Organizations understand that merely hiring lot of employees doesn’t help them streamline their business operations; people don’t fit the job profile precisely. They need training to strengthen the requisite skills and learn new ones. Training and development ads essence to the newly acquired employees, it helps them to learn new skills, sharpen skills already known to them, perform better and increase productivity. Some employees outshine post training and become leaders. Since a company is the sum total of what employees achieve individually, organizations should do everything in their control to ensure that employees perform at their peak; their desire and ability to push beyond their level helps give peak performance.

Training and development helps companies gain and retain top talent, it increase job satisfaction and morale, and training improves productivity and earn more profit. Additionally, training helps employees to increase their productivity.

Some of the common types of training programs are as follows:

Orientation training

Provides the new employee with brief and accurate information to make him/her more comfortable in the job. The training programme encourages employee confidence and helps the new employee adapt faster to the job. New employees grasp SOPs more effectively. A good orientation programme helps retain workforce.

On-board training

On-board training is about integrating with the other employees, management, and the corporate culture.

Technical skills training

Technical Training teaches the skills needed to design, develop, implement, maintain, support or operate a particular technology or related application, product or service.

Soft-skills training

Soft Skills training focuses on identifying employee strengths and weaknesses and how to use them to project a positive as well as confident image. This leads to employee’s better success both in the personal and professional aspects of life.

Product or service training

Product knowledge is a skill where your employees fully understand and can effectively communicate with customers about your product, its features, benefits, uses, and support needs. Product knowledge is most important for all employees of an organization.

Compliance training

Compliance training refers to the process of educating employees on laws, regulations and company policies that apply to their day-to-day job responsibilities.

Franchise training

The goals of any good franchise system are to achieve consistent, sustainable replication of their brand promise to consumers, and for the franchise system to be financially successful at every level. Training is a major component of achieving that goal.

Managerial and leadership training

Leadership and management training programs courses are specialized programs designed to help the employees to learn new leadership techniques and refine old skills to run their team with newness, including assertive communication, motivation methods, and coaching.

ADDIE Model

One of the most used model of training and development is the ADDIE Model of instruction systems design was first developed for the U.S. Army during the 1970s at Florida State University’s Centre for Educational Technology, and it was later adapted for use by all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. The model has become a widely used and frequently modified practice within the private sector, especially for compliance training and learning events that are not time-sensitive. The biggest attraction of the ADDIE Model is its flexibility; it can be used with both individualized and traditional instructions. In addition, its phases are frequently modified to suit user needs, and it can be used in combination with other models.

ADDIE is an acronym for the five phases of this approach to courseware development:

Analysis

Training Need Analysis is the process in which the company identifies training and development needs of its employees so that they can do their job effectively. It involves a complete analysis of training needs required at various levels of the organisation. The HR department with the training professional identifies and details the instructional challenge of the course, the learning objectives and issues such as learner skill level.

Design

Designing a training program involves a series of steps from identifying the learning objectives, course output, determining the training content, deciding the methodologies, selecting the learning activities, defining evaluation criteria and to specifying follow-up activities. The training professional addresses a variety of concerns to achieve optimal courseware design and systematic program development. These factors include learning objectives, content, assessment instruments, exercises, subject matter analysis, lesson planning and media.

Development

The training professional creates the content following the design several phase blueprint. It includes storyboards and graphics, as well as the integration of e-learning technologies etc. Organizations like ICICI bank in association with Sikkim Manipal University have designed tailor-made management courses that bring out an overall development in a fresh graduate employee. These training are designed for the right fit-out for a job, post-training, to a specific organizational culture, practices, processes, overall grooming and management.

Implementation

Many organizations have extensive training programs that cover all aspects of hard and soft skills. These trainings are conducted in such a way that employees get a mandatory number of hours of training every quarter or year. This is done to ensure that employees are enabled to perform their job duties according to their potential. The phase of implementation focuses on developing procedures for training both the facilitators and the learners. Facilitator training should explain the curriculum, learning outcomes, method of delivery and testing procedures.

Evaluation

The evaluation phase is a continuous process throughout the design process. Its purpose is to ensure that all learning goals will meet the specified business needs. The training professional also identifies on-the-job performance goals and ensures that business needs are met. Evaluation provides feedback to help you identify if your training achieved your intended outcomes, and helps you make decisions about future trainings.

Organizations such as AT&T, Amazon, GE, P&G, HUL, Infosys, Capgemini emphasize on training and development programs continuously. 

AT&T helps millions around the globe connect with entertainment, mobile, high-speed Internet and voice services. Their locations hiring is U.S. They have more than 280,000 employees worldwide. AT&T University is an executive-led program which focuses on leadership and management development training programme housed at their Dallas headquarters, with satellite campuses across the U.S. In partnership with Georgia Tech and Udacity Inc. AT&T has helped create the first-ever Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMS CS) degree and partnered with Udacity to create and launch several self-paced, fast-track technical credentials called Nanodegrees across web and mobile development, data analytics and tech entrepreneurship, with more programs to come.

Why the company offers a rigorous training programme? The reason is the company does not believe in just hiring and the traditional educational system as sources for reconstructing or finding new talent. The company needs employees who are ready to work in a competitive and more digital world. AT&T believes in aligning company leaders to strategic business innovation and results, skilling and reskilling their 280,000 employees and inspiring a culture of continuous learning. The company looks out for people who are enthusiastic about technology and innovation and have excellent communication and customer service skills. They seek people who can thrive in a fast-paced, diverse work environment and who have a commitment to the very highest standards of honesty, integrity and respect.

Amazon hires people who are obsessed to give the customers best of services, people who have passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence and long-term thinking. They hire people worldwide and they have 245,200 employees worldwide.

Amazon gives their newly acquired employees an intensive, month-long training and leadership program prior to hire. Amazon prepays 95% of tuition for employees at fulfilment centres to take courses in in-demand fields. A “Virtual Contact Centre” trains employees to work from home.

Why the company offers this training? They prepare their employees to own the company from day one, that’s the reason they train them to take ownership over products and services that impact millions of customers. This helps them pioneer a career at Amazon.

Capgemini is a highly employee-centric organisation, they believe in nurturing the employees throughout their career with the company, since the time they are hired. They prepare the employees to compete in a highly competitive marketplace that is driven by ever-changing technological innovation. They practice initiatives such as Group Learning & Development (Group L&D) to prepare employees to be sensitive to their clients’ business needs. Other programs include training fresh hires in emerging tech such as data analytics, where they have collaborated with universities. 

Infosys has power programmes to up skill their employees. It was one of the first companies to offer a hike if the employees re-skilled in emerging technology. Its bridge programmes skill young talents who have spent a minimum of three years in the organisation to get trained in areas such as consulting, full-stack development (a full stack web developer is a person who can develop both client and server software. In addition to mastering HTML and CSS, he/she also knows power programming), tech architecture and more. The aim is to provide employees with alternate career growth instead of them leaving organisations for further studies. It had offered a salary rise by 80-120% to those who up skilled. 

Conclusion

Why is training so important? Why organizations invest in it? What type of behavioural changes is desired post training? Whom to train? Which area? When to train?  Where to train? How to train? The core of training plan needs lot of thinking before implementation.

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.