The nature of business as we know it is evolving rapidly. Responsive and adaptable organizations can only navigate the markets in today's rapidly changing world. Despite these shifting tides, a company's greatest strength will always be its people.

There is a direct correlation between a happy workforce and a prosperous business. However, "employee experience" and "employee engagement" are often used interchangeably when discussing employee satisfaction. Both concepts are important to employee satisfaction; however, knowing the differences and how they relate will help ensure that employees are happy enough to remain at your company. 

Employee engagement: Definition, drivers and it's future

The term "employee engagement" refers to the degree to which workers invest their time and energy beyond what is expected of them because of their enthusiasm for their jobs and dedication to the company.

Who is responsible for improving employee engagement?

HR isn't the only department responsible for conceiving and carrying out employee engagement initiatives. Although human resources (HR) plays a significant role in implementing employee engagement strategies, leaders and managers in the organization must also participate in the planning and execution of these initiatives.

Employees' openness to an engagement program is crucial to the initiative's success. Therefore, employee engagement should be viewed as a team effort across the entire company. 

What drives employee engagement in an organization?

Engagement is a continuous process throughout an employee's entire career, starting with the recruitment process and the candidate experience and continuing through onboarding, career planning, learning and development, leadership and succession, retirement, or exit from the organization.

The onboarding and hiring processes are just the beginning of the employee engagement journey. However, a candidate can understand the company's communication approach even before being hired.

After being hired, new staff members can gauge their interest in staying with the company through the onboarding procedure. Giving new hires ample time to learn their roles before sending them into the field is one way to boost participation in the onboarding process. 

Work culture 

Although "work culture" is a broad term, specific aspects contribute to initiatives' success to maintain employee enthusiasm.

Numerous studies show that a positive work culture improves employees' health, decreases turnover, boosts loyalty, and boosts productivity.

Workplace happiness is associated with decreased absenteeism, faster recovery from injuries, a lower risk of depression, enhanced memory and concentration, and higher productivity. 

Tools to improve productivity and time management

Several factors, including unscheduled events, meetings, and other distractions at work, can reduce the amount of work an employee gets done in a day. Although the ability to manage one's time effectively is innate, in today's fast-paced workplace, even the most productive workers can benefit from using time-tracking software. 

A direct correlation exists between improved productivity and time management support.

Employee engagement tools include chat and list-making apps like Slack, Wunderlist, and Trello for organizing and prioritizing projects with strict deadlines. These tools can help workers get more done, even with interruptions. 

Possibilities for gaining and refining knowledge and expertise

 Companies that invest in their workers' education and growth through formal training and education programs see increased employee enthusiasm. In return for the company's overt investment in its employees' professional development, those workers will likely be more invested in the company's own development.

Mobile learning and microlearning are two methods through which this kind of education is increasingly being delivered to a generation that is constantly on the move. By adding a sense of competition to the training, even disinterested workers can be motivated to participate and advance their careers.

The future of employee engagement

Today is a fascinating age. People in the past might have been criticized for being uninspired and uncommitted to their jobs (and a little more to their jobs). The best practices for employee engagement have developed as businesses have come to see it as an asset they can foster and shape.

Using employee engagement as a metric can be difficult. Indeed, businesses are starting to prioritize the experience of their workforces over employee engagement. Implementing and measuring employee engagement in a data-driven, tech-enabled manner has increased workers' sense of purpose, fulfillment, and investment in their jobs. Moreover, as the old adage goes, satisfied workers translate into satisfied customers. 

Why is employee experience important in 2022?

The term "employee experience" refers to a worker's impressions of his or her time spent by the company, from applying for a job until the time of resignation. The office itself, the company's culture, and the company's use of technology all play a role in the quality of life at work. 

Employee experience has become increasingly important in the current business landscape, and its significance is set to skyrocket in 2022. A great employee experience can reinforce organizational culture, employee morale, and alignment with mission & vision. 

It can also encourage employee engagement, boost employee productivity, and foster loyalty & retention among employees. 

Companies that offer a memorable employee experience can potentially use it as an attractant & retainment tool to remain competitive with other players in the market. Moreover, a good employee experience reflects well on the brand, allowing them to access new customers & strengthen trust with their existing customers. 

Thus, employee experience is poised to be a major consideration for companies in 2022 when it comes to recruiting new talent and ensuring employee satisfaction.

How can you improve the employee experience?

Now we can define "employee experience" and appreciate its significance. The question is, what elements constitute a positive working environment? Okay, we have the answer.

Support remote workers 

From our experience with COVID-19, we have learned that adaptability is essential. Help your staff out by giving them more leeway in their schedules. When you encourage hybrid workers, you help your staff improve their productivity and health.

Provide expert coaching  

Having the chance to receive coaching is an integral part of expanding one's skill set. The company thrives when its employees are given room to develop professionally.

Think about making coaching available to your staff. Your staff can improve their self-awareness, resilience, and mental fitness with one-on-one coaching.

Understand the role of managers

Managers, as is well-known, have a significant impact on workers' satisfaction. Furthermore, leaders who value diversity and inclusion are crucial. Put money into your management team.

Managers can learn the skills necessary to effect long-term change if given the opportunity to do so through training programs. It's safe to assume that workers won't put in the effort if their superiors aren't either.

Provide learning opportunities

We know how essential it is to have entry to various forms of training and education. It adds up to 31% of the employee experience model overall. Many people who work for you want more chances to learn and advance in their careers.

As a result of the pandemic, many workers are taking a closer look at their own professional paths. Growth-minded workers need chances to develop their skills and potential. They will look elsewhere for better opportunities if they aren't given a chance to grow.

Difference between employee engagement and employee experience

Differences between experience and engagement are what set employee experience apart from employee engagement. Employee experience, in a nutshell, encompasses not just what an employee thinks and feels but also what they see and hear. On the other hand, employee engagement is the degree to which an employee is actively occupied by and committed to their work. The level of employee engagement is one indicator of a positive experience and is strongly linked to output.

In contrast to employee experience, the concept of employee engagement is often associated with a hyper-narrow focus on technology tools, measurement, or perks like free food. Such considerations can be integrated into an overall strategy for improving employees' experiences, but they cannot replace a more comprehensive and long-term plan for doing so.

It is essential to remember that there are numerous distinctions between the various definitions of employee experience and employee engagement. It's possible that different suppliers and experts in the field will use slightly different terminology to describe this phenomenon. 

The majority of companies are not improving, and employees are unhappy, according to many studies conducted over the past decade or more since the employee experience term came into prominence and companies began focusing on employee engagement.

Employee engagement experience examples

 Employee experience is the totality of a worker's interactions with an organization, from the time of hiring until the time of departure. Everything a worker experiences, learns and thinks while on the job is included.

Journey maps are visual representations of the experiences that employees have while working for a company. This method assists the business in gauging how well it is doing in meeting employee expectations, much like customer journey mapping.

Different stages of the employee journey

From the time they apply for a job until they finally decide to quit, every worker experiences a progression of steps. The steps of this journey are as follows:

Recruitment  

The entire procedure for selecting and ultimately employing a new worker is included here. Time to hire, money spent, acceptance rate, and quality of hire are all factors to consider. Were your job ads appealing and straightforward enough to entice top applicants? Were qualified candidates so interested and reassured by your interview process that they quickly accepted your offer of employment?

Employee onboarding

The time during which a new employee learns the ins and outs of his or her job, including how to use all the necessary equipment and procedures. Most new workers require a certain amount of "ramp time" before they can start contributing meaningfully to the company. The goal of any company's onboarding program should be to turn a new hire's excitement about joining the team into a deep sense of belonging and a promise to contribute significantly during their tenure.

Training and development of skills  

Development is an ongoing process throughout the employee life cycle, and it occurs at different rates and in different areas for each person. It's important to track an employee's growth in terms of their productivity, teamwork skills, and career aspirations as they progress through their role.

You should also provide them with opportunities to develop new skills, as this is becoming an increasingly valuable differentiator for many employees who wish to build a "portfolio career" out of a wide variety of work experiences.

Promotions, salary increases, and past performance reviews are examples of annual or semiannual milestones that occur during this phase.

Retaining employees

All staff members have been properly trained and integrated into the company. The onus is on you to ensure they continue to deliver results, grow professionally, and contribute to the business's success. In addition, it's important to ensure they're invested in and motivated by the company's mission.

Supporting employee experience programs can often provide all-inclusive parental leave, extended leave, or sabbaticals and celebrate anniversaries and birthdays, among other things.

Exit

Numerous factors, such as retirement, employment elsewhere, or personal change, contribute to employee turnover.

The reason an employee leaves is a window of opportunity to enhance the company's culture for the benefit of current and future workers.

Those who are leaving may feel they have nothing to hide and thus be more honest about their reasons for leaving.

Steps to formulate an employee journey map

With the help of an employee journey map, you can lay out every crucial step of the process and learn how to optimize it for the best possible outcome. Methods for creating a journey map of the work experience for employees are provided below.

Divide up your workforce into distinct groups  

The first step is creating employee personas or groups of employees with common characteristics. 

Segmentation based on age or gender can be done after the fact, but it's better to start with the function being performed by each group. 

If you compare an engineer's perspective to that of a member of your marketing team, for instance, you'll find that their experiences are vastly different. Use this metric instead of traditional demographic variables like age and gender to divide your workforce.

Create a path for each individual to follow

When you have a firm grasp of your personas, you can begin to sketch out their journeys with your company, beginning with their initial contact (typically before they are hired) and ending with their departure. 

A cross-functional team should be consulted because the various teams and departments involved will likely interact differently. 

It's also important to consider what happens after an employee leaves since even retirees and former employees may return or interact with the company in the future or become advocates for the company.

Integrate suggestions and data into the work experience  

You need to be able to map feedback to each stage of the lifecycle if you want to know the full impact of each interaction on the employee experience. 

The most useful and honest feedback will be provided while the experience is still fresh in the mind of the persona, so make sure there is a feedback mechanism attached to each stage of the journey that meets them where they are and provides the opportunity to give feedback at the moment for each persona.

Align your metrics with the various points in the employee journey  

Your hiring, training, and onboarding departments, to name a few, will likely handle various aspects of the employee experience. Whether you choose to use a simple metric with open-text follow-up questions or a complex one (e.g., Engagement) that are consistent across each measurement, agreement on a consistent approach to measurement is essential for linking insights across the journey.

The key is establishing a core set of metrics that underpin most of your other measurements. Having a consistent set of items in each measurement enables you to look at connections to see how the experience at one touchpoint affects the other. However, exit and onboarding surveys may still have custom questions unique to those processes. 

Automate your feedback management processes for maximum efficiency

It would be inefficient to waste time and resources sending out surveys every time someone completes a training course, gets a promotion, or engages with any of the other milestones along the way.

Instead, link your human resource information system to your employee experience program so that the employee is prompted to provide feedback when a certain milestone is reached.

Make use of the employee journey alongside an engagement survey

Taking a lifecycle view of the employee experience doesn't mean you must stop conducting employee engagement surveys. If you want a deeper understanding of the current state of employee experience and the most important factors contributing to it, the engagement survey should serve as your foundation.

As an alternative to an annual survey, many companies opt for shorter, more frequent surveys, such as engagement surveys twice a year or monthly employee pulse surveys. No matter how you choose to implement it, you must link it to your feedback mechanisms at every stage of the product's lifecycle.

Things you must do to map the employee journey perfectly

Take a step back and look at each stage from different perspectives

There are distinct differences between the various phases of an employee's lifecycle, so it's important to analyze each phase separately while considering all of the factors that go into it.

If you only view a phase from an employee's perspective, for instance, you may fail to account for crucial factors related to pressing business issues. When coupled with the fact that the onboarding team is currently understaffed, the example feedback that employees do not feel supported during the onboarding process becomes much more concrete.

Focus on the end game

Defining goals at the outset of the process is essential for a successful employee journey mapping initiative. If you don't have them, you have no idea when your journey will end or how you can use them to make progress.

For example, you may wonder, "What would the ideal result of the journey mapping work look like?" When pressed further, what is it that this work will contribute to?

Think carefully about who you want to bring in

Doing so can be a delicate balancing act. Avoid "decision by committee" by not including too many people in your journey mapping session; however, make sure those familiar with the various journey steps are included, as they will have the best knowledge of all the factors you need to consider.

Target important subsets of groups

A company's employees can take a variety of paths through the company, each one unique from the others.

Here's where it pays to keep the big picture in mind: if you get bogged down in the details, you may end up with too many paths that only differ slightly from one another, which could end up making the process more difficult than it needs to be.

Consider important subsets in which obvious differences in experience exist or are already apparent, such as remote workers and those in traditional office settings.

Mistakes to avoid when preparing an employee journey map

Using a "one size fits all" policy

Creating a journey map is not something that requires a particular format or template. The framework from which your creations spring is of paramount importance; from there, many companies resort to using whiteboards or giant sticky paper to brainstorm their journey maps.

Stagnation of journey map

Any time there is a major shift in your company's operations, such as a reorganization or the implementation of a new succession planning process, you should review and revise your employee journey maps. Since journey maps are a supporting tool for the organization, their frequency of updates should be determined by how often they are used internally and by how much the organization and its roles have changed. 

Why must organizations focus on employee experience?  

The time has come to treat workers as if they were customers, as they are the ones who ultimately help your company succeed. In light of the current international context, ignoring employee experience will inevitably lead to lower output, lower-quality goods or services, dissatisfied customers, inefficiency, and employee discontentment.

Hybrid workplaces present unique challenges, and transforming employee experience to meet those needs has become essential. An effective strategy for reaching business goals is to foster a positive work environment where employees enjoy each other's company. It is crucial to demonstrate appreciation for employees to enhance employee experience and the organization's culture. Adopting and implementing technology is a powerful tool for improving working conditions and transforming the employee experience.

Wrapping up 

The term "employee experience" is often used interchangeably with employee engagement. A company's greatest asset is engaged employees, but a positive employee experience can boost that. Remember that journey maps are just a jumping-off point for your company to find out what else needs to be done to enhance the employee experience. 

The real value and impact will come from the actions the organization takes, such as collecting more feedback or providing the tools people in the organization need to make improvements at each moment that matters, so journey maps should be part of a larger employee experience strategy.