Design Research as the foundational element to enhance employee and volunteer experience in an NGO in Nepal
The present document its a personal reflection and represents a summary of the context and challenges, process and tools I used, as well as some of the outcomes achieved during a 3 months volunteering project within an NGO in Nepal, in which I tried to explore the integration of User Centered Design (UCD) and People / Human Resources practices in organisations.
This article specifically focuses on Design Research and how I tried to empathise with people to understand more about their context, needs and the problem we needed to solve.
Why I decided to share this article? As I am starting my learning journey on “People Centered Design”, I just thought that it could be good to share my experience in case someone finds anything useful if they are planning to start a similar journey. For example, human resources and learning professionals that want to make their day to day work “more people centered”.
1. “Getting ready for my first experience with People Centered Design”
In despite of great progress and continuous support provided by NGOs, Nepal continue to be one of the poorest countries in the world. This has impacts on low levels of education, economic well being, and limited opportunities for the community. There are approximately 6,000 NGOs recognised by the Nepali Government, however it’s estimated that more than 15,000 NGOs are working in various sectors across the country (Source: Visit Nepal).
According to research, organisations that put special focus on people practices, and invest in employee experience, outperform those that do not in revenues (x 2.1) and profits by employee (x 4). In an NGO environment this could translate in better resources mobilisation and funding for the organisation, as well as sustainability in the long term.
My work on the 12 weeks project started “formally” when I arrived in Kathmandu by mid January 2018. However, that was not my first approximation to the company. By November 2017, and as part of the NGO’s recruitment process, I was given a Job Description for my role, which included a set of responsibilities and priorities for my volunteer project in the team as the new Human Resources Advisor.
As I wanted to approach the project and priorities I’ve been given using a User Centered Design approach, I took the job description as an initial opportunity to understand more about their needs and also to start exploring how my experience and skills could be of help towards designing relevant solutions.
Personal Reflection: I was completely aware at that moment in time that the job description, was far from being “the real design brief”; but I just wanted to start thinking about UCD, so I used that initial document to start exploring how could I plan the project, key activities and timelines.)
Based on that initial document, and following some Desk Research about Nepali Culture and Ways of Working, I prepared and sent them back, a short document (5 Slides). This was an opportunity to “start prototyping my ideas”, so we could slowly slowly (*) start the conversation and get the “ball rolling”. Without getting too detailed or complex (as I didn’t have too much information by then), I shared within the document some ideas about my initial understanding of their expressed needs (“let me rephrase what you told me to see if I understood you correctly”), and also how I was envisaging blending human resources practices and user centered design in the same project within the given context, resources and timelines.
(*) “Slowly slowly … but surely” . I use this reference along the case study to reinforce the importance of considering the local context and user needs before jumping into any conclusions. Especially if you are working in countries/projects/with people which are new to you.
2. “My learning journey started even before my arrival in Nepal, and required me to slow down a bit”
I was not expecting to have further contact with the team in Nepal until my arrival in Kathmandu by mid January. However, and to my surprise, that initial high level document got me in a Skype with the Executive Director & Founder of the NGO. During this 45 minutes conversation, and along with getting to know each other and understanding a bit more about the team, we had the opportunity to talk about the job description, and most importantly, the needs “he believed” were the most pressing from a people point of view.
One of the things I noticed during this conversation with the Executive Director & Founder of the NGO was that the needs he shared with me about the company and its people, were not “exactly” the same ones as the ones expressed in the Job Description I had received a few weeks earlier. So, even before arriving into Kathmandu and formally kicking off the project, is when I got an “Aha Moment” and my first learning in this experience.
In despite I went to that Skype conversation with the objective of continuing forming and shaping my thinking about the challenge and opportunities ahead, with the intention of progressing with “my design”, I couldn’t do that, as I realised that different stakeholders had different views on which were the main needs we would need to focus on.
I realised that different stakeholders had different views on which were the main needs we would need to focus on
So I had to slow down a bit. Why did I slow down? At that moment in time, and to be very honest, I really wanted to start “designing and doing stuff”, because that’s what we do isn’t? And I can’t deny that it could have been easier and faster to “lift and shift” previous human resources solutions I had implemented in the past; but at that moment in time I reconfirmed that I didn’t know enough about the people, their context and needs, as well as the different expectations each stakeholder involved in the project had.
So I put aside for a while my “ego” and my need for “going straight to ideas or solutions I know from my past” and I prepared myself to understand a bit more deeply the needs of the people involved so I could build and design a relevant plan and solutions “for everyone” and not just “ for me”.
3. First things first…“Kick Off Workshop: Setting a baseline and key priorities”
After arriving into Kathmandu, the first thing I did after joining a 2 days “Volunteer Induction” from where I learned more about Nepal, the NGO, its culture and main projects, was to kick off formally the project in a workshop with the client and his management team.
During this 90 minutes session, and to get everyone on the same page, I presented back a summary of all the ideas, needs and expectations I have managed to gather until then.
What we started to see during the conversation was an overarching challenge about how to get people practices right and relevant in an NGO which was scaling and growing fast. Growing from 100 to 700 volunteers a year, in just a couple of years, it was very hard. Operating systems and processes that work in a “100 volunteers” company don’t work in a “700 volunteer company”. Systems break down, feedback and communication gets affected, and this has impacts in employee performance and engagement, which in consequence affected volunteers, the community and ultimately the business results.
How to get people practices right and relevant in an NGO which was scaling and growing fast?
After exploring business and people needs and issues, as well as the objectives they were to achieve in the long term, we were all in alignment that the organisation was growing faster than its own capacity to transform, adapt and respond to new demands. Having reached an agreement about the overarching context and challenge of the organisation, we went to explore in a bit more details the leverage points in the organisation and system we believed we would need to focus on to impact people practices, performance and engagement.
In summary, by approaching this meeting as a co-creation workshop with the management team and the client, we managed to get a lot more insights and understanding to identify and redefine the main priorities (originally presented in the Job Description and Skype with the founder), that we would focus on during the coming weeks:
4. Empathy: “Let’s get out there and get to know our users and their context”
Having reached a better understanding about the business challenges and needs, and more importantly, having everyone in agreement on the key priorities we would focus on during the 3 months project, it was time to move onto the users, in this case employees and volunteers of the NGO.
The following 5 weeks, and based on qualitative and quantitative methodologies, it was all about Empathy with end users. Through in depth interviews (50% of the employees were interviewed which gave us more than 600 minutes of insights), online surveys, and some contextual observation at the office headquarters and also in the community, I managed to get a better understanding about employees and volunteers needs and motivations, and also learnt more about their views on people practices and the change we were seeking.
If you remember well, my first learning on this project was to “put on hold for a bit” my human resources experience so to approach the project with an open mind and “not to jump into ideas or solutions just because they worked for me in the past”.
However, at this point in the project I did look back into my past HR experience, and instead of designing a survey from scratch to complement the other research methods I was using, I thought I could make the most of a tool very commonly used in human resources practices. And this was an “Employee Engagement Survey”. In a nutshell, this survey provides a picture of how people practices, processes and workplace culture happens to be at a given moment in time in an organisation. In other words, and thinking now with my “Design Hat”, I took the decision of using an Employee Engagement Survey as it could offer some structure and relevant insights to better understand the end to end employee life cycle at the NGO, and most importantly the perceptions and needs of the employees at each stage of their journey in the company.
Embedding myself within the problem we needed to solve
Especially useful from a research point of view was that I was “within the problem that needed to be solved”. I was in a privileged “middle ground”. As I was both an employee and a volunteer at the same time. I was working at the office within the NGO employees, and I was also part of the group of volunteers supporting the local community.
And this possibility to be “one of them” and share bus rides, lunch times, sightseeing trips, and 1 or 2 beers every now and then, gave me an invaluable source of insights as I was “inside the system trying to understand it and finding ways to redesign it”.
So apart from the “more formal” research methods I used (interviews, surveys), this proximity and closeness with the end users (employees and volunteers) gave me an opportunity to understand them better and support their change and transformation process more closely.
5. Creating a movement about people practices by making the project everyone’s
At this moment in the project, I was finishing the research phase and it was week 5. I had 7 weeks to go, and it’s when something happened that really changed the progress of the project in a very positive way.
After all the research was done, analysis made and insights identified, I knew I had to share back the information, but I started reflecting about whom to share it with. It was clear to me that I needed to (at least) present back the results and findings of the research phase to my client (NGO Founder and Exec Director) and his management team, but it didn’t feel right to just share it with them.
Following some reflection and thinking on the long term success of the project and not just on my client’s needs, it was clear for me that as this was a project which needed the involvement and engagement of everyone in the NGO, and not just HR or the management team, we needed to be more inclusive.
All employees, regardless their level in the organisation or participation on the research phase, should hear the research results.
So, after agreeing the approach with the client, instead of just sharing the research findings with the most senior people at the organisation in a closed meeting, it was organised a workshop with all the team to share a high level overview of the research phase, the Employee Journey Map, and also the main happy moments / pain points of their employee experience at the organisation.
6. In summary…
After all the research we did during those 5 weeks, involving and mobilising everyone in the company (and not just the client or senior team) it was key to help them understand and connect with the bigger picture and main priorities.
This was also a key tipping point in the project implementation, as we managed to “slowly slowly” start creating change around people practices at the NGO, and looking back, I can happily say that it was one of the best decisions we made during the whole project.
Involving and mobilising everyone in the company (…) was one of the best decisions we made during the project
Do you want to learn more about how we moved from research to prototypes and implementation on this project? Click below to learn more about each specific initiative:
From Physical to Digital: Improving an NGOs communication and feedback experiences
Learning Experience Design in NGOs “From Training to Learning to Performance”
