Rewriting the rules
It’s time to reset and reinvent the engagement rule book.
“There has never been a time of greater promise or potential peril.” Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum.
The last 2 years have changed consumers’ behaviours for good and the opportunity to reset and reinvent the engagement rule book has never been bigger — putting employees and customers at the heart of everything we do.
People-first design is a good start. We need to change the way we engage at every touchpoint. We have to move away from transactional relationships towards engagement and comms that create a two-way conversation that’s mutually beneficial.
We’re working with some brilliant businesses leading the way in people-first design, and here’s some of the things we’ve learnt along the way:
- People-first. Put people at the heart of design and champion open conversation.
- Design based on needs. Always make sure you understand user needs before designing a solution. Never jump to the answer or make assumptions on what it might be.
- Communicate along the way. Transparent communication helps bring everyone on the journey. Don’t just wait until ‘launch’.
- Customer in mind, always. Keep the voice of your customer or employee at the forefront by continually referring back when decisions are being made.
- Get started. Start small, progress is always better than perfection.
Inspired? Here are 3 examples of what and how we reinvented the rule book.
Rule #1 Listen to your people if you want to transform ways of working.
We’ve been working closely with a global FMCG brand to design their future state of work. They already have a strong people-first culture, enriched by deep relationships and a strong sense of community. We just helped them tap into this design, a future led by their people.
A user-centred approach: what we did together. We connected with thousands of employees, managers and senior leaders across the globe to understand what challenges, benefits and learnings they experienced during the pandemic. We used this opportunity to reimagine how, where and when they work in order to radically shake up their employee engagement and overall people experience.
The brand was specifically mindful to resist corporate interests and keep the voice of their employees at the forefront. They did this by continually referring back whenever decisions were being made throughout the process. They have now successfully rolled out their Future of Work vision for all their office based employees around the world.
Rule #2 Putting the customer (not the product) at the heart of the experience.
This is how a leading digital transformation business reimagined their digital events to enhance the value for their c-suite audience.
What we did together. By gathering first-hand insight into the needs and motivations of real customers and digging into the highs and lows of hybrid working, the team identified the key principles for a necessary shift in digital event design:
- from informing with technical data to inspiring with real life use cases
- from impersonal and passive, to hyper-personalised and interactive
- from large, public “show and tell events” to small, closed community discussions
In January 2022 the new series of digital events will launch with a community of changemakers — championing a customer-centric approach to engagement. If you’re interested in Digital Experiences read more here: ‘The Future of Experience Design.’
Rule #3 Employee engagement is king.
Following a period of rapid growth, the sales HR team at one of the world’s fastest growing tech companies recognised that the need to keep the pace was diminishing the team’s capacity to solve problems thoughtfully and effectively. The result was a decline in employee engagement and potential for growth. They wanted to understand how to create long term value for their employees, and in turn the business, now and into the future.
We worked together to develop a bespoke innovation and design thinking training programme to embed a user-centred way of working. We used their key business challenges as real-life examples to work from, blending theory and hands-on practical experience.
In the space of 7 weeks the programme gave the HR team the skills and the confidence to work with structure and focus, decide the right opportunities to invest in, and solve the problems that really matter. All while addressing some of the most pressing issues within the business. If you’re interested in how design thinking is transforming HR, check out this article.
Authors: Annabel Staib is a Project Manager and Natalia Walters is a Managing Consultant at Fluxx and magneticNorth. We help some of the world’s best known companies solve and tackle some of the biggest issues and we’re very happy to share experiences or hear from others in the field. Want to find out more? Let’s chat: natalia.walters@fluxx.uk.com.
