee handbook, and other access to the company’s system.

Later, they are introduced to colleagues and managers, and training is provided on the company’s products, services, and procedures.

4️⃣ Employee development

In this stage, employee development skills and knowledge are used. Give your employees training and development opportunities. Assign them tasks to challenge them in projects. Provide your employee feedback on their performance along with monitoring and coaching them.

5️⃣ Progression

Employees are given opportunities to advance within the company by taking on new challenges and responsibilities. They can be promoted to senior positions, learn new skills, and set meaningful career goals. Providing these opportunities fosters professional growth and development.

6️⃣ Offboarding

This stage is for supporting an employee during their exit from the company. Here, an exit interview is conducted to learn about the employee experience at the company and identify its areas of improvement. This helps employees transition to their new roles and maintain a positive relationship with employees after they leave the company.

Best practices for employee journey mapping

Employee journey mapping should be a collaborative, data-driven, and iterative process that focuses on how to improve the employee experience and drive business success. Explore the employee journey thoroughly by discovering the best methods for mapping their experience from beginning to end.

1️⃣ Foster cross-functional collaboration

Involve employees from different departments and levels of the organization in the journey-mapping process. This ensures that the mapping is comprehensive and reflects the reality of the employee experience from all sides. Let’s say a company might involve employees from sales, marketing, product development, customer support, and HR in the journey mapping process to foster collaboration.

2️⃣ Emphasize customer-centric touchpoints

Consider how the employee experience impacts the customer experience. Identify all the key touchpoints where employees interact with customers and focus on how to improve the employee experience at these points.

For instance, a company might identify the following client-centric touchpoints in the employee journey:

• Onboarding new sales reps
• Providing customer support
• Managing customer accounts
• Developing new products and features

3️⃣ Integrate external perspectives

Get feedback from customers and other stakeholders on the employee journey. This helps in identifying areas where the employee experience can be improved. A company might conduct customer surveys and interviews to get feedback on how their sales reps and customer support team are performing.

4️⃣ Blend qualitative insights with quantitative data

Use both qualitative and quantitative data to inform the journey mapping process. Qualitative data, such as employee surveys and interviews, provide insights into the employee experience and identify areas that require improvement. Quantitative data, such as website traffic data and customer satisfaction ratings, can be used to measure the impact of changes to the employee journey.

For example, a company uses employee survey data to identify the most common pain points in the onboarding process. They use quantitative data, such as time to the first sale, to measure the impact of any changes they make to the onboarding process.

5️⃣ Craft clear and intuitive visual representation

A visually clear and intuitive employee journey map simplifies the complex information, making it easier for employees to understand their roles, responsibilities, and the support available at all levels. This also promotes engagement, proactive participation, effective communication, and driving positive changes within the organization.

6️⃣ Embrace adaptive and iterative approaches

The employee journey is constantly evolving, so it is important to take an adaptive and iterative approach to journey mapping. This means companies need to review the journey map and make updates as needed regularly.

For example, a company reviews its employee journey map every quarter. This allows them to identify any changes in the employee experience, such as new products or features, and update the journey map accordingly.

7️⃣ Cultivate empathy and engage teams

It is important to cultivate empathy among employees and engage them in the journey-mapping process. This ensures that the journey map is accurate and reflects the real-world experiences of employees.

When an organization conducts workshops or focus groups to collect feedback from employees about their experiences, they can enhance engagement by establishing interactive platforms such as Slack channels or other online forums. These platforms provide employees with an opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas about the journey map freely, fostering a collaborative environment.

8️⃣ Evaluate progress and drive continuous enhancement

Once the employee journey map is in place, it is important to evaluate its progress and make continuous enhancements. This can be done by collecting feedback from employees and customers and by tracking key metrics such as employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction.

Some companies regularly survey employees to measure onboarding satisfaction and track customer ratings, aiming to uncover potential links between employee happiness and customer contentment.

Creating value for employees

Understanding employee journeys through mapping isn’t just a strategy; it’s an excellent way to create significant value for employees. By recognizing their needs and challenges at each stage, businesses can fine-tune their support, ensuring employees get exactly what they asked for. This tailored approach leads to higher satisfaction, loyalty, and overall well-being.

Moreover, employee journey mapping allows businesses to foster a workplace environment where employees feel valued and motivated, which results in mutual benefits for both employees and the organization. Get ready to transform your team’s employee experience by embracing the boundless opportunities offered by AI-powered support tools designed especially for B2B development companies.