Abstract

Brands like Apple, Google, Nike, Amazon, and PepsiCo have been established because of practicing and using design thinking to create innovative products. For example, Nike is the best sports company because they have great technology and equipment to boost the performance of the athletes. In basketball shoes, Nike provides cushions and lightweight materials to accommodate the sport.  Design thinking indeed has led to the success of products design and to the operational processes. Innovation is synonymous with design thinking.

In this article, I want to present how design thinking is particularly relevant in the context of Human Resource practices. Quite recently, at Deloitte, the company developed Human Resources solutions that focus on creating a positive employee experience by using Design Thinking principles. These Human Resources solutions have built standard operating procedures (SOPs) and processes that put the employee experience in the centre and by doing so made it simple, gratifying, and fascinating. Deloitte incorporated design thinking elements through digital designs to experience work processes, behavioural economics, and much more. Traditional Human Resources solutions are built around process steps, forms, and formal training. Individual employees want to experience one on one information and interaction in the organization. The previous format of broadcasting information has been discarded and mails are sent to individual employees pertaining to their scope of work and scope to improvise the process.  

Deloitte used Design Thinking to convert Human Resources from a “process developer” to an “experience architect”. From redesigning the physical work environment to optimising the digital workspace and directing how managers use their time, Design Thinking has helped Deloitte reimagine the entire process of hiring, training, engaging, and evaluating employees. Deloitte has invested in their employees, studying how people behave at work to create profiles and personas to model their solutions on. These profiles are specific to the employee demographics, work environment, and the set of challenges they encounter. Ideating and prototyping have enabled the company to come up with quicker solutions and effective tools. Feedback mechanisms based on questionnaires have helped them bring specific requirements to light and facilitate learning and awareness. Few companies are even using agile methodologies to teach people to do less and focus more.

Design thinking is a multi-disciplinary tool. It is non-linear. In the Human Resources context, the principles of design thinking are applied to answer humanistic questions by assuming challenges faced by people and trying to make them easier. Each individual has a different approach to looking at a challenge in the organization; each individual has a different perception. 

Design thinking develops an in-depth understanding of people for whom solutions are being designed and involves them in the process so as to come up with out-of-the-box ideas to enhance their workplace experiences.  It seeks to integrate the skills and methodology of designers from multiple disciplines into a collaborative effort. Multidisciplinary designers need to understand how diverse areas of expertise can come together to solve complex design problems.

While brushing teeth, it’s not easy to reach the deep inside of the mouth, leaving molars and teeth not brushed thoroughly. GE designed an electric toothbrush that made rapid automatic bristle motions, either back-and-forth in rotation in order to clean teeth. A modern electric toothbrush is usually powered by a rechargeable battery charged through inductive charging when the brush sits in the charging base between uses. This is an example of design thinking in production.

Helping people find safe water sources near them is one of the ways in which non-profit tech start-up mWater has improved thousands of lives. mWater apps and software let users find, monitor, and map the quality of water and sanitation sites.  This also helps local authorities detect water infrastructure gaps. Designed for field use, the apps work both online and offline – using the cloud for automatic data syncing when online and GPS for finding locations offline. With over 10,000 active users in 93 countries, mWater already has a database of over 350,000 public and private water sites around the world.

Innovation is at the core of businesses. Delivering differentiated and satisfying customer experiences can lead to a boost in loyalty, market share, and revenues.

Imagine what a similar focus on employee experiences could mean for business. Leading companies are already recognizing that the employee experience is the new battleground for competitive advantage.

Organisations and world economies are constantly evaluating ways and means that can restore balance and help jumpstart slumping livelihoods. In the ongoing Covid pandemic, and at this critical juncture, organisations are leaning on Human Resources (HR) to restore employee morale and boost confidence in the company’s future. Adapting to this rapidly changing environment requires a renovated approach. The Human Resources fraternity has been prompt and agile in shedding the old ways and facing unprecedented challenges with new and innovative ideas. HR plays a crucial role in enabling organisations to transition from working-at-office to working-from-home, almost overnight. In short, the pandemic catapulted HR teams to occupy a seat on the strategy table from being just a support function. 

Design Thinking in Human Resources can enable organizations in understanding, envisioning, and designing how employees experience work, perceiving the employer-employee relationship through talent solution platform, storming, norming and forming ideas quickly with employee experience ideas, and prioritizing action to ensure consistent employee experience as described in team development by Bruce Tuckman.

It is difficult for organisations to attract and retain talent. Regardless of a company’s location or size, attracting and retaining talent at the top, middle and bottom positions. Employee expectations are racketing up against Human Resources as comparisons are made to frictionless customer experience outside of the office. Organisations are expecting the Human Resources teams to build agility in the internal and external environment. Organizations demand Human Resources to help in making better decision making, for giving actionable insights, increasing creativity in all processes for making better people decisions. How can Human Resources help the organisation, its employees, and themselves?

Changing the expectations of customers require new ways of thinking about people and designing people management strategies. Design thinking helps in this area.  Design thinking and design research help in making strategic decisions at many levels. This is an example of how AirBnB’s strategic team uses data to address current user experience challenges on the social media platform. The year 2009 was tough for Airbnb as it was very close to going bust. The start-up registering only $200 per week as revenue and were nowhere close to making a sustainable business out of their initiative. The founders noticed a pattern that all their listings in New York had poor images and it was very difficult for customers to see what they would be paying for. One of them – Graham suggested a completely non-scalable and a non-technical solution to the problem. He advised travelling to New York, renting a camera, visiting all the properties to take good quality images and replace the old amateur images with the new high resolution and beautiful ones. Even though the resolution was not backed by data, the results were amazing. After improving the quality of images for the listings, the revenue generated rose to $400 per week. Design thinking requires strong backup data as well as customer feedback.

Design Thinking enables Human Resources to think beyond the typical process and pragmatic approach to service delivery and focus instead on the experience and outcomes that it is looking to drive. The principles of repetition, trying, failing, retrying, and improving are critical to success in design thinking. It cannot be a do it once approach, where one solution is rolled out, the program ends, and then for years it’s never improved or assessed.

Design Thinking is based on understanding the in-depth needs of different stakeholder profiles; to conduct design thinking is to firmly put your feet in the shoes of your stakeholder. This is why empathy is a crucial element of the practice. Its goal is to generate solutions that bring value to all stakeholders. In the case of Human Resources, this could be the managers, employees, or candidates that experience any part of the Human Resources process.

Since Human Resources primarily handles the recruitment, employment experience, and the exit process of employees and represents the company, understanding human needs and executing accordingly becomes crucial. In Human Resources design thinking focuses on building a structure, a design for operations that would align the goals of the company with its employees. It starts by building the problem statement to find ways of resolving that. In most organisations, a fast-paced work environment demands quick solutions to the challenges of humans. Unlike machines, humans are after all, not engineered to deliver automated accurate results around the clock. Innovation is the only way to meet this challenge and design thinking is capable of driving that innovation. Tim Brown, one of the pioneers of Design Thinking believes that “leading through questions” is the best way to drive innovation. Questions bring us closer to stakeholder requirements and help us understand the scope of improvement. In the following areas of Human Resources let’s see how design thinking helps:

Human Resources Planning

Human Resources planning involves recruiting, selecting, hiring, and training the right candidates to make them ready for the job. This is one of the crucial processes for any company since it builds the branding for them. Design thinking can optimise this process by incorporating empathy. It can help recruiters to create a welcoming environment for new recruits at the company. Continuous interaction between both employer and employee seeking the job opportunity helps set expectations. Empathy will also help the HR team to identify any intrinsic challenges and address them. Ideation, another crucial step in design thinking encourages users to be creative and think of newer ways of addressing an issue. Interactive sessions and understanding the core characteristic of employee is vital to innovation. Human Resources teams must discard conventional approaches for driving innovation in recruitment policies.

Continuous Performance Management

Performance management aims at recognising the meaningful work that employees do and rewarding that appropriately. Employees feel elated when their good work is lauded by the organization. For understanding the human potential, organizations must have measurable Human Resources tools for assessing performance. Employees like to get recognition for their talent and domain knowledge. Design Thinking can make this process more effective by using tools of surveys to connect and empathise with the employees and understand their concerns and expectations. The Human Resources teams in organizations must keep updating their performance management policies and tools.  

Retention policies

A sense of belonging is most important for human relations. When employees feel that they are cared for by the organization they put in more effort; when they are appreciated, their productivity augments. The Human Resources department is responsible for maintaining a harmonious relationship between the employees and the company. The biggest problem is faced when organisations don’t have clear communication channels with employees. Lack of a proper communication channel can lead to various issues and misunderstandings. Employees must stay well connected with the organization. Design Thinking can enhance this process with an empathy-driven approach towards issues that concern both parties. By using the design thinking methods, the Human Resources team can assess problematic situations with good solutions that pacify both equally. 

Compensation

Compensation and benefits comprise a large part of what the HR department handles. Right from the time a candidate joins a company, gets promoted to the time he quits or retires, the Human Resources department reviews and updates his/her compensation. Design thinking methods can help the Human Resources team to understand the requirements and expectations of the employees and the budgets of the employers and optimise the compensation accordingly in cash and kind. Even while designing policies, empathy-driven approach can help formulate policies that meet the needs of the employees and truly benefit them.

Employee engagement

This is a priority area for HR. Design thinking can offer a variety of practices to create inspiring workplaces. There are many organizations that make work place environment fun-filled. The tagline “all work and no play make Jack a dull boy” is brought into practice. Monthly/Quarterly outings, monthly get-togethers, recreation nights, pipe music played during work hours are some examples of how employees are kept entertained. User-friendly IT systems, weekly changing canteen foods made as per choice, and some other welfare practices are some ways of cooperation in which the employee feels cared for. The aim is to improve engagement, creativity, and productivity. Empathy is a basic requirement of design thinking.

Design thinking is at core of innovation

Many organizations fail to create innovative work culture. Design thinking helps in infusing innovation culture in organizations. Some organizations have succeeded. One such organization is 3M Technologies. In 1968, Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M’s headquarters was working to create a strong adhesive. Accidentally, he developed a new material that was light enough to easily remove and peel apart. Silver felt that he had invented something unique and useful but struggled to find what that use could be. Another employee Art Fry used Spencer’s adhesive to anchor his bookmark in his hymn book which became one of the stellar products of 3M. A few years later Fry utilized 3M’s sanctioned “permitted bootlegging” policy to develop the idea. Design thinking flourishes on empathy, expansive thinking, and experimentation.

Conclusion

Modern Human Resources and design thinking go hand. Employee experience is most important in employee value proposition and retention. It helps engaging employees more actively in organisational change and by creating an environment and experiences that inspire people and make them more creative and productive.

A Brand Ambassador is someone who, at the most elementary level, symbolizes a brand in a positive way; he/she embodies a brand. The brand ambassador communicates the message of a company to consumers or people who would be interested in buying the company’s brand after learning about it. Thus, BA puts a human face on the multi-million dollar corporations because consumers associate with them more effectively.

The affinity consumers have for certain celebrities can greatly influence their purchase decisions. People perhaps feel that, “If the product is good enough for her, its good enough for me.” This philosophy is often the force behind advertisements for makeup, skin creams, lingerie, banks, eatables, beverages and attire. The brand ambassadors infuse confidence in the consumers to use a product/service. Essentially, the celebrity’s testimonial adds instant reliability to a small or big brand.

That’s why brand ambassador is a part of the company’s marketing and sales team. Celebrities endorse for products in lieu of heavy money. Therefore, they automatically become responsible if the brand turns out to be spurious/bogus/contaminated. It’s simple, before endorsing a product it’s their responsibility to check the credibility of a product/service. In the recent Maggi Noodle’s fiasco, the Uttar Pradesh Food and Drug Administration’s decision to recall packets of Maggi Noodles for reportedly having monosodium glutamate and lead more than permissible limits, film star Madhuri Dixit, who endorsesMaggi’s brand of ‘nutritious’ oats noodles is in trouble. The Haridwar FDA has issued her a notice  seeking an explanation as to how the noodles are nutritious, and on what the basis Nestlé is making such a claim. If she fails to respond within a fortnight, a case could be filed against her, according to officials of the FDA.

Can ambassadors simply shrug off their responsibilities when the brands endorsed by them turn out unauthentic?  Misrepresentation of products, especially in the food sector, is a serious issue, and not as silly  as many would like to believe. In February 2014, last year, the Central Consumer Protection Council, under the leadership of former Union Food Minister KV Thomas, decided  unanimously to propose laws to hold celebrities endorsing products also liable in cases of misleading advertisements. The rationale behind this decision of the CPCC was that celebrities had considerable influence over consumer choice, and that there must be some form of liability for the endorsements being made.

In US, Kellogg’s popular Rice Krispies cereal had a crisis in 2010 when it was accused of misleading consumers about its immunity boosting properties. The Federal Trade Commission ordered Kellogg to halt all advertising that claimed that the cereal improved a child’s immunity with “25 percent Daily Value of Antioxidants and Nutrients — Vitamins A, B, C and E stating the claims were “dubious.” Ironically, just a year prior, the company settled with the FTC over charges that its Frosted Mini-wheats cereal didn’t live up to its ads. The campaign claimed that the cereal improved kids’ attentiveness by nearly 20%, and was shot down when the FTC found out that the clinical studies showed that only 1-in-9 kids had that kind of improvement and half the kids weren’t affected at all. Now, we just cannot imagine this kind of strictness and vigil in the Indian administration. Our laws are indistinct and lack spirit to take up firm steps.

There is a notion that brand ambassadors can’t generally be tamed. The ad agencies do speak in favor of their models. When the going is good, everyone wants to be party to the success, but, when the going gets bad you can test the actuality of people. The celebrities behave larger than life. They should be held guilty for false advertisements because they exploit their fan following and their popularity. The fans revere them so much; they follow their personal lives and their styles to no end. Tiger Woods was a brand ambassador for Gatorade, Gillette, Accenture, AT&T, Gold Digest and Tag Heuer. After his plentiful extramarital affairs were revealed, the majority of these brands discontinued him as they found it difficult to continue him as their brand ambassador.

In India in 2012, actress Genelia D’Souza was summoned by court for allegedly making false promises through ads and brochures for a real estate company in Hyderabad. Andhra Pradesh High Court demanded her explanation as brand ambassador for a project called ‘Anjaniputra’ located close to Hyderabad Deccan when the project seems to have gone bust. This is the latest in how society and the laws in India are dealing with the extremely doubtful advertisements. It is a matter of time before similar questions are raised by other consumers who are swayed into investing in products or services, by fraudulent advertisements endorsed by celebrities who are supposed to also be role models.

The Home Trade scam of 2002 had the celebrity endorsement  of three big celebrities, Sachin Tendulkar, Hrithik Roshan and Shah Rukh Khan. Having created not a single product, the company made away with thousands of crore rupees of investor money, and celebrity-endorsed brand building  was a crucial part of their operation. Activists have also been speaking out against ads for sauna-belts, medicines, Hanuman-chalisa yantra and gem-stones on TV screens.

How can celebrities vouch for the authenticity and effectiveness of that product with great confidence without checking them? Like with politicians, an advertisement and the celebrities involved in it can simply be voted out. They can be thrown out in disgrace. This message is clear; the company and ad agencies cannot work on the premise that the consumers are fools. They better learn to respect their constituency, i.e. the consumers.

Due diligence should be exercised before making of an ad. All stakeholders must share their responsibilities. The three stake-holders in ad making are advertiser, advertising agencies and the media. Let’s understand this straight: in advertising, there’s a big difference between pushing the truth and making false claims. Most of us have some or the other time in our life been victims of false advertising. Are we going to take it lying low or question the companies to change their marketing policies? Can we allow the companies to continue to prioritize profits over the consumers?

In progressive countries like America and Europe companies need to face harsh penalties. Companies are made to pay up the consumers for cheating them.
Dannon’s popular Activia brand yogurt lured consumers into paying more for its purported nutritional benefits when it was actually pretty much the same as every other kind of yogurt.

In Canada and America law suits were filed against Dannon for falsely touting the “clinically” and “scientifically” proven nutritional benefits of the product.  In spite of the company got a famous spokesperson, Jamie Lee Curtis, for the supposed digestion-regulator, some customers didn’t buy it. Do you know that a class action settlement forced Dannon to pay up to $45 million in damages to the consumers? The company also had to limit its health claims on its products strictly to factual ones.

In another case, hundreds of car owners were extremely disappointed to find out that Hyundai and Kia Motors overstated the horsepower in some of their vehicles. In 2001, the Korean Ministry of Construction and Transportation uncovered the parody, which for some models was as much as 9.6 percent more horsepower than the cars actually had. A class action lawsuit in southern California claimed the companies were able to sell more cars and charged more per vehicle because of the false claims. In the end, the auto powerhouses had to pay customers; the settlement estimated to be between $75 million and $125 million.

In India, to protect rights of consumers the process of filing complaint and finding resolution needs a drastic improvement. Strict guidelines should be made and law suits must be resolved in minimum a week’s time. Then, we might find respite from getting cheated recurrently by companies, their advertisements and savvy brand ambassadors.