Reimagine and craft the

employee experience:
Design thinking in action
Reimagine and craft the employee experience: Design thinking in action

As used in this document, “Deloitte” means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please
see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of our legal structure. Certain services may not
be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.
 Reimagine and craft the employee experience: Design thinking in action

Reimagine and craft the

employee experience:
Design thinking in action

The business imperative

Your organization is responding to major business and workforce disruptions,
driving changes to the way your enterprise runs and intensifying the need
to focus on the customer experience to drive growth. As a leader in HR,
you understand the critical linkage between the employee experience, your
company’s business strategy, and customer service. But, how to forge it
effectively?
The answer may lie in applying design thinking to reimagine and craft the
employee experience to help generate higher engagement, satisfaction, and
strategic alignment to drive brand differentiation, customer service excellence,
and growth.
While the term “employee experience” has gained traction, in this context
“employee” must really consider the end-to-end workforce that includes
candidates, employees, contingent workers, and alumni.
Why is this so important? Because studies have documented a clear
statistical relationship between increases in frontline engagement, increases in
customer service, and revenue growth.1 So whether your team is focused on
strategy, process transformation, or implementing new technology, applying
design thinking to reimagine and craft the employee experience is key to driving
sustainable business performance.
Design for the moments that matter
Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP, developed The Simply Irresistible
Organization™ model defining the end-to-end, irresistible employee
experience. We have since married this model with a tested, customer-centric
experience approach that brings together engagement, experience, and results.
In this perspective, we explore several examples of ways that HR professionals
can apply design thinking to imagine, design, and deliver an experience that
delights the workforce at the “moments that matter” across their interactions
with the organization.

1
Reimagine and craft the employee experience: Design thinking in action

Deloitte’s employee experience framework

Align Focus Execute Measure

Develop experience vision aligned Define and brand the Implement prioritized initiatives Capture value of improving
with business and talent strategies end-to-end experience roadmap with targeted sprints experience and find enhancements

Crafting the workforce experience to achieve

The simply irresistible organization®

Supportive Positive Work

Meaningful work Growth opportunity Trust in leadership
management environment

Clear and Flexible work Training and support

Autonomy Mission and purpose
transparent goals environment on the job

Facilitated talent Continuous

Selection to fit Coaching Humanistic workplace
mobility investment in people

Investment in
Small, empowered Self-directed, Transparency and
development of Culture of recognition
teams dynamic learning honesty
managers

Agile performance Fair, inclusive, diverse High-impact

Time for slack Inspiration
management work environment learning culture

Collaboration and connection

Source: Deloitte Consulting LLP

Shifting from process thinking to terms, “What do we need new-hires to do not only thinking about an employee’s
experience thinking on their first day?” HR thinks in experience first day but also the total onboarding
Design thinking places the “customer” in terms: “What do we want a new employee’s experience, and all of the ongoing
the center of the design and has been first day to be like?” interactions between that employee and HR
instrumental in creating the kinds of easy, throughout his or her career and even as a
digital experiences that people expect in HR leaders are rapidly adopting this retiree or alum.
their daily lives for everything from ordering experience-oriented approach and applying
products to paying bills to connecting with it to truly rethink how HR work happens.
friends on social media. Just as numerous Design thinking helps focus on the needs
consumer-facing processes and interactions of customers when shaping an experience
Deloitte’s Global Human Capital
have been retooled and simplified to provide that’s easy, intuitive, and enables customers
Trends 20172 report revealed that
a more satisfying customer experience, HR to achieve their goals. It also helps define
nearly 80 percent of executives rated
can begin to shift its approaches as well. HR through the lens of the workforce’s
employee experience very important
The idea is to move from a process-driven “journey” across processes to shape the
(42 percent) or important (38 percent),
mindset to a mindset that always begins desired impression and feeling among
but only 22 percent reported that
with the experience for the HR customer— the workforce, ultimately helping to create
their companies were excellent at
who could be a candidate, employee, experiences that are meaningful and able
building a differentiated employee
contingent worker, or even alumni. So, for to make the biggest impact at the moments
experience.
example, instead of thinking in process that truly matter for the individual. So, it’s

2
 Reimagine and craft the employee experience: Design thinking in action

Three key principles: empathize, There are many examples of how HR can Questions like the following were especially
envision, experiment apply design thinking to reimagine and craft effective:
While design thinking has many the experience to drive sustainable business
•• Describe your typical day at work?
definitions and various possible paths to performance. Let’s look at a few: overall
implementation, three principles stand out employee experience strategy, HR process •• What excites you about your job?
as fundamental to effectively engaging the transformation, HCM technology selection,
•• What are the things that distract you and
workforce as customers: HCM app development and HR Operational
are pet peeves for you at work?
01. Empathize: Understand the workforce Services.
and the problems they face. The •• When is a time you felt most empowered
foundation of this principle is the ability Design thinking in action to do your job?
to empathize with segments of your Design thinking meets employee
workforce. Empathy is what allows us experience strategy Based on its research, the team identified
to share the experiences and feelings In our first example, design thinking is the following customer personas:
of others, creating opportunities for applied to an employee experience strategy,
•• Manager…delivering frontline impact on
engagement. Design thinkers develop an “outside-in” effort to understand the
the company’s success
personas (representations of the unique needs of each customer group HR
qualities and characteristics of typical serves and design differentiated interactions •• High Potential…key to the future
customers) drawn from the breadth and to satisfy those needs. High-impact HR
•• New Hire…the company’s most important
diversity of their workforce population. organizations create experience strategies
investment
Journey maps based on these personas to understand who their HR customers
document experiences at every step of are, what they need, and the specific HR •• Executive…evaluating success
an activity to identify the moments that experiences that matter most to them. The
matter most and to provide clarity on goal is to look beyond developing processes Next the team created journey maps that
the problems that need solving. and focus on designing tailored experiences revealed the moments that mattered most
for each customer group, starting with the to each of the customer personas. This
02. Envision: Generate a variety of moments that matter most. Then, simple, effort defined a set of initiatives to quickly
options and shape them into intuitive HR processes and technologies are build, test, and iterate to begin to achieve
potential solutions. This principle developed to support those moments and the customer experience vision.
involves imagining the widest possible the overall experience.
range of options through various Where is the financial institution now?
techniques, rather than attempting to Customer experience strategies are meant Continuing on its transformation journey
define and evaluate a single “best” idea. to continually evolve. They can use models, and reporting both a positive impact on the
Generating a variety of options moves prototypes, and multiple voices to design, areas the employee experience strategy
stakeholders beyond the initial, obvious test, and refine solutions to keep up with targeted— from brand differentiation to
solutions. Doing so also increases the the needs of customers. And they tend to customer service excellence—and a return
potential for innovation, especially incorporate learning gained from iterating on investment through process efficiency.
when performed as part of a team. The customer experience solutions quickly,
ideas with the most potential can then revising ideas early and often. These same
be prioritized and shaped into models principles apply to crafting the employee Deloitte’s Global Human Capital
ready for testing. experience, where “employee” can mean the Trends 20163 research reveals that,
full range of customers for HR: candidates, typically, the more importance an
03. Experiment: Test potential solutions full time employees, leaders, contingent organization places on design thinking
with real customers, and refine them workers, and alumni. and the more ready it is to embrace it,
with data and feedback. Testing in the faster the organization grows.
a real context while collecting both A financial institution created an employee According to the data, companies
qualitative and quantitative data enables experience strategy as part of an overall HR growing by 10 percent or more per
additional empathy with customers, transformation to increase customer service year are more than twice as likely to
more precise definitions of the and simplify HR processes. The design team report they are ready to incorporate
problems, and continuous refinement observed and interviewed HR employees design thinking compared to their
of solutions. This step creates an and HR customers to identify priority counterparts that are experiencing
opportunity for experimentation in workforce segments (personas) and the stagnant growth.
HR while effectively managing the experiences that mattered most to them.
associated risks.

3
Reimagine and craft the employee experience: Design thinking in action

Design thinking meets HR process •• Leveraging “fit for purpose” strategic The typical validation process no longer
transformation design decisions to formulate the desired jumps from demo to impact assessment
In our next example, the disruptions experience to closure. Instead, customer experience-
impacting an organization’s business and driven steps are deliberately added to
•• Inserting moments that matter into end-
workforce inspired it to transform its current validate the new process through personas
to-end process maps to further enrich the
HR structure, technology, and associated before the process is confirmed.
employee experience
processes by moving to the cloud. Rather
than designing purely to support the move, •• Conducting process design workshops, By embarking on an HR transformation with
the company is taking advantage of the where each process is reviewed from a keen focus on customer experience, the
opportunity to meaningfully enhance the the lens of the personas to validate that company is setting itself up to improve the
experience for HR customers, putting the it delivers what matters most to that quality of HR interactions, increase process
customer moments that matter front and particular workforce segment efficiencies, and drive increased workforce
center as it designs for the future. engagement and productivity—all in one
•• Conducting focus groups and voice-of-the-
shot, for a truly value-added solution.
customer surveys to test the experience
The first, strategy phase of the
early on in the design
transformation involved defining customer
personas (e.g., a manager, a new recruit, •• Building checks on the experience into
an experienced hire, etc.), identifying the user acceptance testing by asking, “Is the
moments that matter to those customers, process delivering the desired sentiment
and creating journey maps of their expressed in the persona?”
employment experience. Now the company
•• Incorporating learning gained from quickly
is using a Hybrid Agile methodology that
iterating customer experience solutions,
employs models, prototypes, and multiple
revising ideas early and often
voices to design, test, and refine solutions.
Tactically, this includes:

1 Define priority 2 Identify 3 Create customer 4 Conduct integrated 5 Conduct

personas moments that matter journey maps global design local design

...to surface the ...to their

HR customers are
moments that employment ...globally and ... ...locally.
segmented...
matter most experience

Source: Deloitte Consulting LLP

4
 Reimagine and craft the employee experience: Design thinking in action

Design thinking meets Human Capital Step 2: Understand and synthesize address Susie’s priorities, competing
Management (HCM) tech selection workforce needs. By conducting voice-of- technology vendors demonstrated how
In our next example, an organization the-customer interviews and listening to their respective solutions' annual planning
bucked the traditional software selection customer stories, the moments that matter process enables business unit or group level
approach of issuing RFPs, down-selecting and desired emotional responses for each what-if modeling for annual compensation
to a short list of vendors, and then persona became clear. For example, Susie increases. Competing suppliers further
conducting vendor demonstrations to feels that above all else, her team matters. demonstrated the flexibility of their talent
ultimately select and contract for one or Her story reveals that she is looking for a matrix capabilities, including the ability to
more technologies. Instead, the company technology solution that delivers a simple view multiple attributes such as skills, critical
applied design thinking to focus on the yet robust compensation modeling and position, and retention risks.
unique requirements that heavily influenced performance management experience that
the employee experience and shaped the will enable her to reward her top performers Step 4: Prototype, test, and refine. While
moments that matter most. The result and be on high alert for retention issues. full-blown prototyping and testing was
was an HCM technology selection better The selection team translated Susie’s deferred until implementation, the company
aligned to business and workforce needs. story into compensation planning and had the competing vendors confirm their
The design thinking process involved the performance management journey maps solution was fit for purpose by visualizing
following steps. depicting the sentiment Susie feels as she how they would configure their solutions
experiences the moments that matter most in the context of business process-based
Step 1: Look and listen to defined workforce to her. moments that matter.
personas. By identifying the distinctive
personas that fit the organization’s vision Step 3: Generate and prioritize ideas. The By completing this exercise, the company
and customer experience principles, selection team carved out the technology- was able to take aim at unnecessary
customer needs became front and center. enabled moments that matter from the workplace complexity by putting the
For example, relevant personas included journey maps and converted them into employee experience and moments that
“Susie,” a department supervisor who is scenarios to facilitate an apples-to-apples matter first. It also helped to support
worried about productivity and developing assessment of how users will experience strong user adoption of the new technology
and retaining the talent that reports to her. the competing technology solutions. To because it was selected with customers’
specific needs in mind.

Department supervisor
"Nothing can stand in the way of my team"

Source: Deloitte Consulting LLP

5
Reimagine and craft the employee experience: Design thinking in action

prototype that defined, demonstrated, and Step 5: Prototype, test, and refine. During
Design thinking meets HCM app
acted as the basis for building out the new Design Sprint 1, the team reviewed process
development
mobile solution. flows, wireframes (electronic sketches
In business, the customer is king.
of screen layouts), and a prototype of
Companies go out of their way to try to give
Step 2: Look and listen to defined workforce the solution. The solution delivered an
customers the best experience possible,
personas. With the vision in place, the onboarding experience that integrated pre-
whether in a store, on the Internet, or
design team turned to the workforce hire, Day 1, and activities during the first 90
through an app. The employee experience,
personas that had already been defined, days on the job.
however, is often very different.
representing different HR customers. These
Employees increasingly expect to interact
included a new graduate (Madisyn), an Design Sprint 2 integrated leaves of absence
with their employers via their mobile
experienced hire (Jason), a line manager and performance management wireframes
devices, and they may think it’s strange
involved in the recruitment of new talent to the mobile solution. The team also got
when there isn’t a mobile app for recording
(Carol), and an HR Ops service rep (Pete). an early glimpse into the higher-fidelity
their time, submitting expenses, or
The personas include descriptions of each onboarding solution. After more testing
accessing HR.
of their behaviors, patterns, attitude, goals, and more refinements, at the end of the 8
skills, and environment, with the goal of weeks the team delivered a prototype for
In our next example, design thinking is
designing the app to meet the needs of the mobile solution that could be both vision
applied to create a prototype for a new
typical users. and model for building the actual app.
HR app. The app is designed to be a single
destination for HR services that connects
Step 3: Understand and synthesize Design thinking meets HR
employees to what matters most to
workforce needs. Voice-of-the-customer Operational Services
them—from pay stubs to performance
interviews and customer stories gave insight In our final example, decreasing employee
management, and even a self-service help
into the moments that mattered most for satisfaction combined with a reduced
desk so employees and managers can
each of the customer personas. New-hires ability to provide meaningful insight to the
clearly see their options and take action.
Madisyn and Jason shared the events, both business, pushed an organization to leave
positive and negative, that shaped their its cost-focused HR Shared Services model
Step 1: Vision. The vision for the app is
recent onboarding experience. Carol, a line behind and design an experience-focused
to improve employee engagement and
manager, told the story of how she worked HR Operational Services organization. A
satisfaction by taking the digital workplace
her way up to management and how her shift that required applying an outside-in
platform one step further, allowing
success had been the result of recruiting top perspective that placed the employee
employees to cut the cord and complete
talent. Carol shared that the first 90 days experience at the center of every design
HR activities when they aren’t at their
were critical to the successful transition of decision.
desks. The team’s approach involved
new hires into the company. Pete, the HR
defining and designing a prototype over
Ops service rep, spoke to the importance The result is an HR Operational Services
an 8-week timeline that included three
of bringing a human touch to the recruiting organization that:
“design sprints”—a time-constrained, five-
experience by engaging recruits with each
phase process that uses design thinking to •• Integrated the employee experience for
interaction via ongoing communication
help reduce the risk when bringing a new transactional and service needs with
regarding their application status and next
product, service, or feature to the market. At chatbots and natural language processing
steps.
the end of the 8 weeks, the team delivered a with case management, content
management and easy-to-use mobile and
Step 4: Generate and prioritize ideas. The
web portals
team identified HR service domains and
Deloitte’s Global Human Capital ranked problem areas that HR customers •• Embraced design thinking to discover
Trends 20163 report revealed that face across the domains. The team felt the new ways to simplify work and improve
there are more than 7 billion mobile top three focus areas for the mobile app productivity, performance
devices in the world,4 and more than should be onboarding, leaves of absence, and engagement
40 percent of all Internet traffic is and performance management, as all three
driven by these devices. Yet HR teams •• Focused on the employee experience
had a preponderance of problems to solve
are often behind in deploying holistically, considering all the contributors
and an opportunity to shape the customer
mobile-ready solutions. Fewer than 20 to workforce satisfaction and engagement
experience as part of the app’s broader
percent of companies deploy their HR in the design of its products and services
customer-centric design.
and employee productivity solutions
on mobile apps today.5

6
 Reimagine and craft the employee experience: Design thinking in action

•• Invested strategically in new technology to

breakdown organizational silos, enhance
productivity, drive adoption and deliver a
differentiated employee experience

•• Moved beyond traditional shared services

metrics and embraced open feedback
systems to capture net promoter scores6
to measure HR customer satisfaction

•• Searched continuously for opportunities

to improve and scale new services to
address the desired experience of a
multi-generational workforce

Many opportunities for meaningful

improvement
These are just a few examples of ways HR
can apply design thinking to reimagine
and craft the employee experience to help
generate higher engagement, satisfaction,
and strategic alignment to drive brand
differentiation, customer service excellence,
and growth. The process can be applied to
any number of HR processes, and doesn’t
have to involve a digital solution. However
the $14+ billion marketplace for HR software
and platforms is reinventing itself.7 This shift
from cloud to mobile is disruptive—an all-
mobile HR platform is now possible. Design
thinking can help align your organization
in the same direction to create a more
satisfying HR experience for your people.

We would love to hear your story about

how you applied design thinking in your
organization.

Notes
1
Medallia Institute, “You Say You Want a Revolution: Build a Customer-Centric Culture”
2
Rewriting the rules for the digital age, Global Human Capital Trends 2017, Deloitte Consulting LLP
3
The New Organization: Different by design, Global Human Capital Trends 2016, Deloitte Consulting LLP,
4
Jason Dorrier, “There are 7 billion mobile devices on earth, almost one for each person,” Singularity Hub, Singularity University, February 18, 2014,
http://singularityhub.com/2014/02/18/there-are-7-billion-mobile-devices-on-earth-almost-one-for-each-person.
5
Digital HR: Revolution, not evolution, Deloitte University Press, February 29, 2016.
6
Wikipedia, “NetPromoter,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter. NetPromoter asks a simple question:”on a sacle of zero to ten, how likely is it you would recommend this
company as a place to work?” Using this question, organizations can sort employees into promoters, passives, and detractors, similar to the identical question used widely with
external customers.
7
Josh Bersin, “The HR software market reinvents itself,” Josh Bersin blog, July 19, 2016.
7
Reimagine and craft the employee experience: Design thinking in action

Authors
Arthur H. Mazor Jannine Zucker Maribeth Sivak
Global HR Service Delivery Employee Experience Manager
Practice Leader Offering Leader Deloitte Consulting LLP
Deloitte Consulting LLP Deloitte Consulting LLP [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected]

Richard Coombes Yves Van Durme

UK HR Transformation Practice Leader Global Strategic Change Leader
Deloitte MCS Limited Deloitte Consulting
[email protected] [email protected]

Lead Contributors
The authors would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions to this report:
Jessica Britton, Justin Clark, Kraig Eaton, Gary Johnsen, Kat Ladd, Katy Norris, Jeff Mike, Emily Scott

Global Human Capital Leaders

Global Human Capital Leader Strategic Initiative Leaders
Brett Walsh Jeff Schwartz
Global HC Leader Marketing, Eminence & Brand
[email protected] [email protected]

Global Service Line Leaders

Dimple Agarwal Michael Stephan Darryl Wagner
Organization Transformation HR Transformation (HRT) Actuarial, Rewards &
& Talent (OT&T) [email protected] Analytics (ARA)
[email protected] [email protected]

Regional Leaders
Heather Stockton Jungle Wong Ardie van Berkel
Innovation-Future of Work Asia Pacific EMEA
Americas [email protected] [email protected]
[email protected]

Large Country Leaders

Abrie Olivier (interim) Akio Tsuchida David Brown
Africa Japan Australia
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Anne-Marie Malley Jeff Moir Erica Volini

UK Canada US
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

8
This communication contains general information only, and none of Deloitte
Touche Tohmatsu Limited, its member firms, or their related entities (collectively,
the “Deloitte Network”) is, by means of this communication, rendering professional
advice or services. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect
your finances or your business, you should consult a qualified professional adviser.
No entity in the Deloitte Network shall be responsible for any loss whatsoever
sustained by any person who relies on this communication.

Copyright © 2017 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.