Applying Design Thinking in HR

Sara Coene
7 min readFeb 12, 2021
Employee Experience Design
Design Thinking in HR

A lot has been said about the future of work. The truth is, our so-called ‘best practice’ HR programs and processes are not even solving today’s workplace challenges anymore. What HR needs today, is a thorough understanding of the employee needs in combination with more co-creative working methods. And design thinking can play an important role in this.

​Design thinking in HR moves the focus from building processes to designing meaningful employee experiences. And it works. Josh Bersin’s research shows that companies in which HR delivers the highest value, are almost five times more likely to use design thinking. High-performing HR organizations are also associated with a lot of positive business outcomes, like hitting or exceeding financial targets.

Design thinking helps HR to redesign every aspect of work, from the first touch point between employee and organization to the last. When HR focuses on the creation of meaningful experiences around moments that matter most to the employee, you can say that HR plays a strategic role in the organization. Design thinking helps HR to shift from process execution to experience design.

What is design thinking


​Product Designers have been using Design Thinking for ages, to create products that really…

--

--

Sara Coene
Sara Coene

Written by Sara Coene

I’m a Behavioral Change Designer @ the Change Designers (.eu). I write about #OrganisationalChange #EX #CX #UserAdoption #essentialism #Nederlandsefictie

No responses yet