Moving from empathy interviews to distilling and synthesizing in the define phase of the design thinking model, I’ve quickly learned my initial perspectives and assumptions are forced to be put aside in order to hold the space with a beginners mindset; one that is unbiased, non-judgmental and untampered enabling it to be extended, shifted, surprised and enriched from the diversity of thoughts. Through observations, information receiving, dialogue, questioning, and learning’s from the end users it is rewarding and equally invigorating on how much comes up. Design thinking as a tool and method enriches the instructional design process resulting in a better solution that will have a greater chance of adoption. As Eli Woolery commented, “it can be a powerful way to create innovative design solutions to challenging problems and even create new and disruptive business models never considered” (Woolery, 2017).
image by: Supriya Nigam
As part of my design challenge I’m focusing on ways to support the acclimation of new employees through digital learning technologies to create greater opportunities for socialization in order to help increase interpersonal relationships, connectedness and networks as part of a new employee’s on-boarding experience. Our organizations data from 90-day new hire engagement survey’s to exit survey’s suggested low engagement scores and people leaving the organization because of a poor new employee on-boarding experience, alongside leadership and management.
In the initial phase of designing a new employee on-boarding program, exploring acclimation as one of the three key objectives, followed by guide and develop as the other critical areas will hopefully result in reducing the higher than average voluntary turnover and low engagement scores that the organization has been trending over the past couple of years.
During the empathy phase, using the interview for empathy method I was able to conduct 1:1 sessions in person and video Skype for 30 minutes each with 22 end users in the month of June. The end users consisted of individuals who were recently hired from less than a week ago to 6 months on the job, from different departments and locations. In addition, among the 22 end users, two individuals were ex-staff that were classified as ‘extreme users’ who had left the organization recently and were open to the idea of having a discussion to share their perspectives to help build a successful new employee on-boarding program. Upon gathering all the various stories, responses, thoughts, ideas, challenges and even solutions from the 22 participants, I was able to group end user responses in to themes and common issues and concerns within a timeline of when these were occurring from the time they were hired.
Moving in to the define phase, which is intended to help develop a deep understanding of the end users and the design space, as well as come up with actionable problem statements that can be leveraged in the design and creation of a successful solution (d.school, 2016), I took some time to reflect on the initial design challenge and the problem, which was with recent increased trends in new employee voluntary turnover and organizational engagement and exit surveys, employees have expressed challenges and concerns with the lack of a new employee on-boarding program and orientation to help support their acclimation in to the organization, team and role resulting in feelings of abandonment, lack of support, uncertainty and disengagement and asked if this still was true based on what was collected from end users.
Using the Point of View (POV) and How Might We (HMW) methods created a space to re-frame the design challenge into an actionable problem statement that will support generative ideation and design vision (d.school, 2016).
Using the POV formula suggested by Stanford University Institute of Design
[USER – be specific] needs to [USER’S NEED – user verb] because [SURPRISING INSIGHT – observation and interpretation]
further supports building out HMW questions, which creates opportunities broad and wide range of solutions, however narrow enough to come up with specific and unique ideas.
For example my initial design challenge could now sound like, “A new employee needs to feel connected, supported, and a sense of belonging to the organization, team and individual because it will result in a greater on-boarding experience, resulting in higher engagement, increased retention and trusting relationships.” As a result of this statement it can result in questions such as the following:
- How might we create a connection with the new employee once they sign the offer letter and before their first day on the job?
- How might we leverage our HRIS (Human Resources Information System) and/or LMS (Learning Management System) or other technologies to engage with our new hire during pre on-boarding and on-boarding?
- How might we be able to connect recently graduated new hires with brand new employees during on-boarding?
- How might we create a learning community and network for new employees to connect with once they have joined us?
- How might we look at acclimation – socialization during the different timelines of pre on-boarding, day one, week one, first month to engage, connect and support new hires?
- How might we want create and define the new employee on-boarding experience?
- How might we remove any waste and undervalued processes within the new employee on-boarding phase?
- How might we create engaging learning solutions during the orientation session within the new employee on-boarding program?
As part of the design challenge, experiencing the empathy and define phases and furthermore the four phases within empathy which are discovery, immersion, connection and detachment as suggested by Kouprie & Visser were such invaluable step and experience to support the instructional design process. It truly evokes curiosity, exploration, feeling and emotion, explicit and implicit intentions, increased understanding and meaning, leading to a more wholesome and accurate picture of our end users and greater interpretation and ideation.
References
Kouprie, M., & Visser, F. S. (2009). A framework for empathy in design: stepping into and out of the user’s life. Journal of Engineering Design, 20(5), 437–448. https://doi.org/10.1080/09544820902875033
Stanford University Institute of Design. (2016). bootcamp bootleg. Retrieved June 13, 2019, from http://dschool-old.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/METHODCARDS-v3-slim.pdf
Woolery, E. (2017). Design thinking handbook. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.designbetter.co/design-thinking/define