Employee Roadmap: Why & How to Engage Your Staff in 3 Steps (With Template)

A resigning team member is no manager's dream. And no leader wishes to be caught off guard by an employee's overthought, final decision to quit.

Besides, we can't possibly stress enough how the cost of replacing employees is immense. For your reference, it can ascend to twice an employee's annual salary.

But the hard truth is that the best companies have the means to prevent employee turnover. We're talking about the employee roadmap and its contribution to positive employee experiences.

Gartner points out that only 13% of staff members are fully satisfied with their employee experience. But fortunately, improving employees' feelings about their overall experience at work by addressing psychological, motivational, and social needs is 64% effective.

Stick with us as we explain what an employee experience roadmap should look like. We'll:  

• Explore the importance of an employee roadmap. 
• Provide a step-by-step guide to crafting one. 
• Share a template to kickstart your journey.

🗺️ What is an employee roadmap?

An employee roadmap—short for "employee experience roadmap"—is a strategic plan that outlines the key touchpoints in an employee's journey within an organization, from being a candidate to becoming an alumnus. 

Its objective is to create positive and meaningful experiences at every stage of the employee lifecycle, fostering engagement, satisfaction, and retention (extending the time between being a candidate to being an alumnus).

The employee roadmap defines the organization's directions for interacting with its potential and current staff members, starting as early as sourcing and recruitment.

That's when your future personnel begins building a perception of your company. 

And you know, first impressions matter and might draw the line between attracting top or otherwise average workers.

In other words, your employee roadmap has an early impact on your people's careers. And it contains, for instance, guidance for your organizational culture and workplace environment.

Don't confuse roadmap with strategy, though! 

An employee experience strategy is an approach to creating positive employee experiences. On the other hand, an employee experience roadmap is the plan to get you there within a certain timeframe.

Employee experience roadmap vs. employee experience journey map

First, the "employee experience roadmap" isn't the same as the "employee journey map."

Remember the employee lifecycle we just talked about? Take all the employee lifecycle stages and a worker's set of employee experiences throughout those stages. And there you go—their employee journey!

Now, employee journey mapping is a form of evaluating employee experience at each stage of the employee journey. For instance, employee journey mapping allows you to measure how a team member feels about the performance review process.

Employee journey mapping encompasses creating and analyzing the employee journey map. And helps HR personnel pinpoint improvement areas, from recruitment and onboarding to development and retention.

🗺️ Get Zavvy's Employee Journey Map template to understand what these maps look like. 

🧭 6 Stages to include in your employee roadmap

Your employee experience roadmap must cover the points below. It must also clarify how to address them to elevate your company's employee experience.

1. Recruitment

What's your plan to hire top talent? These are a few examples of what you can do—that you must state in your employee roadmap:

• An employer branding program
• A regular, valuable social media presence
• Job descriptions with clear explanations of what your organization and the role are about
• A simple application process with prompt, straightforward, and objective communication with candidates

Example: Add a guideline to your employee experience roadmap saying that the hiring team must be warm and friendly with candidates so they feel excited rather than skeptical about joining the company.

2. Onboarding

Onboarding is another process you must carefully plan and outline in your employee roadmap. Organize it into clear steps, and don't forget to list moments for new hires to give you feedback on their employee experience.

Example: Plan for preboarding in your employee experience roadmap so candidates don't experience unnecessary anxiety.

👀 Learn how Alasco has slashed time-to-productivity rates by 50% thanks to a fun, structured onboarding plan.

3. Training & career development

Set the expectations for upskilling in your employee roadmap from the company and the worker's perspectives.

Not only do you know that learning programs and courses contribute to a positive employee journey, but some are also required by law.

Plus, the employee experience roadmap is the perfect document to clarify that you expect the organization's leaders to ensure staff takes on the expected training at the right time.

Lastly, setting training milestones in the employee roadmap frees up time for career development. That'll help keep your training ROI high and leverage the constant improvement that modern employees seek.

Example: Specify training milestones in your employee experience roadmap for different stakeholders. You may even specify the type and topics of the training programs you'll deliver to the entire company, a particular department, managers, or new hires.

State different activities and events that allow employees to grow their careers. And unless you're building a role-specific employee roadmap, those apply to any worker and entail, for instance, learning new skills, setting career goals, and reviewing performance.

Example: Mention that your personnel will lean on a learning experience platform to grow new knowledge at their own pace and convenience.

4. Retention

Retaining talent revolves a lot around the manager-employee relationship. And managers must nurture the health of that relationship by

• Setting responsibilities clearly.
• Defining relevant yet attainable goals.
• Offering appropriate compensation and benefits.
• Recognizing excellence with promotions and rewarding it accordingly with raises.
• Addressing issues identified in regular employee engagement surveys and feedback obtained from team members.

Example: Define that a talent management system will help you pinpoint opportunities to challenge your people and keep them happy with their jobs.

5. Transition and exit

When employees leave the organization for retirement, a career move, or other reasons, the offboarding experience should be respectful and supportive.

Exiting employees might be more open to sharing feedback, as there is no more perceived risk of retaliation. 

Example: Conduct exit interviews to gather insights. Identify any trends in employee departures to improve the employee experience for future employees.

For a shortcut, use our exit interview survey template.

6. Alumni

Keeping in touch with former employees can benefit potential re-hires and create a strong employer brand.

👀 Check out how BCG runs a "Return to BCG" program as part of their L&D arsenal.

✅ 5 Extra elements to include in your employee roadmap

Performance management

How will you celebrate the accomplishments of your people? 

One thing's for sure: It won't be without performance management on your employee roadmap!

That's the starting point for managers to outline performance goals. But it's also a baseline for workers to know how to raise their game and hold themselves accountable.

Example: Include performance review milestones in your employee experience roadmap. For instance, instruct managers and employees to have biannual performance reviews.

🙌 Before adding performance management directions to your employee roadmap, read our article on handling performance management challenges effectively. 

Work-life balance

A healthy work-life balance is super-duper important for your staff's well-being. And that's not only at the workplace. That's in their personal lives, too!

Luckily, there are a lot of directions on workplace environment you can establish in your employee roadmap, such as

• A flexible schedule policy
• A no-meetings day per week
• Open chats about work-life balance struggles

Example: Include a well-being service in your employee experience roadmap and state that you'll offer anonymous consults with a professional.

Trust

Could you work for a manager whom you didn't trust? We couldn't either, especially in a remote work setting. Otherwise, we'd underperform and even consider leaving the company.

Managers must be approachable and available when we need them. They must be active listeners, act on employee feedback, recognize their team's efforts, and take action when required.

For instance, micromanaging is terrible for remote workforces. On the other hand, enabling them with the conditions and tools they need for an outstanding performance is splendid!

You can't monitor performance and unfold improvement areas without trust in leaders. And frequent informal conversations with teams and their members individually are pretty effective ways to build trust in the workplace.

Example: Specify that video conferencing tools help employees feel more comfortable raising red flags they need their managers to act on.

Culture

Having an employee roadmap indicates that your company has a positive culture. But let's get down to the details of the organizational culture guidelines your roadmap must contain.

• How will you welcome your new hires into the company culture?
• Is onboarding a smooth process?
• Do you have a diversity, equality, and inclusion program in place?
• Do you promote employee enablement?
• Do you advise open, kind, and honest communication among everyone?

Example: Define that each new hire will have an onboarding buddy, and everyone must use inclusive language in the workplace.

Team building

There are two mandatory ingredients for building cohesive teams: collaboration and teamwork. And there's no sense of belonging to a group without them.

Example: Establish in your employee experience roadmap which collaborative tools are mandatory company-wide.

🪜 3 Steps you cannot skip when launching an employee roadmap

Now that you know what an employee experience roadmap contains, you're good to learn to build one. Roll up your sleeves and follow these steps.

1. Create the roadmap and prepare its execution

Define goals. Run engagement surveys and stay interviews, but most importantly, talk to your staff about their experiences at work.

Find out the barriers they face to achieving their career goals (as long as those goals align with the company's mission and vision).

And determine the business outcomes you aim to get from an enhanced employee experience and supporting your personnel's goals.

Define metrics. List the criteria you'll use to evaluate the organization's employee experience. These numbers will clarify how close you are to reaching the goals previously defined for the roadmap:

• absenteeism rate;
• employee turnover rate;
• employee net promoter score (or eNPS);
• offer acceptance rate;
• employer reviews (from employer review websites such as Glassdoor);
• revenue per employee;
• employee goal achievement rate;
• promotions per quarter or year;
• time to fill open positions;
• average employee tenure;
• employee satisfaction rate (from satisfaction survey results).

Add elements to the roadmap. Include the roadmap components discussed in the previous section, ranging from recruitment to performance management.

Specify directions, timelines, and stakeholders. Your employee roadmap is an action plan per se. And so, it contains the steps to implement the employee experience you seek to provide to your people. 

For instance, outline the steps to build a healthier office space and how often employee feedback sessions must take place.

2. Launch the plan and monitor its impact

Once you create the employee roadmap and define metrics to evaluate the employee experience, it's showtime! This means executing the action plan and measuring its efficacy.

Rely on specialized software to efficiently monitor progress towards your employee experience goals. Track the chosen metrics and address negative employee experience trends in a timely fashion.

Tip: Research industry benchmarks to compare your employee experience metrics against.

3. Collect employee feedback

There's no employee experience without employees. This means you must know their opinion about the employee experience they get at your company.

Gathering employee feedback is essential to assess how effective your employee roadmap is. And it also allows you to adjust the roadmap accordingly in an ongoing effort that must be part of your employee engagement program.

📝 Employee roadmap template

Any template is about laying the foundation for consistency. And your staff craves a consistent employee experience!

You, too, crave the consistency of offering a positive employee experience to your entire workforce. That's why we designed an employee roadmap template with detailed explanations and events suggestions. 

🏆 6 Best practices for improving your current roadmap

If you already have an employee roadmap, these are the success tips to keep top of mind:

1. The elements of your employee experience roadmap are interrelated, just like your people strategy pillars. And so, your roadmap must account for that. For instance, leadership training and upskilling play a role in performance management.
2. Collect feedback from your staff to address employee experience areas in which your company is lagging. For instance, a fancy new office building won't do the trick if your employees want more flexibility.
3. Design career paths to support your workforce's inevitable desire for career growth. And include the development of a career progression framework in your employee roadmap. 

1. Hold your leaders—not just HR personnel—accountable for the change required to enhance the organization's employee experience. Support their continuous learning by contemplating a leadership development plan in your employee roadmap. And measure their success in performance reviews.

1. Don't forget to add recognition tactics to your employee experience roadmap! Any worker loves to obtain the recognition of their peers. For instance, with performance management as an element of the roadmap, you'll define that praising staff's accomplishments must be a common practice. 

💡 Discover a large collection of employee recognition ideas.

1. Face the process of building your employee roadmap as continuous improvement. And update the document to reflect your company's business goals and priorities whenever they shift.

🕵️‍♀️ 5 Reasons why you need an employee experience roadmap

Boosting employee engagement might be the most well-known benefit of employee roadmaps. 

After all, you can't underestimate the effect of engaged employees on any company's bottom line.

A highly engaged staff member is 18% more productive. They also stay at the organization longer—18–43% do.

Workers with a positive impression of their employer and work environment likely engage deeper with their job, peers, managers, and the business. And they bring an extra 23% profit and 10% more loyal customers to companies.

But let's focus now on the less-known perks of an employee experience roadmap.

Alignment

First, the employee roadmap promotes a shared understanding of employee experience across the organization. And that levels the expectations of workers, team managers, and HR staff towards the employee journey.

But an employee roadmap is also an excellent opportunity to assess your workforce's impression of the company. That information drives the creation of the roadmap and, later on, the evaluation of its effectiveness.

Lastly, while building the roadmap, you figure out how to align staff's career goals with the organization's mission (if possible).

Clarity

An employee roadmap settles clear milestones for different sets of stakeholders. It also states the business outcomes for the overall employee experience and each period of the employee journey.

And this transparency lets your people know what they're working towards. As a result, they experience a more positive journey at work.

Prioritization

The activities and events listed on an employee experience roadmap are ordered by priority. And that helps reduce the overwhelming effect of improving your company's employee experience.

Plus, the employee roadmap is a statement of how employee experience is a priority to your organization. Recognizing how important employee experience is demonstrates how committed HR is to your success, not just the company's.

Accountability

The employee roadmap contains a full picture of what the employee experience should look like. And knowing what employees, managers, and departments must do for employee experience makes them accountable for it.

For instance, one of the elements in an employee roadmap is performance management. You must clearly outline business outcomes, milestones, activities, and events tied to performance management. That's how you'll hold everyone accountable for the success of your performance management strategy.

Strategic outlook

An employee roadmap is a strategic plan. It tells the activities and events you plan to implement to offer a positive employee experience to everyone in the organization.

But it also says what business outcomes you expect from implementing the plan. And those outcomes are nothing more than the benefits or impact of remarkable employee journeys.

➡️ Automate the key processes on your employee roadmap with Zavvy

Zavvy's people enablement platform allows you to automate the many processes in your employee experience roadmap.

• Employee engagement—measured by engagement surveys that give you strategic insights into key metrics over time for targeted engagement initiatives
• Career pathing—to create career frameworks with clear requirements for every role and level, sustaining career growth backed by unbiased data
• Learning experience—supported by a library with thousands of training courses from dozens of providers, matching all sorts of development goals
• Performance reviews—centralized and streamlined in a platform that allows you to customize the process, run it, and analyze the results, whether that's a 360-degree, 180-degree, rating scale, or anonymous answer review

📅 Schedule a demo today to see firsthand how Zavvy is the solution to make your employee roadmap come to life!

❓ FAQs

What is an employee roadmap?

An employee roadmap is a strategic plan to raise a company's employee experience levels within a specific timeframe.

How do you create an employee roadmap?

1. Plan—the goals to achieve with the roadmap, the metrics for evaluating the roadmap's efficacy, the employee experience guidelines and timelines to follow, and the involved stakeholders.
2. Execute—the action plan with the assistance of dedicated platforms capable of efficiently tracking the metrics and drawing conclusions on employee experience trends.
3. Revise—continuously, based on the feedback obtained from staff.

What should an employee roadmap include?

An employee roadmap must contain directions on:

• Recruitment
• Onboarding
• Career development
• Retention
• Work-life balance
• Trust
• Culture
• Team building
• Training
• Performance management