How to Design a Great Employee Experience

Employee engagement is all the rage, so it’s not surprising that a new term has emerged that encompasses engagement: Employee Experience. The employee experience can be defined as the sum of all interactions an employee has with their employer, and includes how the employee perceives the company overall and their role in the company.

A good starting point for designing a great employee experience is to treat people with the same attention and care that you do the customer experience. According to Gavyn McLeod at Igloo Software, “Journey mapping is a tactic that your marketing team is likely using to optimize the customer experience. This tactic works really well to optimize the employee experience too.”

What is journey mapping? An employee journey map is a visualization of the process that a person goes through, which can be used to understand and address employee’s needs and pain points.

Here is an example of journey mapping from the Harvard Business Review. In it you will see the many interactions an employee has with their employer. If these interactions are positive, the employee’s perception of the company overall and their role will be more positive, leading to a positive employee experience and higher employee engagement.

Employee Experience Journey – Harvard Business Review

• Sourcing and recruiting
• Pre-onboarding
• Onboarding (orientation and initial training)
• Compensation and benefits
• Ongoing learning and development
• Ongoing engagement, communication, and community involvement
• Rewards and recognition
• Performance planning, feedback, and review
• Advancement
• Retirement, termination, or resignation

“Engaging customers and employees is about understanding – and delivering on – their needs and expectations,” says McLeod.

WHAT CAN I DO? To reach your employees most effectively and create the best experience, consider doing a journey map for one or more of the processes listed above. I’ve provided a sample template here which you can use to map out a process, in an effort to address employee’s needs and pain points, and create an amazing employee experience.