Treat Employees Like Customers: Using CX Design Tools in HR

I have a real passion for great people-driven design, especially applying fresh approaches design to 'rusty' old HR processes that were designed in the 1980's based mostly on the needs of the company, in the days when HR had just evolved from the dreaded 'Personnel' department.

My first exposure to human-centred design thinking was about 7 years ago when I had to mentor a HR software team, who had assembled a list of 'broken' things to fix but couldn't create a vision of what better looked like. Luckily I stumbled on a brilliant journey map of Starbucks coffee shop done by Little Springs Design and attempted my new design piece, with credit to LSD. I used the same process later that Summer to design my company's most successful leadership program ever, with a design that combined user requirements, strategic change-goals and latest industry research.

Experience Design for Leadership Program

The demand for a better Employee Experience has never been stronger. Companies who don't provide healthy work environment, good tools & apps plus relevant, user-friendly HR solutions get slowly 'tagged' in the talent market as a laggard. And year after year, as people's career expectations & dreams fall flat, another Why We Hate HR article hits to press.

Many companies are now willing to innovate in HR, but are realising that many teams have never been encouraged or trained to do this. Recently I partnered with Greg Stewart and Sean Gardiner from ASG to introduce key human centred design practices to a HR team, training people product-by-product to bring research, creative thinking and (very) human design to create a better HR solutions and happier, more productive teams. I encourage HR professionals and HR-app builders to consult with a design specialist for any new product that feel a bit 'rusty'.

Rather than just inherit stale process or just automate it in old ERP-solutions, it really is time for us all to do a bit better for the people in our companies.