At JobAligner, we place great value on mapping out the employee journey in detail. Our focus is on increasing employee engagement throughout the entire journey. We know how crucial this is for the success of your organization. When your employees feel appreciated, it contributes to a positive and productive company culture. It also enhances your reputation and strengthens your relationship with clients. In short, optimizing the employee journey also leads to a greater sense of work happiness.
With an integrated approach to the employee journey, you gain more than just a clear insight into each employee’s journey, experience, and development needs. JobAligner also shows you how to make an impact, increase engagement, and become a (more) attractive employer. You want engaged, high-performing, and loyal colleagues who truly contribute. And employees who continue to speak positively about your organization, even after they leave.
There is a strong relationship between the employee journey and the concept of a talent review. A talent review helps you assess to what extent your employees contribute to the success of your organization. Through an HR talent review, you determine each person’s potential. It’s a way to evaluate the existing knowledge, talents, and competencies within your organization and compare them to the desired ones.
It’s also important to consider team development during a talent review—particularly how each employee contributes to a well-functioning team. You can see talent reviews as a strong foundation for your strategic workforce planning. At JobAligner, we recognize the importance of talent reviews and have fully integrated this concept into our Work Happiness App.
The employee journey is a shared responsibility between employer and employee. First, it’s about uncovering the relevant data that determines how employees experience their journey. That’s why JobAligner has designed over 15 work happiness themes to help reveal how employees perceive their journey.
Next, it's up to the managers. They can share their perspective by providing personal feedback on the employee input. This clarifies how leadership views each employee’s competencies, task execution, talent, growth needs, and more.
By mapping out the employee journey step by step, you discover exactly where employees feel engaged—and where they don’t. You gain insight into their true state of mind: how happy and motivated they are, whether they feel appreciated, whether they experience enough autonomy, whether their development potential is being recognized, and how they perceive the relationship with their manager.
When you properly design the employee journey from the start, you help your people better tap into their potential. This leads to more happiness at work, stronger engagement, and ultimately better organizational performance.
The employee journey can be broken down into 8 steps. It’s the employer’s responsibility to develop a vision for each of these phases:
Attraction is an essential part of any relationship—also between an employee and an organization. In this context, it refers to being seen as an attractive employer.
Recruitment begins with attracting candidates who then apply and ends when they accept a job offer.
Once the right candidate is selected, the next phase—preboarding—starts. This is the time between accepting the offer and the first day of work.
Onboarding starts on the first workday and continues into the initial period. Investing in your employees from the very beginning is a valuable long-term strategy.
By now, the new employee is fully onboarded and has found their place. To support their optimal contribution, it’s key to understand their development and growth needs—and how these align with the vision of their leaders.
Engaging employees is primarily about promoting work happiness. Increasing employee engagement is central to JobAligner’s approach.
Once an employee is integrated, growing, and contributing to your organization, the next step is retention. Retaining talent is essential to avoid the high cost of replacements.
Offboarding covers the period from resignation to the final departure. While often overlooked, professional offboarding can ensure a smooth and positive exit. Ideally, the departing employee becomes an ambassador for your brand.
Employees highly value opportunities for development and growth (step 5). JobAligner’s employee journey is designed to enrich the employee experience and maximize engagement.
What is job crafting? It’s the process of aligning job content with an employee’s knowledge, skills, talents, interests, and needs. Through small adjustments to tasks, work becomes more fulfilling.
Job crafting is closely linked to the employee journey. As mentioned, assessing tasks and competencies per employee is a crucial part of the journey—and necessary for job crafting. Allow employees to share which tasks they enjoy and which they don’t. It’s a fact that people perform better at tasks they enjoy. The reverse is also true: tasks they dislike are often done inefficiently. Fortunately, every employee experiences their work differently. Job crafting can provide perspective and enhance enjoyment at work.
Make sure you understand each employee’s development needs. As an employer, actively support their learning and growth opportunities. These are key indicators of work happiness.
Sometimes, an employee may indicate they have no ambition to develop further. In such cases, it’s not effective to invest too much time and energy. An exception may be when an employer believes further upskilling is necessary for certain tasks.
Once it becomes clear what an employee needs for further development—and the employer has shaped a vision around this—it’s time to create concrete development plans per employee. Decide together what is needed for continued growth. As an employer, take this seriously so your employees feel heard and appreciated. Also, assign a mentor or coach. This way, you truly contribute to increased engagement during the employee journey.
It’s invaluable for every organization to clearly map out the employee journey. This responsibility lies with both employer and employee. The results confirm the effectiveness of this approach. It provides insight into how to enhance employee engagement. And when employees feel truly valued, a positive and productive culture emerges. This not only improves internal dynamics but also strengthens your brand and client relationships. Optimizing the employee journey is a powerful way to create more work happiness, sustainable growth, and success!
