Employee Experience Design: Journey Mapping, Listening and EX Measurement – Dubai, 22–26 Feb 2027

Programme overview

Introduction:

Many organisations run an annual engagement survey, publish the score and see little change in how work actually feels, while new starters leave within months and routine HR requests bounce between teams. Employee experience design tackles this by treating the working life as a series of journeys that can be observed, redesigned and measured. This Core Concept course equips HR practitioners to map the employee lifecycle, build personas and journey maps, run a listening strategy, redesign moments that matter and HR service delivery, and govern the work. Participants leave with an Employee Experience Improvement Roadmap.

Course Objectives:

• Distinguish employee experience from engagement and assess the current state of EX across the employee lifecycle
• Build evidence-based employee personas and journey maps that locate the moments that matter and the pain points within them
• Design an employee listening strategy that combines pulse surveys, eNPS, lifecycle surveys, stay interviews and exit interviews
• Redesign onboarding, workplace, digital tools and wellbeing touchpoints using design thinking and rapid prototyping
• Improve HR service delivery through a tiered service model, self-service knowledge content and case management
• Measure EX against retention and productivity outcomes and set the governance that sustains an Employee Experience Improvement Roadmap

Target Audience:

• HR business partners who advise business units on people issues and act on employee feedback
• Employee experience and people experience leads who own lifecycle design and improvement priorities
• HR operations and shared services managers responsible for HR service delivery, case handling and self-service
• Onboarding and employee lifecycle programme managers accountable for joiner, mover and leaver processes
• Workplace and digital workplace managers who shape the physical and technology environment employees use daily

Course Outline:

Day 1: Employee Experience Foundations and Current-State Assessment

• Employee Experience Versus Engagement, Satisfaction and Culture: Definitions and Boundaries
• Employee Lifecycle Model from Attraction to Alumni
• Three Environments of EX: Physical Workplace, Technology and Culture
• EX Maturity Self-Assessment and Evidence Inventory
• Early Attrition and HR Ticket Data Review for Baseline Setting

Day 2: Personas, Journey Maps and Moments That Matter

• Employee Persona Canvas Built from Interview and HR System Data
• Employee Journey Map Structure: Stages, Actions, Touchpoints and Emotion Curve
• Moments That Matter Prioritisation Matrix by Impact and Frequency
• Service Blueprint for HR Processes Behind Each Journey Stage
• Design Thinking Cycle Applied to HR: Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test

Day 3: Employee Listening and Designing EX Improvements

• Employee Listening Architecture: Annual, Pulse and Lifecycle Surveys
• eNPS Question Design, Calculation and Follow-Up Rules
• Stay Interview and Exit Interview Protocols with Theme Coding
• Onboarding Journey Redesign: Preboarding, First Week and First Ninety Days Plan
• Digital Employee Experience and Wellbeing Touchpoint Improvement Backlog

Day 4: HR Service Delivery, EX Measurement and Common Pitfalls

• Tiered HR Service Delivery Model: Self-Service, HR Help Desk and Specialist Tiers
• HR Knowledge Base Article Standards and Case Management Workflow
• EX Scorecard Linking Experience Measures to Retention and Productivity
• Survey Fatigue, Low Response Rates and Action-Planning Failure Diagnostics
• EX Governance: Ownership Model, Cross-Functional EX Council and Prioritisation Rules

Day 5: Case Work and the Employee Experience Improvement Roadmap

• Healthcare Case: Reducing First-Year Turnover Among Shift Staff
• Professional Services Case: Fixing a Fragmented HR Request Journey
• Own-Organisation Journey Map and Moments That Matter Selection
• Employee Experience Improvement Roadmap Drafting with Owners and Measures
• Peer Review Panel and Roadmap Defence

Skills You Will Gain:

• Employee Journey Mapping
• Persona Development
• Employee Listening Design
• Experience Prototyping
• Onboarding Design
• HR Service Design
• EX Metrics and Scorecards
• Cross-Functional Governance

Why Attend This Course:

• Return with an Employee Experience Improvement Roadmap built around your own moments that matter and tested by a peer panel
• Replace a single annual survey with a listening approach that tells you where and why employees struggle
• Cut repeat HR requests and hand-offs by redesigning how employees get answers and support
• Compare EX practice with HR practitioners from healthcare, services, industry and the public sector

Conclusion:

Employee experience improves when HR looks at work through the employee's eyes, listens continuously and fixes the moments that shape whether people stay and perform. The course moves from separating experience from engagement and assessing the current state, through personas, journey maps and listening methods, to redesigning onboarding, digital tools and HR service delivery, and then to measurement and governance. The final day applies these methods to cases from several sectors and produces an Employee Experience Improvement Roadmap ready for leadership review.