In today’s age of cut-throat competition, the responsibilitiesof HR personnel in anorganization are wide and varied
In addition to recruitment and resource management, the HR also needs to ensure that the employees are working to their
Fullest or otherwise. It is for this reason, that experts round the world call on companies to frame a module what is known as ‘design thinking’.Sounds new? While the term might be relatively unheard of, it is a practice that has been implemented by successful organizations for a long time now. So what is design thinking? According to a report on the same,
“Design thinking provides a means to focus on the employee’s personal experience and to create processescentered upon the worker. The result: new solutions and tools that directly contribute to employee satisfaction, productivity, and enjoyment”.
In other words, it is the management focusing on the employee experience in a particular task, rather than the end result of the said work. 79 percent of executives in this year’s Global Human CapitalTrends survey rated design thinking an important or very important issue. A survey in key countries too threw light on its increasing significance.
According to the report, 88 percent of employees in China, 85 in India, 84 in Italy, 83 in Mexico, 81 in Australia, 81 in Spain feel that deisgn thinking is ‘important’ or ‘very important’ to a company’s success.On the other hand, Developed countries like USA, Germany,the United Kingdom and Canada are not too enamoured with this concept, as only 69, 70, 72 and 74 percent of respondents felt the need to bring about such a mechanism. Many companies today have dedicated designers who develop profiles of employees, to understand the work environment and its challenges faced. This include introducing latest technology to bring in systems that would ease the work flow.
For instance, ‘design thinking’ begins right from the recruitment process. A complex job application experiencemight end in a dent to the company’s image among prospective employees, who find it an immediate put-off This design thinking initiative does not restrict itself to one aspect of the workforce. It can be applied and implemented in various other categories like organizational design, engagement, learning, analytics, HR skills and digital HR. There needs to be a prototype for building a mechanism to facilitate employee experience using design thinking. Telstra, a leading telecommunications company in Australia used this scheme to develop a new “90-Day” onboarding experience for all employees as well as an individualized executive induction program.
It involved interviews and group sessions with employees and other managers, comparing insights with data obtaine from turnover statistics, prototyping and visualisation. This ensured that the company was able to design an on- boarding prototype that ensured its employees get the best of what it has to offer. The newly designed process with four key elements including join, learn, contribute and growth. In a nutshell, the whole idea behind design thinking, involves the upgradation of the skills of the HR personnel, and bring about new solutions and tools that if implemented, would result in a marked increase in the productivity of the workforce.
The key for this is looking for ideas within the organisation, for, nobody knows what is best for them, more than theemployees themselves. So a detailed analysis of what translates into an enriching employee experience, what can be done to increase productivity and to ensure positivity in the work environment, and how can technology be incorporated into the work flow, that would ensure a seamless working experience for the team.
