Employee experience: how do you create a smooth, seamless employee career path?

Talent shortages, well-being in the workplace, employee retention... these are just some of the issues that regularly make the headlines in the HR press, and which demonstrate the extent to which human resources are becoming more central than ever.

In short, they have their work cut out for them, and must now focus on new strategies to set themselves apart from the competition. One of these is the employee journey, directly inspired by marketing.

Indeed, by determining which operations to carry out at each stage of the employee's life cycle within the organization, by means of targeted and relevant actions, HR succeeds in better attracting candidates, as well as retaining and engaging its current employees.

But what exactly are we talking about, and what are the different phases along the way? And how do you create an optimal employee experience?

Follow our comprehensive guide 👇.

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What is the employee journey?

The employee journey, also known as the employee life cycle, defines all the stages in an employee's life with an employer, from recruitment to offboarding.

More specifically, it covers the following phases:

• attraction ;
• recruitment ;
• onboarding ;
• development ;
• retention ;
• career development;
• offboarding.

The notion of the employee journey is thus akin to that of the employee experience, which refers to interactions with the organization, and feelings about the company.

💡 All this is obviously reminiscent of the customer experience and customer journey concepts so dear to marketers! The principle remains the same: to gain a better understanding of an individual's expectations at a given moment in time, in order to provide context-sensitive responses.

The objective for HR is then to think about how best to act at each of these stages, with a view to guaranteeing the well-being, commitment and productivity of teams.

The 7 stages of the employee journey

Stage 1: Attraction

The attraction phase of the employee journey marks the first contact between a company and its future talent. This is where everything comes into play: brand image, employer promise and visibility.

How do you attract the right profiles? By enhancing your employer brand! For example, an engaging career site, authentic testimonials and sincere communication clearly make a difference.

In fact, the aim here is to put in place actions to seduce talent even before they apply, because successful recruitment starts long before the interview!

Stage 2: recruitment

This stage encompasses the entire recruitment process as perceived by the candidate, from the moment he or she learns about the advert or vacancy to the moment he or she signs the contract.

It encompasses several strategic moments:

• initial contact ;
• the various job interviews (during which the candidate is often shown the premises for the first time) ;
• meeting the teams, etc.

In other words, at this stage, the future employee is already forming a precise idea of you... good or bad. That's why it's so important to take good care of the candidate's career path.

Stage 3: Onboarding

This is when the new employee is integrated into the company and gets to know his or her colleagues, work environment, equipment, etc.

This phase is of prime importance, as a "poor welcome" clearly affects the employee's willingness to continue the adventure.

In fact, according to Workelo, 80% of new recruits decide whether or not to stay with the company within the first six months. And those who have benefited from a proper onboarding are 58% more likely to continue than others.

Unfortunately, many recruiters still neglect this stage...

Stage 4: Development

This period corresponds to the employee's day-to-day work and development within the organization. This is an ongoing stage in the employee's career.

Here, your objective can be summed up in one sentence: do everything you can to make them feel at home and want to stay.

As we'll see later on, there are a multitude of actions you can take in this direction, in order to act on :

• his well-being ;
• their work environment ;
• their skills development and desire to progress, etc.

Step 5: Retention

Working to retain employees means reducing high turnover, which weighs heavily on the company, particularly in terms of :

• costs (the recruitment process has a price!) ;
• productivity ;
• know-how retention.

And let's not forget that too many departures can have a negative impact on morale, creating a negative climate which, in turn, encourages other employees to do the same.

Step 6: Career development

A stagnant employee often ends up looking elsewhere. To avoid this, offer them clear prospects.

Career development is based on several levers:

• internal mobility;
• training;
• managerial support, etc.

The aim? To enable everyone to grow without leaving the company. A motivated employee is one who sees a future with you. So define a career plan with them , offer them stimulating challenges and reward their achievements.

Step 7: Offboarding

This is when the employee leaves: new opportunity, retirement, etc.

It's an opportunity to leave one last good impression! But despite the stakes, too many companies still miss the boat.

And yet, a botched offboarding can lead to a disgruntled former employee tarnishing your image.

Why is the employee career path important?

A well-optimized employee career path, in which the company invests, helps to attract, engage and retain talent over the long term.

To achieve this, it is essential to invest human and financial resources at every stage:

• a strong attraction promotes the employer's image and attracts the best profiles;
• well-executed onboarding accelerates integration and skills development;
• a motivating work environment boosts productivity;
• real prospects for career development prevent demotivation;
• good retention limits turnover, and thus preserves know-how within the company.

Ignoring the importance of this process means more departures and a loss of valuable skills. What's more, recruiting and training new employees all the time is expensive.

Ultimately, investing in the employee experience means ensuring the company's long-term viability and competitiveness by focusing on people.

The challenges of the employee journey

To understand and optimize the employee journey, we need to ask the right questions at each stage, in order to provide answers aligned with the employee's needs according to their situation in their life cycle.

💡 That's why some companies map out this journey, so as to:

• understand the key moments ;
• better structure their processes;
• prioritize their actions.

Once the contours of the employee journey have been mapped out, the ultimate goal is to improve the employee experience from start to finish, without focusing on a single stage. It's a good idea to ask yourself what the employee's specific characteristics are today, and what their expectations are at each stage, with the aim of :

• make it easier to recruit the best talent;
• get the best out of your employees ;
• build loyalty.

☝️ This is a major challenge, given the many issues facing HR:

• recruitment difficulties, particularly in certain sectors such as the tech industry;
• increasing employee turnover;
• disengagement of certain employees, as evidenced by the Quiet Quitting phenomenon, etc.

How can you improve the employee experience? 9 essential tips

Tip 1: Develop your digital transformation

Optimizing the employee experience now requires the digital transformation of the HR function. The need to streamline processes, in the face of the increasing complexity of the profession, calls for the use of appropriate software, such as HRIS.

These tools have the advantage of transforming the employee experience at every key stage, thanks in particular to the automation of operations that streamline many phases of the process (onboarding, skills management, assessments, etc.). What's more, managers gain access to precise data for personalized follow-up, while employees benefit from more dynamic interactions.

💡Sof tware examples:

• Lucca is a comprehensive, modular HR suite that simplifies, modernizes and humanizes human resources management. With a pretty, intuitive interface, as well as extensive functional coverage (employee files, talent, time and activities, etc.), pilot all activities linked to the employee career path. Give employees the autonomy they need, and boost their commitment!
  
  
• UKG saves you precious time on time-consuming tasks, so you can focus on higher value-added missions . What's more, employees can manage their requests autonomously, and have access to a knowledge base, making it easy for them to obtain the information they need to improve their experience.

Tip 2: Map the employee journey

As mentioned above, mapping the employee journey helps you to define, prioritize and deploy your actions more intelligently.

To do this, start by segmenting your employees according to their position in their lifecycle, to get a precise idea of their desiderata according to their situation.

Then, to identify which levers to activate at each phase, rely on :

• employee feedback;
• analysis of your HR indicators, including those gathered by your software.

Tip 3: Communicate your employer brand and corporate culture

Faced with an increasingly tense job market, every HR department has to ask itself how it can differentiate itself from competing companies to attract the best talent.

That's why employee experience and employer brand go hand in hand, since it's through the latter that :

• your corporate culture ;
• the working conditions you offer
• the managerial practices in place;
• the organization's values and raison d'être.

Through all these components, you therefore enhance the value of your company, right from the start of the process, at the moment of recruitment.

💡 What's more, strengthening corporate culture inevitably means moving more in line with the aspirations of today's workforce, and therefore improving the working lives of existing employees.

Tip 4: Optimize your recruitment process

It's often through your recruitment process that the employee interacts with the employer for the first time. Don't neglect it!

💡 Here are a few tips along these lines:

• Be clear and transparent about your expectations as soon as the position is advertised, to avoid wasting time on a candidate who ultimately turns out not to be aligned. For example, working people appreciate a salary (or at least a salary range)... a fact that many recruiters have unfortunately failed to take on board.
  
  
• Be modern and playful in the way you conduct interviews. Of course, design professional tests in line with the skills required for the position.
  
  
• Inform the candidate in detail about the stages of the process, deadlines and the company players involved.
  
  
• ALWAYS reply to applications, even if they are rejected. Nothing is more frustrating for an applicant than to be constantly waiting for an answer.

💡 Once again, the use of specialized software will support you in your approach. Not only does data automate the identification of the right profiles with regard to your expectations, but these tools also streamline operations as a whole, to gain in responsiveness.

Tip no. 5: Take care when integrating new employees

We can't stress this enough, but onboarding a new employee is PRI-MOR-DIAL.

So make sure that his or her first day in the company, and the weeks that follow, go off without a hitch.

To start with, make sure they have all the information they need before they arrive: how the company works, working hours, etc. Why not prepare a welcome booklet, with a staff photo gallery, for example?

On the big day, make sure your new employee's supervisor is also available, so that you can support him/her and answer his/her (many) questions. In fact, maintain these moments of exchange afterwards, through regular meetings.

Of course, everything has to be nickel-plated in terms of workstation preparation, software installation and so on.

Finally, don't forget the traditional welcome drink or lunch, perfect moments for integrating the new recruit into the new team.

Tip no. 6: Improve the Quality of Life at Work (QWL)

Well, we may be stating the obvious, but the employee's development within the company (in other words, his or her day-to-day life once the rush of the first few weeks is over) requires a high quality of working life at all times.

To achieve this, there are a multitude of levers to activate. But here are the major trends of the moment:

• Offer more flexibility and telecommuting. Every HR manager knows that work/life balance is now one of the main aspirations of working people.
  
  
• Develop a modern management style, such as participative management, holacracy or the liberated enterprise.
  
  
• Offer fair remuneration, commensurate with the work performed, and equitable between different employees.
  
  
• Don't neglect the working environment, both in terms of premises, spaces, and the hardware and software made available.

💡 For inspiration, dip into our workplace well-being idea box!

Tip no. 7: Support employees' development within the company

Many employees end up leaving their company, despite good working conditions, because a certain weariness sets in. They can no longer find meaning in their activities.

That's why we need to think about how to offer real prospects for development: promotion to a higher position, integration of new missions, etc.

💡 To do this, deploy a solid skills management system, to best palliate your needs while satisfying certain employees' desire for change. Complement this work with a training plan to establish what is needed in this area and then take the necessary measures.

Tip 8: Encourage HR/employee communication

By gathering feedback, you can pinpoint the bottlenecks that stand in the way of a good employee experience. Not to mention the fact that an employee who feels listened to will be more committed.

Here, we're thinking primarily of professional and annual appraisal interviews. Although the latter are not compulsory, they are still recommended to take stock of operational performance and the achievement of objectives. What's more, they provide an ideal opportunity to find out how the employee wishes to progress.

But once a year isn't enough! That's why more and more organizations are setting up a system of regular feedbacks, via software, to get the word out.

Tip 9: End on a high note with offboarding

Missing an offboarding, and thus leaving the employee with a tarnished final image, means running the risk of bad press.

Communication must therefore remain optimal and healthy right to the end. Listen carefully to the reasons for the employee's departure, and be transparent both to the employee and to the rest of the team.

Make sure, too, that the handover goes smoothly and seamlessly, so as not to overburden the remaining employees and the successor any more than necessary.

On his or her last day, the employee will appreciate the presence of his or her manager, as well as a thank-you for good and loyal service. On the HR side, remember to prepare all the administrative documents he or she will need, to avoid him or her chasing you afterwards.

Finally, if the person concerned agrees, organizing a farewell party, accompanied by a small token of appreciation, is always welcome 🥂🎉.

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What to remember about the employee journey?

Attraction, recruitment, onboarding, development, retention, career development and offboarding - these are the 7 stages of the employee journey. For each of these stages, as with a customer, a targeted strategy is needed to deliver the best possible experience. The aim: to attract the best talent... and keep it!

To achieve this, you can act on a number of factors: quality of working life, employer brand and corporate culture, recruitment processes, skills management... It's up to you to define your priorities according to your challenges and the feedback you receive.

However, one thing is certain: using the right software solution can make all the difference. By centralizing your data and automating a large part of your operations, you'll have more bandwidth to tackle higher-value tasks... to pamper your teams in short 😉.