Human Centred Design (HCD) can be defined as a way of designing products, processes and experiences that put people first. When following the human centred design approach, product creators attempt to find solutions to problems by involving the human perspective in all steps of the problem-solving process.

Human Centred Design enables HR to think beyond the typical process and programmatic approach to service delivery and focus instead on experience and outcomes. Its goal is to generate solutions that bring value to all stakeholders. In HR's case, this could be the managers, employees, or candidates that experience any part of the HR process.

Human Centred Design is all about…

• Reducing the complexity and friction that real people experience in their day-to-day lives

• Caring not just about whether something is generally easy to use, but about a user’s interests, motivations and needs

• …in other words, considering your audience not just as users, but as humans with emotions and feelings

• Understanding that the “experience” itself is the product

In our recent research investigating Employee Experience, 71% of respondents agree or strongly agree that their organisation has become more people-focused since the start of the pandemic. As a natural consequence, 70% of survey respondents agree that leaders have shown more interest in the value of employee experience since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

There is no greater time – and perhaps no greater urgency – for organisations to view employees not as cogs in the machine, but as human beings with needs and feelings. Human Centred Design is therefore a critical skill for HR professionals.

The business value of human centred design

As well as maintaining a clear people focus that values the human in Human Resources, HCD also has been proven to deliver clear business value. Research has proven that organisations that adopt a Human Centred Design approach:

• Experience 32% higher revenue than traditional organisations

• Deliver outcomes to market 2x faster than traditional organisations

• Ultimately outperform the S&P 500 by 211%

Human Centred Design and Employee Experience 

Human Centred Design has a lot to do with Employee Experience. As the definition above demonstrates, the goal of HCD is to improve experiences, taking into account people’s interests, motivations, needs and emotions.

For this reason, developing HCD skills are particularly important for HR professionals who have responsibility for experiences such as onboarding, performance appraisals and learning & development.

We believe that every HR professional needs to become more data driven, experience led and business focused (you can see our nine skills for the future HR professional on the right). Being able to adopt skills to deliver human-centric end-to-end experiences through innovative HR technology and design thinking principles – in other words, becoming experience led – will be critical for HR to meet the expectations of the modern workforce.

An example of using Human Centred Design in HR from Novo Nordisk

David Green recently spoke with Peter Manniche Riber, Head of Digital Learning and Analytics at Novo Nordisk, on the Digital HR Leaders Podcast. Part of their discussion focused on the importance of Human Centred Design principles when designing new learning experiences.

“We need to mature as learning designers and as an industry, to make sure that we are not just putting people in front of a screen and a talking head for four hours. People are really, really exhausted on the other end of those experiences, so it is important that we mix it up,” says Peter.

In order to improve learning experiences at the organisation, Peter’s team focuses on incorporating data into the design process to understand more about the individuals engaging with learning products. In this way, the team can take into account personal preferences at scale. Data helps the team to understand learners’ interests, motivations and needs in the following ways:

• What learning have individuals already engaged with? What have they enjoyed? And how proficient do they feel in these different skills?

• Where are individuals learning (e.g. location, device) and how does this inform learning design?

• What learning format are individuals most motivated by? Are there any patterns based on age, tenure, gender, etc. that help us to understand other individuals’ needs?

• What are people talking about across platforms like Yammer, that tell us what they want to learn, what problems they’re trying to solve, or what they like or don’t like about current learning experiences?

How HCD can become a part of the HR professionals’ role

A common approach to a human centred design process is in six phases. The below clip from our latest course, Using Human Centred Design Principles in HR, takes a look at how HCD is used in HR and these six phases in detail.

You can start applying Human Centred Design principles TODAY by considering these six phases next time you work on any element of employee experience. To develop your HCD skills further, enrol on our new course now.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Caroline Styr is the Research Director at Insight222. She is a thought-leader, researcher and writer on people analytics and the future of HR. Prior to joining Insight222, she worked at the Center for the Future of Work where she was an advisor and in-demand speaker on topics related to the future of work. She has also held roles in digital services and transformation consulting at Cognizant.