Designing moments that matter in employee experience

Guest post: Thanks to our partnership with Mercer (formerly Leapgen), we're delighted to have contributions from their team of experts. Thank you to Lynsey Hathcock for sharing her wealth of knowledge in the field of employee experience.

In the last post, we discussed how important the right mindset is when deploying advanced technology systems as part of your digital journey.

This is the first step in ensuring that you are approaching your transformation with a human-centered focus and designing with your workers at the forefront. However, it doesn’t end there.

Now that you’ve established your vision, it’s time to bring it to life by mapping the moments that matter across the employee journey, infused with the intuitive, human-first experiences today’s workforce expects.

Chapters

• Moments that matter in the employee experience
• Using AI-powered technology to design and optimize these moments
• The power of AI in employee journeys
• Embracing AI and the latest in Applaud's journey products

Moments that matter in the employee experience:

• Preboarding
• First day
• Onboarding
• Performance reviews and appraisals
• Promotion
• Resignation and terminating employment
• Exit interview
• Offboarding

And don’t forget personally significant moments too:

• Bereavement
• Maternity / paternity leave
• Illness

Let’s break some of these down a little.

Preboarding

This covers processes that occur before the employee’s official start date, including signing a contract, communicating start dates, and arranging the delivery of their equipment to a home address for remote work.

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First day

The first day at a new job is a milestone in any employee’s journey. Workers get an overview of company history, learn about organizational structure, and meet key contacts in different departments, including their own team. Whether this is carried out virtually or face-to-face, it’s essential that the employee walks away at the end of the day with the impression that your company is organized and welcoming.

Onboarding

The first three months of the employee journey are critical. During this period, they will understand more concretely exactly what their job entails and what is expected of them. Line managers should check in with them regularly to address any teething problems swiftly.

Check out the webinar below, where Applaud’s founders show how to design onboarding journeys that deliver more human, intuitive, and rewarding experiences—from compliance to culture.

Performance reviews and appraisals

Whether it’s passing probation or an annual review, appraisals are an important opportunity to touch base with the employee and understand their own long-term goals. Targets and KPIs can be set and signed off in the presence of both the line manager and the employee themselves.

Promotion

Progressing in their career should be a positive occurrence for any employee, but it’s up to HR to ensure that any change of job title is reflected in various systems in their tech ecosystem.

Offboarding

Sometimes employees will decide to move on, and other times it becomes clear that they are not a fit for the company. Either way, it is the responsibility of HR to ensure that this journey is delivered with empathy while also guarding the interests of the company.

Exit interviews are a critical moment of truth for businesses and should always be conducted. HR leaders can pinpoint the reason behind the employee leaving and understand what areas of the employee experience can be improved.

Offboarding doesn’t stop there – the employee needs to return equipment, and any post-employment clauses stipulated in contracts need to be reemphasized.

Using AI-Powered Technology to Design and Optimize These Moments

When implementing new technology, most organizations begin with detailed process maps, focusing on tasks, systems, and data flow. But without first understanding the employee perspective, even the best-designed workflows can miss the mark. Prioritizing people before processes helps ensure digital experiences are intuitive, supportive, and genuinely impactful.

💡 Ask yourself the following

How does the employee feel when they have to go to three different places to find necessary documentation?

How frustrating is it to not be able to get the support needed to complete a simple task?

How can employee experience impact their career or add value to them?

These are the types of questions necessary to ensure you are engaging with your workforce; that you aren’t just providing them the basic tools necessary to complete a task but rather that you are taking them on a guided journey that is simple, personalized, and impactful.

This is where the concept of a journey map can be incredibly powerful. A journey map is a glance into your employees' experience, highlighting what they are doing, who they are interacting with, and what they are thinking and feeling along the way.

The Power of AI in Employee Journeys

Let’s take a look at the onboarding process as an example.

A traditional onboarding process map identifies the various tasks the employee needs to complete to be integrated into the workforce; for example, the compliance paperwork that needs to be submitted, the technology that needs to be provisioned, and maybe even highlight training requirements.

But it ends there.

Process maps won’t capture the cultural tone, moments of connection, or emotional value that define a meaningful employee experience.

An onboarding experience is the first true introduction a worker will have to your organization and sets the stage for their future career with you.

It needs to be impactful, meaningful, and maybe even a little fun!

So how do you ensure you are designing a system that is going to deliver that type of experience?

By leveraging an onboarding journey map, you get the chance to imagine the experience you want to convey.

💡 Ask yourself key experience questions

Are tools and tasks digitally delivered to managers when needed during the onboarding journey?

How manual are your provisioning processes? Do you leverage AI technology to coordinate key onboarding tasks?

Do you successfully integrate culture into your onboarding process?

Do you provide networking opportunities and buddy systems?

Do your employees receive the appropriate level of training that enables them to become productive as quickly as possible?

Are talent profiles established as part of onboarding that can help drive career engagement opportunities throughout their time with the company?

Do you provide your new employees with regular check-ins over the course of the first 30-60-90 days?

Do you collect feedback from your new employees throughout the process and follow up with them regarding their responses?

The journey map exercise allows you to align the experience you want to infuse into the process needed to seamlessly execute key activities.

Embracing AI and the Latest in Applaud's Journey Products

Once your ideal journey is mapped with the employee’s perspective in mind, technology can play a supporting role, enabling smoother transitions, timely communication, and experiences that feel more considered and connected.

In an ever-increasing digital world, the question becomes, how do I supply workers with the advanced digital experience that they have come to expect in their personal lives?

By leveraging Applaud's latest AI-powered Journey products, you can customize the experience you envisioned in your journey maps.

Applaud's AI-enhanced platform enables you to innovate faster by reducing the amount of time necessary to build and deploy software.

This results in more time and energy being spent on defining the moments that matter, enabling you to deliver a personalized experience quicker and drive a consumer-grade workforce experience.

Once complete, you'll have an easy-to-configure onboarding process that meets your unique culture and the specific needs of your workforce.

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About the Author

Lynsey Hathcock

Lynsey Hathcock is a seasoned management consultant at Mercer (formerly Leapgen) with over ten years of HR strategy, design thinking and change enablement experience. Lynsey is passionate about finding innovative ways to help clients craft impactful experiences for their people to ensure intended business outcomes are realized. 

Lynsey has successfully led 25+ Fortune 500 clients to solve complex organizational problems; including digital transformations, global system implementations and talent management initiatives. She brings diverse industry experience, spanning across retail, pharmaceuticals, financial services, education and non-profit.

Lynsey holds a Juris Doctor and Masters of Business Administration degree from Wake Forest University and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Economics from Clemson University.