In the modern hybrid workplace, understanding and optimizing employees' digital journeys is essential. Our new blog series is going to explain why.
In this first blog, we explore the ways to assess digital journeys: process mining, task mining and employee journey mapping. Understanding the differences between these three approaches is essential to drive operational excellence. While process mining and task mining each offer valuable insights, they have limitations and only provide a partial view of employee experience. Organizations are now looking to add a third dimension, employee journey mapping, which provides the full context of how employees work, interact, and navigate their digital ecosystem.
Process mining
Process mining extracts data from systems to model, analyze and optimize business processes. It works by taking data from event logs within multiple business systems that record detailed information about each step in a workflow. Using this information, process mining tools create visual maps of the processes, so organizations can view a comprehensive workflow across departments or functions. Process mining operates at a macro level – offering a birds-eye view of end-to-end workflows, allowing businesses to identify inefficiencies, bottlenecks and delays across interconnected systems.
Task mining
Task mining differs by focusing on the micro level and zeroing in on individual user interactions with software applications. By capturing detailed user actions—such as clicks, keystrokes, and navigation—task mining identifies inefficiencies within specific tasks, highlights common mistakes, and pinpoints opportunities for automation. It provides insights into how daily tasks are executed, making it a powerful tool for improving user-level efficiency. However, task mining is best suited for examining individual tasks rather than entire workflows, complementing the broader scope of process mining when the two are employed together.
Beyond process mining & task mining – adding the third dimension
While process mining and task mining offer an established approach to support the move towards operational excellence, they fall short in allowing users to frame analysis in the context of the organization. Workstyle analytics can bridge this gap. Workstyle analytics integrates employee journey mapping with a layer of digital employee experience analytics. As a result, HR, IT and operational excellence teams can achieve even deeper and more accurate insights and analysis of how work gets done.
Employee journey mapping provides detailed insights into how individual users and teams execute specific tasks, leveraging traditional task mining techniques. This information is enriched with granular workstyle and DEX data, which frames task analysis within the broader organizational and user experience context. Additional perspectives include insights on work patterns (when work is done), location (where tasks are performed – office or remote), and group (function, team, role, or individual), as well as data on the performance and stability of the technology supporting task execution. By embedding task execution within this organizational context, employee journey mapping enables more accurate perspectives and actionable insights to drive meaningful outcomes.
Closing the gap
Despite employee journey mapping’s importance, our recent research reveals that nearly half (45%) of organizations do not conduct any form of employee journey mapping.
While companies regularly map customer journeys to understand how users interact with their websites and mobile apps to improve usability and satisfaction, the same approach is rarely applied to employees' experiences. One of the reasons for this gap is the complexity of mapping employee journeys in hybrid work models. Employees interact with systems from various locations, devices, and networks, making it difficult to capture a unified journey. Experiences vary based on location, access to resources, and the tools used, adding layers of complexity to the mapping process.
Understanding the employee experience is critical for creating an environment where individuals can thrive, alongside the business itself. And in our next blog, we will dive into how employee journey mapping works and cover some of the significant benefits it offers organizations.
