With the high technology innovations, employees are now equipped with the constant flood of information. According to Deloitte data, people constantly check their phones more than 8 billion times per day, but productivity is scarcely increasing. HR must use design thinking, which puts the employee experience at the center, to relieve the overburdened employee and develop HR tools to help manage complexity. Design thinking shifts HR's attention away from programs and processes and toward a new goal: creating a productive and meaningful employee experience through compelling, pleasurable, and simple solutions.
The Role of Design Thinking on Employee Experience
Customers' perceptions of your company are shaped by how employees perceive it. Design thinking aids in the creation of an engaging workplace that delights employees in "moments that matter."
Design thinking allows you to focus on the employee's individual experience and build tailored processes. As a result, new tools and solutions have been developed to benefit employee satisfaction, productivity, and enjoyment. HR departments should improve their abilities to include essential design principles like digital design, mobile app design, user experience design, and behavioral economics into their work. Design thinking is valuable and practical. According to this year's poll, respondents at organizations where HR provides the most value are nearly five times more likely than their peers to use design thinking in their initiatives.
What Exactly Does "Employee Experience" Imply?
Employee experience is the total of everything that happens during a career. It begins when an employee applies for a job and ends on their last workday.
Employee experience involves four crucial stages:
1. Recruitment: This is your first opportunity to showcase your company's culture and build trust with a prospective hire. The total experience is determined by how smooth the application procedure is.
2. Employee Onboarding: Integrating a new employee into a company. While on the job, they acquire a sense of how things will be. The smoother the onboarding process, the better their experience will be.
3. Employee Retention and Development: The candidate contributes to the company's growth and development. They've assimilated into the culture. The experience is influenced by their daily routine, work connections, growth possibilities, learning, etc.
4. Employee Exit: Employees who leave the company until their exit interview are included in this category.
Why Is Employee Engagement So Important Now?
Engagement of Employees - In the United States, 36 percent of employees are involved in their work and workplace, the same as Gallup's composite proportion of engaged employees in 2020. Around the world, 20% of employees are engaged at work.
Retention of Employees - In 2021, 74% of actively disengaged workers are actively looking for new work or keeping an eye out for openings. In comparison, 55 percent of disengaged employees and 30 percent of engaged employees are not involved.
To Attract High-Performing Employees - Companies like Zappos create candidate experiences to attract high-performing employees and make it simple to find and apply for the perfect position.
Companies Design Employee Experience to Attract and Retain High-Performing People
The employee experience is more significant in the employee life cycle. At each point of the life cycle is the journey people take with your organization and their interactions with managers and associates.
What Can Business Leaders Do?
1. Provide design thinking training and seminars to Human Resources managers.
2. Learn and apply design thinking as used in customer service.
3. Create a prototype, test it, and learn from it.
HR Leaders as Designers
HR leaders can be designers by focusing on people, resulting in a more engaging and effective HR solution. When used appropriately, design thinking is a way of problem-solving that is rigorous and disciplined. It's an opportunity for HR to rethink how it collaborates with the company and its processes while leveraging technology to promote significant employee interactions.
When done correctly, design thinking creates a virtuous loop that increases employee satisfaction, engagement, and productivity for the organization. Talent leaders should ask themselves, given their new role as designers, how can HR build and influence the employee experience? How can HR create holistic experiences that engage employees at every stage of their careers, from prospects to alumni? How can HR assist in developing and reinforcing design talents across the organization?