For working professionals, certain experiences like the first day of work, a promotion, awards, etc., always hold a special place in their life. These moments and experiences, in turn, become an integral part of their career.
By identifying these significant moments and optimizing them, companies can help increase employee engagement and satisfaction.
A Gallup poll found that high employee engagement leads to a 17% boost in productivity and a 41% reduction in absenteeism.
Employee journey mapping is a key exercise that can help companies ensure employee engagement and satisfaction in the workplace.
COVID-19 Has Changed the Workplace as We Know It
Companies use many strategies to boost employee engagement and motivation, but post-COVID-19, the workplace will be totally different. Working from home has become the new normal, and the relationship between employers and employees has been digitized. Amid these changes and the remote working system’s challenges, it has become more important than ever to understand employees’ moods and expectations and create positive experiences using employee journey mapping.
What Is an Employee Journey Map?
An employee journey map is a timeline of an employee’s experiences at an organization, and it has the following benefits:
- It helps employers map out and understand employee journeys.
- Using employee journey maps, employers can visualize employee interactions and experiences.
- It helps create positive experiences for employees, leading to increased productivity at work and greater employee retention.
Employee Journey Mapping to Create Positive Experiences for Remote Employees
Mapping employees’ journeys can help bolster engagement and help companies get great returns on employee investment.
It has become even more significant to map employees’ journeys in the age of remote working for the following reasons:
- The employee-employer relationship has been digitized due to social distancing requirements.
- Employers are struggling to create an employee experience that increases employee engagement and job satisfaction while boosting productivity in remote working environments.
The good news is that employee journey mapping for remote employees is not as outlandish as it may sound. By following the below steps, you can map your employees’ journeys to provide them with a positive experience that brings real value to both workers and the organization.
Step 1: Create an Employee Persona and Make the Job Application Process Smoother
Each of us is different, so segmenting your employees into different groups can help you understand them better and design better plans for their success and contentment. Creating an employee persona based on demographic, gender, personality, career line, professional experience, etc., will help you understand what kinds of employees you want to have in your organization, where to find them, how to communicate with them, and what value to offer them to build a lasting relationship that is beneficial for employees and the organization.
Once you have created your ideal candidate persona, prepare a detailed job description, and provide your candidates with a smooth job application process.
Step 2: Remote Icebreaking Sessions for Successful Onboarding
Just like you would in a physical onboarding session, schedule virtual icebreaking and onboarding sessions with new employees and other team members. This will have the following benefits:
- It will help new workers become accustomed to the people they will be working with.
- It will give them an idea of how the information flows within and between the teams.
Good employee onboarding helps improve employee retention by 82%. Therefore, don’t skip this important step, even if you are working remotely.
Step 3: Communicate Compensation and Benefits Clearly
Before employees start working with your organization, communicate clearly what compensation and benefits package they will be receiving. Make sure to revise their compensation and benefits as your employees grow in their careers.
Step 4: Provide Opportunities for Learning and Development
As per LinkedIn, 62% of organizations are actively engaged in building their employees’ skills to maintain their interests.
If your organization doesn’t provide growth and development opportunities, employees may start looking for jobs elsewhere. Design monthly, quarterly, or semiannual goals for your employees that focus on building different skills.
Step 5: Create Opportunities for Employee Engagement
As per Gallup, highly engaged employees show 21% greater engagement at work.
Therefore, create employee engagement opportunities that make your employees feel accepted, acknowledged, and valued.
- Provide your employees with opportunities to have social interactions with their peers. Organize virtual teambuilding activities, such as virtual gaming sessions, virtual happy hours, team movie nights, etc.
- Take their input when introducing new ideas, and encourage them to have discussions with their peers. Create a prototype of the new ideas to show your employees, and record their thoughts and conclusions. Their insights can be used as input for a larger rollout. Explain to everyone how the process works and what the goals are.
Step 6: Set Goals for Your Employees to Achieve and Review Their Progress
When working from home, it’s easy to get distracted. With definite goals in mind and a set time frame by which to attain those goals, your employees won’t squander their time, and you can review their progress on a quarterly, a semiannual, or an annual basis.
Step 7: Appreciate Their Daily Efforts
When employees don’t feel appreciated or get rewarded after hours of hard work every day, they may feel their time at your organization has been a negative experience. Therefore, make sure to acknowledge the good work they do for your company. The reward doesn’t have to be monetary; even verbal recognition can be just as effective. Employees must feel their daily hard work is being acknowledged and valued.
Additional Tips for Using Employee Experience Insights to Help Remote Employees Feel Happy and Satisfied at Work
- Ask your employees how they feel and how their experience at work has been. This will help you understand what needs to be fixed and how and where the support is needed.
- Ask your employees for feedback to identify what might be killing motivation and meaningfulness in your organization. Identifying these issues can help you create a sense of accomplishment and develop your strengths.
- Evaluate and adjust your employee value proposition to offer more value to employees in return for the great value they are adding to your organization.
- Instead of providing an “employee experience,” shift your focus to enhancing the “human experience” to build a deeper connection with your workers.
Wrap-Up
Currently, most managers not only are working remotely themselves but are also managing their remote teams. Aside from key management skills for your remote team, an employee journey map can help you manage your team most efficiently. A well-implemented employee journey map can improve employee engagement, help you retain your organization’s best talent, and lower employee replacement and recruitment costs.
Emily Johnson is a marketing consultant with 10 years of experience in the execution of marketing strategies. Currently, she heads the marketing department at Blue Mail Media, a business-to-business data solution company based out of Austin, Texas.