Think your employee journey is seamless? Think again. Most candidates face jargon, distractions, and clunky systems that derail their path before it even starts and being completely honest customer are a lot more like Zig and Zag then we would like to admit (aka all over the place)

What You'll Learn Today

• Why employee journeys are rarely as linear as they seem

• How to design for zigzags, not perfection

• Simple ways to reduce friction

^{Want to design better products, services, and experiences for your customers and employees? Want to move faster from problem to product? The People Product OS digital deck is perfect for you, its all my tips and tricks for designing services, products Interactions and experiences for the likes of Dyson, HSBC, and TalkTalk}

The Great Journey Map Deception

Why Journey Maps Lie

Your customer journey map is lying to you. Not because it's badly designed, or because we design and present it as a linear journey. I even did that in The Insightful Innovator because it's easier to tell a story and because I only had limited white space.

However, most journey maps lie because they assume perfection. They imagine a world where customers breeze effortlessly from one touchpoint to the next, following a straight, logical path like clockwork.

☝️ But real journeys dont look like this

People don't move in clean lines. They zigzag. They jump ahead, circle back, abandon tasks midway, and reappear when you least expect it. Life gets in the way confusion, distraction, poor signaling, and emotions all play a role in shaping what people do next.

The problem isn't the map itself, the problem is how we design journeys, treating them as idealised narratives rather than fluid, unpredictable experiences.

A tale of two journeys

Lets imagine two journeys, one being a potential customer, the other being a potential candidate for a job opening

Customer Journey Expectation

• Customer is browsing the web stumbles across an amazing ad in instagram discover the product and clicks add to card

Customer Journey Reality 

• The customer starts browsing see your ad, but halfway through reading about it, they get interrupted by a phone call

• An hour later, they return, but now they're on their tablet instead of their laptop, and they can't find the ad or item they'd saved Frustrated, they give up

• Days later, they see an Instagram ad for your product and decide to try again, but this time, their password doesn't work because they've forgotten it

• Finally, they complete their purchase, but not without bumps along the way

Candidate Journey Expectation

• The candidate wakes up in the morning not wanting to do another day in their current roles and see a job posting on Linkedin, they hit apply now and wait for the interview to come in

Candidate Journey Reality 

• They look at the job posting on their mobile, read the Job spec and get lost in your jargon

• They run it through ChatGPT and ask it to explain it to them like a 5 year old

• ChatGPT tells them they have the skills, but just as they are about to apply, they receive a WhatsApp from their work mate it a crying gif because they have to go in work

• After addressing the message (with another gif) they get ready for work

• Days later, they see an employee of the company share the job on LinkedIn

• They save the post and quickly check Glassdoor

• The reviews look good, so they decide to apply but then, they hit Workday

• It asks them to upload their CV and manually enter all their data again

• Frustrated, they bail. Maybe they will apply later that night... spoiler: they never do!

The Emotional Journey

Emotions are the invisible thread running through every customer journey. Frustration, confusion, delight, relief these feelings shape decisions far more than any rational, simple step by step logic. Yet, most journey dont capture them or the flatten these emotions into surface level actions like "click" or "apply."

Using sentiment analysis and tools from the people product OS like empathy maps, and emotional maps allow you to add narrative to the journey and visualize what customers and employees are thinking, feeling, and experiencing along with the influences around them during key moments.

Most importantly, listen to the voice of your customer (VOC) and the voice of your employee (VOE). This ongoing feedback will reveal emotional highs and lows, helping you identify where to create moments of delight or reduce frustration but this data is only valuable if you're going to do something with it.

Designing for reality - The zigzags

Real journeys are messy. People zigzag jumping ahead, circling back, abandoning tasks midway. Life gets in the way, distractions, poor signals, and emotions all shape what happens next.

A great journey map doesn't just show the ideal path it accounts for alternate routes. It asks:

• "What happens if the customer stops here?"

• "What if they come back later?"

• "What if they skip a step entirely?"

By planning for these alternative scenarios, you create a more resilient and adaptable experience. A great tactic to use when mapping and asking these questions is the consequences tree

Turning Flaws into Opportunities

For Customers

• Recognize returning users and show previously saved items

• Streamline password reset flows to reduce frustration

• Include direct links to carts in Instagram ads

For Candidates

• Embed simple layman language explainer videos in job postings

• Create quick FAQs under the job posting addressing common questions everything from job expectations to company culture, so candidates don’t need to leave the page to find answers.

• Implement WhatsApp follow ups for incomplete applications along with the Glassdoor score and links to real employee stories

• Enable one click LinkedIn applications with working auto population

Feedback Loops

To ensure the journey evolves over time candidates and customers who drop out are sent a quick, anonymous survey to ask about their experience. Over time, the company notices a trend people abandon applications during the manual data entry stage. Armed with this insight, they streamline the process even further, eliminating unnecessary fields and focusing on what really matters.

The Takeaway

The messiness of customer journeys isn't a problem to solve it's an opportunity. Every zigzag, pause, and detour reveals where you can innovate and build trust.

When you design with the understanding that people will step off your perfect path, you create experiences that feel flexible, forgiving, and human. You build systems that adapt to your customers instead of forcing customers to adapt to you.

Great customer journeys don't come from chasing perfection. They come from designing for the zigzags: the unpredictable, emotional, and sometimes messy realities of real people.

By layering in emotional data, listening to your customers and employees, and designing for alternate paths, you create something far more valuable than a perfect map. You create experiences that work in the real world no matter which direction your customers decide to go.

Of course, this is just scratching the surface of journey mapping. There's a whole world of quantitative analytics, service blueprints, cross channel orchestration, and journey governance that we haven't even touched on. But sometimes the best way to start improving journeys is to acknowledge the simple truth humans aren't robots, and their paths will never be perfect.

Thanks for reading. If you've got thoughts to share, just hit reply I always enjoy hearing from you.

Speak soon, Danny

Psst...whenever you're ready, there are a few ways I can help you: