Employee experience design (EED or EXD) is the application of

experience design User experience design (UX design, UXD, UED, or XD) is the process of defining the experience a user would go through when interacting with a digital product or website. Design decisions in UX design are often driven by research, data analysis, an ...

in order to intentionally design HR products, services, events, and organizational environments with a focus on the quality of the employee

experience Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these conscious processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involv ...

whilst providing relevant solutions for an organization.

Overview

EED can be described as the "intentional design of the active or passive use of HR products or services", and employee experiences in general, that affect employees' emotional reaction and therefore their particular behaviors and loyalty. The underlying assumption is that best (customer/employee) relationships are emotional in nature and achieved when companies succeed in not only satisfying certain needs (e.g. compensation), but also making interactions pleasurable. The goal is to yield better

customer experience Customer experience (CX) is a totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and behavioral consumer responses during all stages of the consumption process including pre-purchase, consumption, and post-purchase stages. Pine and Gilmore described th ...

through increased

employee engagement Employee engagement is a fundamental concept in the effort to understand and describe, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the nature of the relationship between an organization and its employees. An "engaged employee" is defined as one who is ...

and employee

empowerment Empowerment is the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in communities. This enables them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. It is the process of becoming strong ...

. Following Krippendorf, EED focuses on creating meaningful and sense-making opportunities for engagement, and addressing aspirational and fundamental psychological needs of an employee, such as autonomy, competence and relatedness.

Methods

Related to

design strategy Strategic design is the application of future-oriented design principles in order to increase an organization's innovative and competitive qualities. Its foundations lie in the analysis of external and internal trends and data, which enables desi ...

, EED is a participatory systems approach to workplace improvements that applies methods and principles of

, such as

design thinking Design thinking refers to the set of cognitive, strategic and practical procedures used by designers in the process of designing, and to the body of knowledge that has been developed about how people reason when engaging with design problems. Des ...

co-creation Co-creation, in the context of a business, refers to a product or service design process in which input from consumers plays a central role from beginning to end. Less specifically, the term is also used for any way in which a business allows consu ...

and

empathic design Empathic design is a user-centered design approach that pays attention to the user's feelings toward a product. The empathic design process is sometimes mistakenly referred to as ''empathetic'' design. Characteristics The foundation of empat ...

and new digital tools and technologies. It also uses tools and techniques that are typical to

customer experience management Customer experience (CX) is a totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and behavioral consumer responses during all stages of the consumption process including pre-purchase, consumption, and post-purchase stages. Pine and Gilmore described t ...

and

service design Service design is the activity of planning and arranging people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service in order to improve its quality, and the interaction between the service provider and its users. Service design may ...

, e.g. employee experience journey mapping or

touchpoint A touchpoint can be defined as any way consumers can interact with a business organization, whether it be person-to-person, through a website, an app or any form of communication (“Touchpoint Glossary”, n.d.). When consumers come in contact ...

analysis. Primary design object is the employee experience, which – when successful – an employee finds unique, memorable and sustainable over time, would want to repeat and build upon, and enthusiastically promotes via word of mouth. It is suspected to encourage loyalty by creating an emotional connection through engaging, compelling, and consistent context. The categories for employee experience design context are products, processes, artefacts, content, space and interactions. While employee experience design is beneficial to create positive customer experiences, it is also beneficial for non-customer-facing roles. Many elements can make up a successful employee experience, including office environment, reward and benefits, flexible working and casual dress policies.

Stakeholders

Human resource management Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture ...

, operating across hierarchies and departments, plays a central role in design, distribution and delivery of EED. As co-creation is an important design principle, it is a shared task and joint responsibility of leadership, HR professionals and employees. Following the logic of the service-profit chain, beneficiaries are also customers, as the recipients of improved service quality and the organization itself through increased profits.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Employee Experience Design Human resource management Design Workplace Employee relations Strategic management Customer experience