How Design Thinking Transforms Human-Centric Employee Experience
In today’s fast-paced business landscape, creating a meaningful employee experience is no longer a luxury—it's essential. Organizations are recognizing that to attract and retain talent, they need to focus on their employees' needs and craft experiences that resonate on a deeper, human level. One approach that is gaining significant traction is design thinking, a human-centric framework that helps companies rethink how they solve problems by putting people at the heart of their processes.
At the upcoming Empple Festival, Steve Usher, co-founder of Wonder and host of The Experience Designers podcast, will be sharing his insights on the intersection of design thinking and employee experience (EX). Below, we dive into an interview with Steve, where he talks about the importance of design thinking, how to create a human-centric employee experience, and what the future holds for experience design.
What is Design Thinking?
Design thinking is not just a methodology but a mindset shift that pushes you to empathize deeply with the people you're designing for. Steve's experience shows that adopting design thinking leads to a transformation in how we approach problem-solving. It encourages you to assume nothing, listen deeply, and build solutions based on real human needs.
What does Design Thinking actually mean to you?
Steve Usher:
After I completed my first design thinking training in Amsterdam, it meant a lot to me personally. It almost instantaneously shifted my mindset and connected with so many of my intrinsic values. I was privileged to find another passion in my work, not only in ‘what’ I did but, more importantly, in ‘how’ I did it.
For me, Design Thinking is an invitation to challenge yourself to get obsessed with the realities in which people live or work in order to design solutions that are actually built for people and businesses.
Crafting a Human-Centric Employee Experience
A successful human-centric employee experience begins with action. Steve emphasizes that to get started, you need to experiment—find the right challenge that isn’t too risky but still impactful enough to generate attention. The key is to balance top-down alignment with organizational goals and bottom-up insights from employees themselves.
How do you define a "human-centric employee experience," and what are the key elements that organizations should focus on to create one?
Steve Usher:
Most importantly, organizations further along their employee experience journey actually got started! That's the first key element. Stop talking and move to doing!
Finding the right place and challenge to test this way of working is critical to lighting an EX fire in your organization. Being too big and visible comes with too much risk. If it is too small, you may not get enough attention to the impact you've created. Align your work to add value to strategic pillars (Top-down) or go deeper with employee survey feedback (Bottom-up) to guide your direction.
Depending on the scale of your business, create a dedicated EX team inside your HR/People operating model, whether dedicated or shared resource. Ensure design competence through design thinking, service design, qualitative research, storytelling, and facilitation.
Measuring Success in Employee Experience Design
Measuring the impact of an employee experience initiative can be challenging, but the key is to meet the business where it is, using existing metrics and language. This prevents disruption while ensuring EX initiatives integrate smoothly into broader business goals. Qualitative feedback, employee retention, and engagement data are all essential tools for tracking success in employee experience design.
How do you measure the success of a human-centric employee experience design? Are there specific metrics or indicators you prioritize?
Steve Usher:
The key to measuring is to meet your business where it is. Use the language and metrics already in place and find a way to weave your work into those rather than impose or suggest implementing new ones, particularly in the early stages.
This is not always easy in some environments, so use engagement surveys, employee retention rates, and performance metrics to guide where and how you can influence them when working at various stages in the employee journey. For example, how might improving the experience for new graduates during their onboarding accelerate their learning and first 6 months of attrition for this talent group? (If this is a challenge). This allows you to create an impact while delivering something measurable.
Future Trends in Employee and Customer Experience Design
The future of experience design is likely to be shaped by two key factors: personalization and artificial intelligence (AI). AI offers the potential to drive highly personalized experiences for both employees and customers, but its success will depend on organizations keeping the human aspect at the forefront. Rather than focusing purely on the technology’s functionality, companies should use AI as a tool to enhance empathy-driven, human-centered experiences.
Looking ahead, what do you see as the next big trend or evolution in experience design for both employees and customers?
Steve Usher:
One thought is that we’ll heavily focus on personalization powered by AI. The key to this success is ensuring we remain balanced in that we come from a place of human needs when shaping the desired experiences, with AI being the facilitator, as opposed to purely making decisions on the functionality of the tech and imposing it on us.
Finally, experience design as a discipline continues to impact the staging of experiences such as workshops and events. We've seen a surge in demand for business events (human connection). So, the need to stage more experientially driven formats will continue to trend upward as people demand and engage with more memorable experiences rather than old-school conferences.
Podcast Recommendations for More Insights
For those looking to dive deeper into design thinking and employee experience, Steve recommends two episodes from his podcast The Experience Designers. Both offer valuable insights into how these frameworks are applied in real-world scenarios, from local communities to charities like the British Red Cross.
Could you recommend an episode from your podcast that offers valuable insights into Employer Branding (Experience design) and is a must-watch?
Steve Usher:
There are two I’d recommend for design thinking and employee experience.
- Design thinking in action - so much design goodness in this episode relating to a unique way of working and delivering value to local communities. Learnings to take into the business world!
https://www.theexperiencedesigners.com/episodes/wayne-li-design-thinking - Lighting an EX fire in the British Red Cross. A charity with little budget doing extraordinary things in EX design!
https://www.theexperiencedesigners.com/episodes/sam-laura-the-british-red-cross
Conclusion
As organizations continue to navigate the challenges of employee engagement and retention, Steve Usher’s insights on design thinking offer a roadmap for creating impactful, human-centric employee experiences. By adopting a mindset rooted in empathy, focusing on action, and embracing emerging trends like AI, companies can transform both their workplace culture and business outcomes.
To hear more from Steve Usher and gain further insights into how design thinking can revolutionize employee experience, visit the Empple Festival. Don’t miss the opportunity to learn how to shape the future of your organization by crafting more meaningful and human-centric experiences.
