Enhancing Employee Experience through UX

Leveraging user research and human-centred principles to create thriving workplaces

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In today's rapidly evolving workplace, the emphasis on employee experience has never been more critical. As organisations strive for higher engagement, productivity, and retention, the integration of user experience (UX) principles into EX emerges as a potential strategy.

This article delves into the why and how of applying UX methodologies to create a workplace that not only attracts but also retains top talent by prioritising their needs and well-being.

Democratisation re-imagined

A recent article by Jura (2023) highlighted a significant gap between how managers perceive their employees' well-being and the actual experiences of those employees, especially regarding their mental and financial health. Traditional HR feedback mechanisms like exit interviews may not fully capture the employee experience due to biases.

UX principles—centred around empathy, user research, and iterative design—offer a robust framework for enhancing EX. By applying these methodologies, organisations can create environments that not only foster employee satisfaction and engagement but also drive superior customer experiences.

The premise is simple: happier employees lead to happier customers.

I’ve had the chance to collaborate with my current company’s Workplace team on a few occasions and I would suggest you try the same. We often talk about democratisation but I rarely see perspectives like this; our methodology and principles can be applied beyond Design and Product and as UX professionals we get a chance to elevate our role.

Applying UX to employee experience

As UX professionals one of our main focus is understanding the user. Using various tools and methodologies, we gather data, analyse it, and iterate our designs for optimal experience. Such tools and methodologies can be employed to enrich the employee experience. Some examples are discussed below:

1. User research in the workplace: Implementing UX's qualitative and quantitative research methods, such as surveys, interviews, and observation, offers in-depth insights into employee needs, expectations, and challenges. This data-driven approach ensures that initiatives for improving EX are grounded in real employee feedback rather than assumptions. Research has shown that when employees feel heard, they exhibit higher job satisfaction and are less likely to quit.

2. Iterative design and feedback loops: Borrowing from the agile methodology prevalent in UX, introducing iterative cycles of design and feedback for workplace policies, tools, and environments enables continuous improvement. This involves creating channels for regular feedback and acting on this feedback to refine and enhance the employee experience.

3. Usability testing for internal tools: Just as UX emphasises the importance of testing with real users, evaluating the usability of internal tools and systems with employees ensures these tools enhance rather than hinder productivity.

4. Employee journey mapping: Similar to customer journey mapping, employee journey mapping involves outlining the various stages an employee goes through with the organisation. This method helps identify key touchpoints, pain points, and opportunities for enhancing engagement and satisfaction from recruitment through to offboarding. UX professionals can collaborate with workplace design teams during journey mapping activities. Their expertise in understanding user needs and identifying pain points can help uncover actionable insights from the employee perspective. Jura suggests starting with the following stages:

   1. Recruitment: Focus on activities the employee performs before they apply (e.g., job advert, websites collecting information about prospective company, application process)

   2. Onboarding: Evaluate the onboarding process from the target persona's perspective to ensure it's engaging and relevant.

   3. Development: Acknowledge diverse employee goals, such as mentorship, skill enhancement, or societal impact, beyond traditional career advancement.

   4. Retention: Focus on keeping employees motivated and engaged in their roles.

   5. Exit: Consider the process for employees leaving due to retirement, a new job, or a change in priorities.

5. Personas: Just as UX professionals develop user personas to understand their target audience better, companies can benefit from creating employee personas. These personas, based on real data, can give a clearer image of various employee segments, allowing for a more personalised approach to addressing needs.

Some examples

1. Usability testing: You can use this method to test internal tools and processes. Before fully deploying a new HR software solution, gather a group of employees to use it, asking them to complete tasks like requesting time off. Their feedback can highlight areas for improvement. Make the testing environment as close to real-world use as possible. Ensure that feedback is documented systematically for actionable insights. Here is an opportunity for UX professionals to partner with Workplace Design in designing the usability test, conducting the research sessions, analysing the findings, and making recommendations.

2. Prototyping: Simulate new programs or policies. For example, if you are considering a new working policy (e.g. asynchronous days), prototype it with a small team first, gathering feedback before a full-scale rollout. UX designers can team up with workplace design leads to create prototypes of new policies and programs. Their design thinking approach helps bring concepts to life before full implementation.

3. Feedback loops: Encourage iterative feedback. For example, after rolling out a new employee onboarding process, create monthly feedback sessions to continuously refine it. Consider using existing survey platforms to collect feedback more effortlessly. UX researchers can work with HR to optimise survey design, analyse results, and identify key insights from employee feedback loops.

4. Card Sorting: Organise information structures. Imagine you are redesigning the company’s Notion page, where vital information the employees regularly need to access lives. You can use card sorting to understand how employees categorise and access information. Workplace design can collaborate with UX researchers on card sorting activities to better understand employee mental models and needs around information architecture.

What’s the role of UX professionals in this?

UX professionals can pair up with workplace teams in a few key ways:

• Lead researchers: UX teams can take the helm on conducting user interviews, surveys, journey mapping and other core research to uncover employee insights.

• Advisors: For less intensive methods like small-scale usability tests or feedback surveys, UX can advise workplace teams on best practices while enabling them to own the activities.

• Trainers/Educators: UX can also play a democratising role by training workplace teams on foundational UX skills and mindsets. This helps ingrain human-centred thinking across the organisation.

Conclusion

Applying UX methodologies and principles to the field of employee experience, can offer a fresh, data-driven, and empathetic approach. It can enable creating environments that not only meet functional needs but also support the emotional and psychological well-being of employees. By harnessing the expertise of UX professionals, companies can create an environment where employees feel valued, understood, and motivated, driving not just satisfaction but also tangible business growth.