The Employee Journey Mapping work has often taken a backseat to the company's many other business areas. Maybe because using Employee Journey Mapping has never made more sense than it does today.
Most experts would probably agree that employee journey mapping is an excellent way of providing insight that can form a strong basis for creating good employee experiences. Yet Ennova’s international EX survey shows that just 10% of the 548 participating HR departments have charted the employee journey to a high degree and identified the most significant factors that drive the employee experience. 54% say they have only done this to a lesser degree. There can be three primary reasons for this:
It takes considerable courage on the part of the company management and a belief that focus on the employee experience, with employee journey mapping as a guide, has a positive effect on the classic parameters in a business. With that said, we are now in a period where it has never been more relevant to begin working on employee journey mapping.
Today, employees practically demand that a workplace takes into account personal preferences and creates tailored employee experiences. Companies are constantly fighting for the best employees, and one of the things that can put the company ahead of the pack is the company taking into account and making room for personal preferences along the way in the work. There is no mistaking any more just how much companies have to gain by taking into account employees’ differences and preferences.
In the search for the best future work methods among many different preferences, Employee Journey Mapping proves its worth by ensuring that differences are communicated and clear. One result of Ennova’s survey shows that the wish/need to work from home is very different depending on the employee's age and their job. In other words, there is no such thing as one size fits all when it comes to a good employee experience. How do you design and put in place an optimal work procedure for your many different employees if you do not know their preferences?
I am convinced that it would be practically impossible – and the result would not likely be optimal for either the employees or the company. That is why most companies need to take the first step toward implementing employee journey mapping as a way of working with employee experiences.
If you – and that primarily means your CEO – has also recognized that Employee Journey Mapping is the next step for you in terms of creating good experiences for your employees, from then on it is a matter of getting the ball rolling. Keep it simple, and start with small steps. That means you should not launch a comprehensive transformation plan or involve all staff in the beginning.
In this book "Mastering Employee Experiences" you will find a detailed procedure, but a simple startup plan might look something like this:
Employee Journey Mapping is not a one-off affair, but rather an iterative process requiring that you revisit the work, as employees’ needs, demands and contexts change regularly. Only when you take the employees’ perspective and go through the employee journey in their shoes are you in a position to create the best employee experiences in your company.