Employee journey
WorkBuzz helps you gather real-time feedback from your people and use this information to improve employee engagement by creating a more inclusive culture.
What is an employee journey?
An employee journey is the term used to describe the portion of an employee’s career spent within a single organisation. Consequently, some individuals’ employee journeys could be very short – just a matter of a few weeks – while others are likely to be much longer. Of course, an employee journey isn’t merely a record of how long someone has been on the payroll of a company or government department. It will also include all of the significant changes that have happened during their time there.
Based on unique insights from over 300 HR professionals and organisational leaders, The State of Employee Engagement 2021 report reveals HR’s biggest priorities right now, the challenges ahead for hybrid working, and uncovers the great employee engagement divide.
Why is it important to map employee journeys?
When we consider the business investment of employing someone to do a job, employee journeys should be an important consideration. Some people come on board with all the skills and attributes that a company needs but it is more often the case that new employees need to learn how their organisation works before they can start being truly productive. Typically, after an onboarding or an orientation period, workers will start to add value and, essentially, offer a return on their employer’s investment in them. Further investment following appraisals may be needed for retraining or for acquiring new skills. If these parts of an employee’s journey go well, then a further return on investment will be achieved, even if the employee’s greater skill set makes them more employable and, therefore, they demand more in terms of remuneration.
However, if employees’ journeys end before their full potential has been reached, then the return on investment the employer might have expected won’t necessarily be maximised. Indeed, much of the investment the employer has made in terms of onboarding and training might be lost if employees choose to leave before they have completed their journey. Of course, all organisations face staff churn and people come and go for all sorts of reasons. Nevertheless, by mapping all employees’ journeys within a company, charity or other organisation, a better picture can be gained of what is going well for HR and what is not.
What are the benefits of creating employee journeys?
There certainly are numerous benefits of mapping your employees’ journeys. For one, you will be able to compare the return on investment you get from one demographic group compared to another. Perhaps you will discover that women tend to have shorter career journeys than men in your organisation. If so, what can you do to improve that and ensure the human return on investment you get from women is as good as it is for men? Of course, this is just an example – you might equally want to compare the employee journeys of graduates versus non-graduates or older people versus younger workers. Doing so will maximise your productivity by helping you to make rational decisions about where best to allocate your human resources.
Mapping employee journeys may also reveal structural issues that need to be resolved. Perhaps you can extend the average tenure of employees by offering long service incentives? Maybe you will be able to identify that people tend to leave mid-career if they’ve been passed over for promotion more than once? If so, what can you do to stem the outward flow of experienced workers? Understanding this is a key benefit of employe journey analysis.
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What should employers do to improve an employee’s journey?
Employers need to start mapping their employees’ journeys if they don’t already. Without this basic data, HR departments will often be making decisions based on guesswork and not facts. Analysing information you collect on all employees’ journeys won’t mean you can immediately find answers to the problem areas you identify. However, whatever decisions senior managers make will be based on quantified data rather than a hunch.
Even worse, companies that don’t map their employees’ journeys will have no idea that taking a simple step like making their internal promotion procedures more transparent might help them to retain their key staff. Sometimes, just recognising significant milestones on a worker’s journey is enough to keep them content and engaged in what they do. For example, three, five and ten-year stints of employment should all be recognised in some way even if no particular bonus is offered
How can WorkBuzz surveys help?
At WorkBuzz, our secure online employee feedback platform is an essential tool in helping employers to gather the data on their employees that will lead to better and more strategic decision-making. By asking members of staff what they think – but also what they feel about the current journey they are on – it becomes much simpler to make clear decisions about HR strategies. Some workplaces will welcome long service bonuses whereas others might find that retraining and multiple career path options are what employees most value. By quantifying what your employees think and adding this to data gathered from mapping employees’ journeys, employers can drastically improve their return on investment among their workforce, lower rates of staff turnover and create a more inclusive workplace culture.
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