Article: How important is design thinking in HR?

Strategic HR

How important is design thinking in HR?

How does design thinking help HR? Can we re-orient HR designs to get better performance results?
How important is design thinking in HR?

A creative approach to solving a problem that puts the customer's experience in the center is called design thinking. As the HR function is rapidly evolving and adapting to new ways of engaging the workforce, design thinking can be very helpful in figuring out improvement areas in recruiting and hiring strategies. 

“Companies that have already adopted design thinking have a massive advantage over their competitors. HR needs to put themselves in an employee’s or candidate’s shoes to understand how they compare jobs, evaluate positions and apply for jobs to provide better strategies for recruiting and attracting potential candidates.” 

Design thinking was initially used in product design companies only. However, due to technological advances and rapid changes in every field, using design thinking principles has become a game changer.

These are some of the aspects of design thinking that give a simplified path to revamp HR processes to suit the changing workforce dynamics:

  • Human-centric designs

Gone are the days when an institution would decide as per their convenience and needs. The market today offers enormous opportunity, and potential candidates choose according to their preferences. Today, we are driven by a labor market where an employee’s needs, requirements, and comfort are taken into consideration. Any organization that understands what a candidate is looking for has a winning hand compared to their competitors.

  • Collaborative design

Future candidates and current employees play an equally important role in shaping your organization's employer brand. A higher number of satisfied employees ensure better reputation in the market. On your website, if you have your CEO articulate good things about the work environment, it might not be as effective as a video uploaded by your employees who talk about their experiences and the reasons that have motivated them to work hard to grow and stick around for long.

“Knowing your co-worker's feedback and their thoughts about a particular workplace sets an image which might help you pursue a job or search for other opportunities. Any organization that knows its employee and tries to improve their experience, can and will attract more potential candidates.”  

Get your marketing team to help you attract best resources for your brand, which will help you grow in the right direction.

  • Creative problem solving

Creativity is the need of the hour. There are so many new concepts that have been introduced for attracting the right talent - right from Recruitment Marketing, Inbound Recruiting, Social Media Recruiting, Candidate Relationship Management and Data-driven Recruiting. HR has gone through a tremendous transformation from what the recruiting process was five years back to how talent acquisition is now. 

Technology has helped raise the bar to the next level. However, it has created many obstacles as well. Recruits and candidates are more connected and aware of an organization's culture due to social and technological advances. Hence, it is crucial creating best candidate experience, branding strategies and implementing the latest HR technology to attract suitable people for the designated jobs.

  • Prototyping

Experiment with internal recruitment policies. Use different career site controls, videos, employee testimonials, employee career stories and team blogs to attract employees and recruits. Try and keep application forms short and keep the selection process shorter rather than making it tedious. Mix and match different types of questions in an interview that help you understand people's character, knowledge, and experience.

  • Testing

It's tough for an idea to be successful or give you expected results right away. Hence, it is essential to test your plans to see which one gives you the maximum output with minimum cost and effort. Try different strategies which keep employees satisfied while providing quality work. Once the idea is tested and applicable, you can measure time, cost and quality of your organization as well as employees.  As per inc.com companies like Airbnb and Pixar are one of the examples which show the difference caused by design thinking.

Airbnb has changed Chief HR Officer’s function as Chief Employee Experience Officer function, understanding that experience is the essence of any workplace.

At Pixar, The Employees Experience Manager provides outreach, consultation, and support to all. This also led to more face time conversation with managers which helps to understand the difficulties faced by employees and the expectations of the management.

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Topics: Strategic HR

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