With a significant share of employees saying they are very likely to look for a new job in the next year, organizations cannot afford to leave the employee journey or company culture to chance. Every interaction, from the first time a candidate hears about your brand to the moment they become an alumnus, shapes how your culture is experienced and how people decide whether to stay or leave.
In this guide, we explain what the employee journey is, how it shapes company culture, the seven core stages of the journey, and how HR and people leaders can design culture led experiences. Along the way, we also show where a culture game like CULATHON can turn abstract values into tangible behaviors at key moments in the journey.
If you want a deeper view of why culture matters for performance, you can also read our article on whether company culture really impacts organizational performance.
What is the employee journey
The employee journey, also called the employee experience journey, is the complete relationship between a person and your organization, from first awareness of your employer brand to attraction, recruitment, onboarding, daily work, development, offboarding and alumni engagement.
It is close to the traditional employee life cycle, but the focus here is on lived experiences and specific touchpoints, those moments that leave a strong impression. Examples include the first interview, first day at work, first performance review, promotion conversations, a difficult conflict and the exit interview.
Each of these touchpoints is where your company culture actually shows up, in how decisions are made, how people are treated, how transparent communication is and how values are applied in practice. A well designed employee journey makes it easier to achieve outcomes like:
- Higher employee engagement and motivation
- Stronger retention and lower unwanted turnover
- Better performance and productivity
- Higher employee Net Promoter Score eNPS
Employee journey mapping means identifying all the key stages and ordering the most important touchpoints in time. HR can then measure the employee experience at each moment, see where friction appears and improve the journey over time instead of guessing. When you connect this mapping to your culture aspirations, the journey becomes a practical roadmap for culture change rather than a static HR diagram.
How the employee journey shapes company culture
Culture is often described as how we do things here, but that can feel vague. The employee journey makes culture concrete by showing where culture is experienced and how it helps or hurts people in real situations.
At the attraction and recruitment stages, candidates experience your culture through your language, responsiveness and fairness. During onboarding and early tenure, they see whether your stated values actually guide behavior. In development, retention, offboarding and alumni stages, employees collect the stories that become your true culture narrative, the one they share with friends and future colleagues.
Tools like the CULATHON culture game help teams talk about these moments in a more direct way. Instead of vague conversations about culture fit, employees play through real scenarios that mirror their employee journey, such as first week dilemmas, cross team collaboration or difficult feedback moments, and decide together what living our values looks like in practice.
If you want to see how we turn culture and employee experience into a structured process, explore the CULATHON Method, our three phase culture change framework.
HRs role in the employee journey
HR does not own every interaction in the journey, but it does own the design, standards and governance of that journey. Here is what that looks like in practice.
1. Orchestration, not ownership
HR designs the employee journey framework and defines what good looks like at each touchpoint. Different functions own different moments. For example, the hiring manager owns the quality of the first team introduction, even though HR defines the standard and supports them with tools and training.
2. Defining stages and key transitions
HR should clearly name the stages, for example attraction, recruitment, onboarding, development, offboarding and alumni, and define the critical transitions within each stage, such as job offer, the first thirty days, first performance review, internal moves, resignation and exit. Everyone needs to know when one stage ends and another begins and what a culture aligned experience looks like at each transition.
3. Setting policies and guardrails
HR ensures that practices are compliant and consistent across locations and worker types, from hourly staff to fully remote employees. This includes structured interviews, equal opportunity hiring, fair performance criteria and safe, inclusive work environments. As hybrid work becomes more common, HR also needs to make sure new hires are properly welcomed and equipped so their early experience reflects your stated values.
4. Manager enablement
The daily experience is shaped mainly by managers. HR should equip managers with scripts, checklists, templates and short trainings for recurring moments, such as offer calls, first day, early check ins, performance reviews, stay interviews and career conversations. A culture game like CULATHON can be part of manager toolkits, giving them a practical way to start values based conversations with their teams.
5. Data and governance
HR should own the employee journey analytics model, including definitions, key indicators, review rhythm and data quality. That includes keeping employee data clean, protecting privacy and reviewing journey data every month or every quarter to see trends and gaps. If you are interested in using metrics to drive culture, see our article on embedding HR metrics into culture strategy.
6. Cross functional coordination
Many journey breakdowns come from weak handoffs between functions. A practical solution is a regular journey council with representatives from recruiting, information technology, payroll, facilities and communications. The council solves issues like delayed equipment, access problems or confusing onboarding messages so new hires have what they need on their first day.
7. Employees voice and change management
HR should collect feedback continuously through pulse surveys, interviews and support tickets, and then close the loop by making changes and communicating them. When the journey changes, HR is also responsible for training managers, tracking adoption and measuring the effect of those changes. Culture focused sessions using CULATHON can be part of this feedback loop and give employees a safe and structured way to talk about what helps or hurts their experience.
The seven stages of the employee journey and key touchpoints
You can use the employee life cycle as a basic frame and then layer real experiences and touchpoints on top. Here are seven core stages and what matters most in each, with a culture view.
Stage one, attraction
At the attraction stage, the goal is to draw the right people toward your organization. Employer brand, public reputation and the clarity of your mission and values all influence whether candidates feel curious, indifferent or actively turned off. This is where your culture story starts for them.
Key touchpoints: First encounters with your website, careers page, social channels and employer review sites.
Stage two, recruitment
Recruitment covers job design, posting, application, selection and offers. Very complex or unclear processes can cause strong candidates to leave the process. Simple job descriptions, clear timelines and respectful, timely communication send a clear cultural message about how you treat people.
Key touchpoints: Job postings, application forms, interview experiences, feedback moments and the final offer or rejection.
Stage three, onboarding
Onboarding starts when the offer is accepted and continues through the first months. It includes preboarding, paperwork, access and welcome information, plus the experience of the first days and weeks. This is often the first culture shock moment, positive or negative.
High quality onboarding provides clarity on role expectations, introduces the culture, connects new hires to their team and makes sure information technology and tools are ready on day one. It is also one of the strongest places to make your values real and not only words on a slide. In many organizations, CULATHON is used as part of the onboarding journey so new hires can play through realistic dilemmas and see how the culture looks in action. For a deeper look at this stage, explore our article on onboarding as the key to elevating your company culture.
Key touchpoints: Preboarding messages, first day at work, first introduction to the team and manager and the first thirty to ninety days of check ins.
Stage four, retention
Retention is about keeping people engaged and committed over time. This stage depends on three environments, technological, cultural and physical. Employees constantly ask themselves if they belong here and if this culture supports them or drains them.
Managers should check in regularly with employees, discuss workload and priorities and act on concerns before they turn into reasons to leave. Group culture sessions using a game like CULATHON can help teams realign on behaviors and reset when misalignments appear. If you are exploring the link between engagement and outcomes, our overview of employee engagement statistics is a useful companion to this stage.
Key touchpoints: Integration into team and culture, regular one to one meetings with the manager, feedback channels and recognition moments.
Stage five, development
Development covers learning, growth and mobility. When employees see no way to grow, they often look elsewhere. A strong employee journey includes structured development plans, coaching, training and chances to move into new roles or responsibilities. Culture shows up in who receives opportunities, how feedback is given and how failure is handled.
Key touchpoints: First formal performance review, development plan, access to learning programs, coaching and mentoring and promotions or lateral moves.
Stage six, offboarding
Offboarding begins once someone resigns or is informed that their role will end. How you treat people at this stage has a real effect on your brand and the stories they share later. A culture that treats leavers with respect and honesty sends a strong message to those who stay.
Thoughtful offboarding includes structured handover, transparent communication and a meaningful exit conversation to understand the employees view.
Key touchpoints: Resignation conversation, handover meetings, exit interview, last working day and final communication.
Stage seven, alumni or happy leavers
The journey does not end on the last day. Former employees can become advocates, future rehires or even clients. An alumni strategy keeps the relationship warm and mutually helpful and extends the reach of your culture beyond your current structure.
Key touchpoints: Invitation to an alumni community, ongoing newsletters or events, informal connections with former colleagues and rehire conversations.
How to build a positive, culture led employee journey
Designing a great employee journey is not about more perks. It is about clarity, consistency and listening, all anchored in the culture you want to live. Here are practical steps you can take.
1. Start with clarity
Create a one page employee journey map that shows each stage, key touchpoints, owners, service level expectations and key indicators. Make it visible to HR, managers and support functions and review it regularly. If you want to connect this mapping to a structured culture process, see the three phase CULATHON Method for culture change.
2. Standardize critical moments
Identify the moments that matter, such as job offer, first day, first week, first review, promotion and exit, and standardize them with simple processes and templates. For example, automate preboarding tasks, provide a clear first months plan for new hires and use consistent performance review templates. You can also decide where culture workshops or CULATHON sessions fit into these moments.
3. Equip managers
Provide managers with ready toolkits, including email templates, meeting agendas, feedback scripts and conversation guides for each stage of the employee journey. Short focused trainings and regular check ins with HR help them apply these tools. CULATHON sessions can be built into manager routines as a practical way to talk about values and behaviors with their teams.
4. Use employee journey analytics
Define key indicators for each stage and track them consistently. For example, in recruitment you might measure time to hire and offer acceptance rate, in early tenure you might track ninety day retention and in the retention stage you might follow overall turnover, engagement scores and eNPS. Run small experiments and compare results before and after. To connect culture and data, see our guide on embedding HR metrics into culture strategy.
5. Close the feedback loop
Ask for feedback at key moments, for example after an offer is accepted, after the first week, after probation, after performance reviews and after exit, but do not stop at listening. Share what you have changed because of that feedback so employees see that their voice leads to action. Culture sessions using CULATHON can be a safe space to surface this feedback in a structured and playful way.
6. Design for inclusion
Make sure your employee journey is fair and accessible. Use structured interviews, clear promotion criteria and flexible options where possible. Monitor outcomes across different roles, locations and groups to see inequities and adjust. The stories and scenarios you bring into your culture programs and games should reflect this diversity as well.
7. Automate the routine
Use your HRIS, applicant tracking system and workflow tools to handle reminders, approvals and status tracking. Automation reduces manual errors and keeps the journey consistent, which builds trust and reliability into the experience.
8. Prioritize by impact versus effort
Each quarter, choose a few quick wins, for example making sure all equipment is ready on day one, and one or two larger projects, such as a manager capability program or a new development framework. Connect these priorities to your culture goals and to the employee journey stages where you see the largest gaps.
9. Sustain progress with regular reviews
Set a regular rhythm, for example every quarter, to review employee journey indicators, feedback and process compliance with HR, managers and support teams. Use these sessions to refresh your journey map, remove outdated steps and confirm next priorities and owners.
Where CULATHON fits in your employee journey
The employee journey should be treated as a strategic asset, not a side task. When you map the key stages, assign clear ownership and standardize critical moments, you remove friction for employees and make it easier for managers to do the right things consistently. To truly shift culture though, people need shared experiences, not just new documents and diagrams.
CULATHON is an organizational culture game that fits naturally into the employee journey at critical moments such as onboarding cohorts, team resets, leadership events and culture change programs. You bring your real culture challenges and values and we help you turn them into a game that your teams can play, discuss and translate into daily behaviors.
If you want to see how the culture game works in practice, start with our overview of how CULATHON works, then explore the three phase CULATHON Method. From there, you can decide where in your employee journey you want to add a shared, culture focused experience.
Start small. Define your journey map, pick a focused set of indicators and improve a few touchpoints at a time. Over time, a well designed, culture led employee journey becomes a real competitive advantage that strengthens your employer brand, improves retention and supports better business results.
