What is Design Thinking?
As a consultant who has worked across various industries and disciplines, Design Thinking is fascinating because it can be applied in any sector and yields powerful business results. It is significant for human resources because all the principles of Design Thinking, in essence, are human-centric. In short, Design Thinking is a non-linear iterative process of finding the most human-centric solution for any problem.
The goal of design thinking is to funnel creativity and drive innovation. It accomplishes so by following the core principles:
Empathy
Definition
Ideation
Prototyping
Testing
Each of these steps works separately to develop solutions that cater to the stakeholders adequately.
Like most HR professionals, you might be tempted to think you have never designed any processes, capabilities, or tools. However, you have.
What HR professionals once designed for, such as workflows, processes, etc. HR Professionals now design for the entire workforce–a busier workforce with more noise coming from all directions. They are more easily distracted and asked to do more than they've ever been asked to before.
In an information-driven world, we are inundated with information and technology that often leaves us always on and connected. It is easy to be counterproductive and become overwhelmed if we don't protect and preserve mindful focus and productivity.
Optimizing HR with Design Thinking
It's everywhere you look these days: "the new HR," the "future of work," which inherently leads to a discussion of new skills needed to thrive in the modern world of HR. We can't attend a conference without seeing one of these critical skills mentioned: design thinking.
In the case of HR, Design Thinking concentrates on constructing a structure, a design for operations that would align the company's strategic goals with its employees. It begins by creating the problem statement to find ways of resolving that. Unlike machines, humans, after all, are not engineered to deliver automated, accurate results around the clock. Innovation is the path to meeting this challenge. Design thinking is capable of driving that innovation.
Tim Brown, one of the pioneers of Design Thinking, believes that "leading through questions" is the best way to drive innovation. Questions connect us to stakeholder needs and help us understand the scope of improvement.
Let's look at the following HR processes and how Design Thinking applies to each.
Human Resource Planning: HR planning entangles recruiting, selecting, hiring, and training suitable candidates to make them job-ready. This is one of the critical processes for any company since it builds assets for them. Design thinking can optimize this process by blending a few of the principles. Empathy can help recruiters create a welcoming environment for potential recruits. Empathy will also help the HR team identify inherent challenges and manage them. In the design thinking process, Ideation encourages users to be creative and think of newer ways of addressing an issue. This step is paramount to innovation. HR teams must be willing to abandon conventional systems and break thought barriers to develop new solutions and drive innovation in recruitment policies. These efforts will create a conducive environment for onboarding and training new employees.
Performance Management: Performance management seeks to recognize employees' meaningful work and reward that appropriately. Employees often complain about not being celebrated for their contribution, and HR departments often struggle with measuring performance. Design Thinking can improve this process more effectively by using surveys to connect and empathize with the employees to understand their concerns and expectations. Investing in automated performance management system (PMS) platforms can help managers stay modernized on their team's performance and aid in evaluation.
Employee-Employer Relationship Management: The HR department is also responsible for sustaining a harmonious relationship between the company and the employees. The challenge with most business organizations, the communication between employees and employers is not very well structured. This breakdown in communication channels can lead to various issues. Design Thinking can enhance this process with an empathy-driven guideline toward issues that concern both stakeholders. Using Design Thinking methods, the HR team can evaluate the concern and develop solutions that appease them equally.
Compensation and Benefits: Compensation and benefits comprise a large part of the HR department handles. The HR department reviews and updates their compensation from when a candidate joins a company and gets promoted to the time he quits or retires. Design Thinking methods can help the HR team understand the requirements and expectations of the employees and the employers' budgets and optimize the compensation accordingly. Even while designing policies, an empathy-driven approach can help formulate policies that meet the needs of the employees and genuinely benefit them.