Employee Experience Management

Employee Journey & Continuous Listening Strategies – Great combination for company success

Employee Journey Continuous Listening
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Continuous listening along the entire employee journey: Create an inspiring employee experience through continuous listening with QuestionPro!

With employee experience and continuous listening to corporate success

The ability to adapt to dynamic, changing situations is essential to business success. This applies both to relationships with customers and with employees. The strategy of continuous listening as part of employee experience management is about creating the resources in the company to proactively obtain feedback on key topics across the entire employee life cycle (“employee journey”). Surveys serve as a basis in which the right people are asked the right questions at the right time and every experience can be recorded at the moment along the employee journey that is significant for the employee. Examples include candidate experience and onboarding surveys, well-being surveys, or various ways for managers or HR to engage with their employees either individually or in small groups (e.g. pulse surveys, 360-degree feedback Survey). In addition, employees are given the opportunity to express concerns or exchange recommendations at any time and on their own initiative, e.g. B. via feedback forms or online communities.

What is Employee Experience Management?

The term employee experience management refers to a strategy that is aimed at providing employees with as many inspiring experiences as possible throughout the entire employee journey. Companies that practice active employee experience management have fewer challenges with fluctuation and also have satisfied and, above all, committed employees. Those responsible for employee experience management strive to make the employees' working environment as positive, pleasant and inspiring as possible.

From one-dimensional employee surveys to 2-way continuous listening

Many companies have already abandoned the path of conducting employee surveys once a year and have integrated additional surveys into their employees' everyday work along the employee journey.

The possibility of creating feedback channels for the workforce, in which they can give feedback on the mood, the working environment, satisfaction or their own needs and wishes at virtually any time and from anywhere in the world is known as continuous listening.

If the initiative to obtain employee feedback comes only from the company, it is referred to as 1-way continuous listening: The company asks its employees, the employees answer. However, it is more forward-looking and also crucial for a positive employee journey to create the opportunity for employees to give feedback without being asked first. But where and how do companies document feedback or input such as suggestions, criticism or ideas that arise, for example, from employees' impulses? Continuous listening only makes sense if employee feedback is documented and evaluated. Feedback often simply evaporates into nirvana and remains unheard because it is either not expressed at all, perhaps out of fear or shame, or because it is simply not documented. Continuous listening is more than a one-sided question and answer game, but a great opportunity for the entire organization and inspiring employee experience management. Continuous listening provides managers and HR departments with current, meaningful data that can be used to proactively address the most critical challenges. In addition, based on the findings, more specific questions can be asked in employee surveys and discussions to gain even better knowledge.

Necessity and importance of employee surveys and continuous listening in employee experience management

In order to know whether the working environment of employees is actually positive or whether measures within employee experience management are actually effective, you have to survey the entire workforce regularly and according to their status in the employee journey! The employee survey is a necessity for both large and small companies in order to determine the state of mind or a specific need for action. While large companies have long recognized the need for employee surveys, smaller companies are still finding it difficult. The reason: there is often a lack of knowledge regarding the methodological approach or there is no time window for the development and implementation of such a survey.

Still shouldn Small companies also regularly survey their employees. External consultants can help with methodology. There is for implementation specific Survey software and experience management platforms that enable users to intuitively, quickly and easily create and distribute questionnaires for employee surveys on a web-based basis and to display the feedback in a graphically appealing way using drag & drop reporting and analysis. This makes continuous listening more feasible and cost-effective for companies of all sizes.

What does employee journey mean?

Employee journey diagram

The term employee journey is borrowed from the term customer journey. Customer journey means the customer's journey on the way to purchasing a product. This journey begins with the first perception of a product. Here, for example, you come into “contact” with the product for the first time in television advertising. There are many contact points within the customer journey, which are called touchpoints in marketing jargon. For example, you may have seen this product from a friend who may have even spoken positively about it. The next step is to find out more about the product, for example on the Internet or in relevant specialist literature, ask other friends, visit a shop and finally try out the product yourself until you ultimately buy it. Then you consume the product, have your experiences with it and at some point you might put it aside or even exchange it for another product.

Companies strive to record and evaluate customer perception at the respective touchpoints, such as visiting a store or ordering on a website, through surveys. When applied to HR, Employee Journey means the “journey of the employee” through the company. And here too, it is important to question the perception, motivation, well-being and identification of employees at the various touchpoints, i.e. touchpoints along the employee journey, using surveys - from the job interview to leaving the company. Such touchpoints in the sense of the employee journey include, for example, the job interview, onboarding (joining the company and training), feedback discussions, further training measures, changes in supervisors, and leaving the company. The terms continuous listening and employee journey are inextricably linked. QuestionPro's Employee Experience Solution for recording, structuring and evaluating employee feedback does full justice to the idea of ​​the employee journey thanks to its comprehensive survey tools!

Touchpoints along the employee journey

In order to be able to create positive work experiences within the working environment as part of employee experience management, those responsible must be very aware of which “touchpoints” employees have with the company as part of the employee journey have at all, so that this taken into account and evaluated in the continuous listening strategy and ultimately can also be explicitly positively influenced. This sounds banal at first, but it is by no means. If you trace the path of employees throughout the entire employment relationship, it becomes very clear that there are many different touchpoints. Here we show you some examples:

Candidate experience

The candidate experience covers the entire process that an applicant goes through when applying to a company. This also includes obtaining feedback from candidates who have decided against the company or who have not progressed further in the application process.

Employee onboarding

This refers to the training period for new employees. Already here, dissatisfaction often arises among new employees because training is slow, not all work equipment is available from the start or because colleagues are not helpful enough.

Feedback conversations

The feedback discussion is also such a touchpoint. For example, if employees have the feeling that they are receiving predominantly negative criticism, appointments for feedback meetings are constantly postponed or even canceled, or if there are no real results or changes.

In-company training

If, for example, learning content is poorly prepared in terms of didactics or the content of such measures has nothing to do with work practice, employees will find in-company further training to be unsatisfactory.

The food in the canteen

The canteen also represents such a touchpoint as part of employee experience management. If the food is only of average quality or there are too few alternatives, for example for vegetarians or allergy sufferers, frustration quickly sets in.

The everyday work

Yes, the everyday processing of tasks is also such a touchpoint. If the work is monotonous, there is a lack of work equipment or delegated tasks cannot always be completed in the allotted time, this can quickly take away your interest in work.

There are many other touchpoints within employee experience management. It is important that those responsible are really clear about which touchpoints there are in the company so that they can ultimately design them in a consistently positive manner.

Why does experience management actually think in terms of touchpoints?

The answer is very simple: to segment the customer journey – or that of the employee (“Employee Journey”) – and thus better visualize and evaluate it. If we become aware of the points of contact a customer or employee has with our company, then we can consciously design these points of contact in a positive way, so that the customer or employee can have as many positive experiences as possible on their journey and thus become part of our company has a more positive basic feeling. Employees who have a positive basic feeling towards our company perform better and are more emotionally attached to the company. It's the same with customers: If customers have as many positive experiences as possible with a company, they are more likely to continue buying their products there.

Software tip: Collect feedback as part of the employee journey – onboarding survey and exit survey

If you think about the human, time and financial effort involved in conducting a complete survey of all employees as part of the employee journey and continuous listening strategy, i.e. if there were no modern survey technologies, then hardly any company would come up with the idea come to practice such a total survey. Nowadays it is child's play to collect and evaluate feedback continuously and, above all, at all touchpoints as part of the employee journey. Once surveys have been created for the individual touchpoints, they can easily be used over and over again. The data flows together centrally fully automatically and can be evaluated and analysed in real time at any time. This means you always have an up-to-date view of all touchpoints - from onboarding to exit - and can answer the most important questions you ask yourself as part of the employee journey strategy.

QuestionPro supports you in collecting and evaluating feedback as part of the employee journey and continuous listening strategy

Typical questions about the onboarding process

Companies strive to attract the best talent and motivated employees. But if “negative vibrations” can already be felt during the recruitment test, then it is likely that these same talented and motivated employees will choose another company. In addition, applicants also convey this image of the company to the outside world, for example via social networks or among friends. Employer branding begins during the hiring process. It is therefore important to obtain onboarding feedback through onboarding surveys when training new employees, i.e. during the onboarding process.

Possible questions for obtaining valuable onboarding feedback as part of the employee journey

  • Is the atmosphere during assessments positive so that applicants can fully develop their skills?
  • How do managers behave towards applicants during job interviews?
  • What impression did applicants have of the premises?
  • What impression did applicants have of the assessment/aptitude test process?
  • Were applicants warmly welcomed?
  • What can the company improve during job interviews?
  • Are rejections perceived as friendly and encouraging?

Examples of an exit survey

If talented and motivated employees in particular leave the company, then that is not a good signal. Exit surveys as part of the employee journey primarily address the question of WHY employees are leaving the company. What are the reasons for the exit? After all, you want to know exactly these reasons in order to be able to retain talent and motivated employees in the future.

Example questions for an exit survey

  • What were your reasons for leaving the company?
  • Even if you leave us: Would you recommend the company as an employer to your best friends and acquaintances? (→ ENPS)
  • Is there something you will miss about our company?
  • What have you always struggled with in our company?
  • Would you yourself work for our company again one day?
  • What does your future employer do better than us?
  • Have you personally trained your successor?

Employee Experience – Create positive experiences along the employee journey through continuous listening!

Like the term employee journey, the term employee experience is also borrowed from marketing terminology. Customer experience management means creating positive customer experiences to build an emotional bond between customers and products, companies and brands - at all points of contact, i.e. touchpoints along the customer journey. Applied to the area of ​​HR, employee experience means the creation of positive experiences on the part of employees with the company they work for in order to build and maintain loyalty, identification, commitment, a higher willingness to perform and motivation and thus create an emotional bond. And the employee journey doesn’t just begin with the onboarding process, but – as described above – with the job interview! Examples of creating positive experiences include outstanding onboarding, creating an inspiring work environment, quiet rooms for breaks, special team events, health coaching, staff development measures and similar. In order for measures as part of the employee experience strategy to really have a lasting effect, these measures must also be constantly questioned - along the entire employee journey! Pulse surveys are also suitable for this!

Consider a technology-supported, holistic continuous listening strategy to evaluate employee journey touchpoints!

If you decide to collect and evaluate feedback from your employees holistically and continuously from onboarding to exit as part of your continuous listening and employee journey strategy, then you must also think about how you will handle the high level of feedback. With its Workforce Intelligence and Analytics Suite, QuestionPro offers an HR feedback platform with which you can initiate surveys, such as 360 degree feedback surveys, and centrally collect and evaluate feedback from different survey projects in line with the employee journey idea. In addition, QuestionPro's HR feedback platform includes ready-made survey tools that are tailored precisely to the needs of HR managers. There will be no wishes left!

Reading recommendations

There are always new topics in HR that are being intensively discussed. Employee Journey, Continuous Listening, Employer Branding, Employee Net Promoter Score, Feedback Culture, Employee Engagement and many more. We have put together a few blogs for you that outline these topics.

If you have any questions about continuous listening, employee journey, onboarding feedback and exit surveys or other topics from the broad field of employee feedback, please feel free to contact us. We look forward to speaking with you! Test the employee experience management platform QuestionPro now for 10 days free of charge and see for yourself how you can carry out employee surveys cost-effectively.

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FURTHER KEYWORDS

Employer Branding | Employees | Employee Experience Management


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Employee journey | Employee Experience | Continuous listening | Continuous listening | Employee Experience Management | MR 

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