Starting to map the employee journey from a place of purpose

Ikigai. A Japanese concept that means "reason for being" or roughly translated to English would be "thing that you live for" or "the reason for which you wake up in the morning.

When these four areas; what you love, what you're great at, what you can be paid for and what the world needs, intersect, that is Ikigai. 

This is far from a newly discussed concept but it is picking up steam. This idea and diagrams similar to this one have been widely discussed in articles from Forbes to Elle and everything in between. Here is a self help book on it too. And why not? Who doesn't want to live a more purpose filled life?

So what does this have to do with employee experience?

Everything..

When discussing employee engagement with clients, the conversation inevitably leads to a crossroads. This is the moment we talk about the importance and powerful influence of having a purpose driven culture that flows through the entire ecosystem (values, principles, practices, behaviours all tailored for unique role based employe journeys). Some clients immediately get it. Others struggle with the idea that purpose can play such an influential part, despite the "overwhelming evidence" that companies with higher order purpose perform better (read this Financial Times article).

I was recently at a major Canadian FI's senior leadership offsite. The topic of engagement came up, specifically around the idea of collaboration. This company has a collaboration based statement as one of their core values. An engagement survey found that most employees thought collaboration could be better. The response from one of the executives was "we can involve people all we want but at the end of the day, it is their job, they are being paid and should just follow direction".

Yes, regardless of the progressive culture articles that may litter your Linked In news feed making it seem like the the command and control approach is a thing of the past, the truth is, it is still a very common. Yet, not surprisingly, in another recent survey, only 3% of respondents said pay was their primary driver compared to a whopping 73% who said it was feeling their role had purpose or meaning.

Still, even among the growing number of executives who say they like the idea of leading with purpose, actually putting together the right level of resources to successfully integrate this into their organization and culture is a leap that's hard to make. Too often organizations will spend time on a purpose statement (that is actually not higher order meaning it is still a direct tie-in to profit only) and/or some eloquent value statements, but fail to execute this culturally.

Instead, the preferred path is often to communicate out the statement and values, put them on a wall, execute some short term tactical projects like an annual survey, an incentive program and a suggestion box and then scratch their heads a few years later when nothing has materially changed (and likely things have actually worsened as taking incomplete action actually erodes trust in leadership).

This isn't to say that some of those aren't great tactics. They are. But executing these without starting with your purpose is sort of like going on a fad diet without establishing what your health goals are, what type of life do you want to lead. To which I say STOP THE INSANITY (if you don't recognize that 80s fad diet infomercial reference, click here).

Depending on your goals, some diets can actually work against you and the only sustainable way to live healthier often requires you to permanently change how you live. This includes not only what you eat but when you eat, how you exercise, mental health, work life balance, etc. A holistic solution that requires real commitment to change how you operate. This applies to employee engagement efforts too.

Fulsome solutions require real change and take time to see improvements. Adding a suggestion box or an incentive program in the absence of a clear purpose and plan to execute is like doing a one week cleanse. You will see a fast weight loss followed by a weight gain and likely being even heavier than before the diet. Organizations who don't execute fulsome plans for their purpose will experience the same. A short boost in engagement until employees realize their is no substance or continuity and then it becomes a failed promise, eroding trust and lowering engagement to new levels.

Most importantly perhaps, your plan needs to include role based employee journeys that are driven out of your purpose.

So while inspiring mission statements like these are popping up more and more, they need to be woven not just into the organizational culture through values, behaviours, process and practices but also into role based employee journeys.

Many organizations are doing an incredible job of mapping customer journeys but most have yet to map out their employee journeys. Instead, those journeys are just the byproduct of a business driven approach, not a purpose driven one. This often starts at pay, skills required, KPI's measured and from there a recruitment and training strategy is developed. Purpose and behavioural alignment are rarely integrated into this design and the journey from then on is likely homogenous, meaning that even if the organization has a well developed purpose and value statements, that aspect of the employee experience has not been designed into unique role based journeys. From frontline to senior leaders, from individual contributor to team based roles, from customer facing to back office, this aspect of the employee journey, that of purpose, values and behaviours has not been designed based on role.

To help our clients kickoff this exercise, we created an adapted Ikagai model.

It's simple yet acts as a great starting place to use when constructing role based journeys. Assuming you already have a true higher order mission statement and values, this model can assist in shifting thinking about the employee journey from a place of purpose first and eventually working back to pay so that each journey addresses all aspects of the classic Ikagai concept.

So what do you think? Do you have employee journeys mapped in your organization? Are they purpose driven? I would love to hear everyone's stories or feedback in the comments.

Also, stay tuned. In my next article, I will be discussing 4 Steps to Employee Journey Mapping using this approach to kickoff great journey design.

About the author: Neal Dlin is a Human Experience speaker and practitioner inclusive of customer and employee experience. He is the Founder and Chief Customer Officer at Chorus Tree Consulting. Neal is considered a thought leader in the areas of customer experience, employee experience and contact centres. For over 20 years, Neal has been helping organizations across multiple industries, including leading brands and digital start-ups, improve their customer and employee experiences. Neal is also the founder of Unsung Heroes Productions (UHP), a charitable project he started in 2011. UHP produces musical theatre fundraisers for Leukemia, Mental Health and Poverty. By 2018, UHP had raised over $320,000 for these causes. You can learn more at www.unsungheroesproductions.com.