How can we truly understand what is on our colleagues’ minds? What worries them, what energises them, what makes them stay or silently disengage?
To answer those questions, it helps to step outside the traditional HR lens for a moment and borrow a page from a very different discipline: marketing.
If employees were customers
When marketers want to understand their audience, they start by asking questions.
What do our customers think of us? Where can we improve? What should we focus on more, or less? How do we make a real difference in their lives?
Based on these insights, they adjust their strategy, refine their messaging and improve the experience. They use data not only to retain existing customers, but also to attract new ones by identifying look-alikes and adjacent segments. They map customer journeys and study media consumption to understand where attention is gained or lost.
Now imagine applying that same mindset to the employee journey.
Mapping the employee journey
If we approached engagement like marketers, we would ask different questions.
Where does talent first discover us? On which platforms are we visible, and to whom? Do people find us through word of mouth, social media or job advertisements? Are we dependent on external recruiters, or does talent naturally seek us out?
Once a potential employee shows interest, the next phase begins.
Do we know if candidates visit our website multiple times? Can we connect someone who downloads our sustainability report with someone who later applies? How do pre-boarding and onboarding shape expectations? What does the first day really feel like? Is there a buddy or onboarding coordinator to ease the transition? And crucially, does the perception of the organisation change once people are inside?
These are not trivial questions. They shape commitment long before someone signs a contract.
To measure is to know
There is only one way to uncover these insights: ask.
In marketing, qualitative research often starts with focus groups. The same logic applies here. A group of recently hired employees can help map the talent journey in detail.
What were the decisive moments? When did they truly decide to join? How did they first hear about the organisation? What role did the website, the hiring manager or the CEO play? These insights can then be validated across the organisation through surveys and ongoing measurement. This should not be a one-off exercise, but a continuous way of keeping a finger on the pulse.
One simple but powerful metric is the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS), which captures how likely employees are to recommend the organisation as a place to work.
The colleague conversation we forget
One element is still surprisingly overlooked.
An interview with a future immediate colleague.
Giving candidates the chance to speak with the people they will actually work with helps prevent misunderstandings and unrealistic expectations. It creates transparency and trust on both sides. Candidates leave with a clearer picture of the team and the day-to-day reality, not just the employer brand narrative.
Engagement as a continuous dialogue
A marketing-inspired approach does not stop at hiring. It applies to the entire employee lifecycle.
By mapping engagement across moments that matter, organisations gain a clearer view of commitment, alignment with purpose and resonance with values. When employees feel listened to, they are more willing to share feedback. Sometimes that feedback is uncomfortable, but it is always essential for progress.
When trust is present, engagement stops being a survey exercise and becomes a dialogue.
And just like in marketing, once you truly understand your audience, you finally have the foundation to improve the experience.
Book reference
This marketing-inspired view on engagement is explored further in Employee Engagement, What Else?. The book unpacks 12 drivers of engagement and shows how organisations can apply them across the full employee journey, from attraction and onboarding to leadership, culture and daily behaviours.
If you want to understand not just what engagement scores say, but what to do with them, the other drivers will help you turn insight into action.