Begin With The End in Mind

Busy travel week, so this is a Friday edition of “Wednesday Words.” Inspired by events and conversations, this week had a theme as I met with clients; the User Experience. Now, to be clear, it’s not just one platform or system when considering the User Experience, but rather the entire purview of what you expect an employee to navigate. In the HR Perfect Storm I call out the following factors that will impact HR Departments (Learning Teams): Talent, Experience, Technology and Automation. In line with my discussions this week, let’s go through each briefly to see how the impact of User Experience ties through them.
Talent
The U.S. is experiencing one of the lowest unemployment rates in its modern history. Labor markets are tight and generally those who organizations seek to employ are already employed. This causes a few problems. First, organizations must have an attractive offering to potential candidates that would be as good as or better than their current state. Second, in order to combat the first challenge, organizations must have a User Experience that is so good their talent wouldn’t consider that a negative when being courted by another suitor. And Third, do not discount the walk-away factor. For many years’ employees tolerated bad interfaces because that was the way it was. Younger generations have lower tolerance for a bad experience and are often unshackled from the concerns of not having a job. These factors have shifted the balance of power on User Experience to the employee.
Experience
Chalk this up to consumer habits. Blame Amazon, Facebook, Linkedin or your favorite social or consumer site. The days of “Cyber Monday” rooted in faster connections to shop at work are long gone. Most employees have better and faster tech in their homes for personal tasks than their organizations. This lends itself to a misalignment and higher expectations for what people now find tolerable to use. To combat the Talent challenge above, organizations must consider the overall User Experience employees encounter.
Technology
Times are changing for sure. In years past the approach to technology was internally or company focused. Couple that with a desire to purchase “Best of Breed” systems that didn’t quite integrate, most ended up with a patchwork quilt of siloed platforms. Additionally, buying decisions were centered on what HR wanted out of a system, not the user – I know, I was there. “We want robust reporting and intricate calculation ability to crunch data…and other random features….” – I’m paraphrasing of course. What this led to was massively complex systems ready and able to crunch the mass amounts of data that would be coming. But unfortunately, the one miscalculation in this process was users must generate that data. If they don’t like the system, shoving them into it twice a year or mandating compliance training is not going to generate enough meaningful data.
Automation
There are a couple ways to look at automation. One widely accepted approach is the replacement of human interaction in a process with some sort of technological ability. The other I would pose is more “personalization” through automation that is impacting the User Experience. As I’ve written earlier this year, AI is the new “it” term for 2020. Users have come to expect a level of personalization through their Amazon shopping and lately in a more terrifying sense, targeted marketing. How often have you had just a conversation with someone, only to see the very topic show up in your facebook feed? Yikes – is this mic on? But again, consumer tendencies are driving behaviors of what is tolerable.
Organizations need to shift their focus from internal HR, administrative needs to putting the employee at the center of their criteria. Consider using “Personas” to understand what you are asking an employee to do. Are the systems they interact with daily for their employment intuitive? Do they lose more productive time slogging through poorly designed systems to enter their time, performance, learning or goals? Many organizations are looking to add “HR Architects” to their teams to help facilitate and design ecosystems that will support the needs of both the department and the end user.
Circling back to the conversations of the week, the bottom line was User Experience matters now more than ever. Employee tolerance for a bad experience is at an all time low. That lowered tolerance means they are potential flight risks in a very tight labor market. Expectations for development, purpose and self-improvement only add to this challenge for HR Departments. What used to be an ancillary benefit or perk is quickly moving into a business critical component for survival. Organizations must seek the feedback from the employees as part of the buying or configuring process in order to provide usable, dare I say, enjoyable User Experiences.
I’ll end with a quote I heard this week that is somewhat applicable to the idea of seeking feedback from your users on their experience. The hilariously funny comedian Steve Martin once said; “Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you’ll be a mile away and have his shoes.” Have a great weekend!