Comment les consultants RH utilisent-ils le design thinking et le prototypage pour créer de meilleures solutions pour les clients ?

In my experience, agile brings the HR team together as One Team. Many HR teams are siloed into departments such as Talent Acquisition, HR Business Partners, and People Operations. Agile requires that all knowledge workers come together to work on projects, thus creating collaborative cross-functional teams. Also, agile transformation moves HR organizations into delivering whole slices of value to the workforce (customers) on a regular cadence. Agile creates space for employees to provide feedback and have a voice in impacting change within the workplace. Driving meaningful connections and continuous improvement in which humans feel valued.

In the past, HR consultants could get by using pre-existing templates without taking the pain of validating the applicability of such templates to their client’s business challenges. Today, intelligent clients can quickly differentiate between templates and tailored solutions. One of our clients in the skincare business was too skeptical about dealing with consultants because they had had their fair share of template solutions that didn’t work. The agile approach is more strategic because it enables consultants to engage stakeholders from inception through design and implementation.

Over the years, in my experience, agility of solution is key. The right solution can support and move you forward, or it can block your ability to reach your goal. It is not only the right systems, documents, and resources it is the right mindset, thought process, perspective, understanding and experience. Agility in HR equals seeking out, looking for and embracing what is or could be uncomfortable, and difficult, to find and implement the right solution for your employees, clients and business. Embracing change is promoting success.

More than ever, organizations are struggling to live up to the ever-growing and continuously evolving expectations of employees. Design thinking as a methodology is a solution that can unlock the ability for organizations to respond to this challenge. Its human-centered approach provides for the ability to design workplace experiences tailored to the needs and preferences of employees. While its iterative process allows for new solutions to be tested, implemented and adapted to meet continuously evolving expectations.

As an HR consultant, user-led design techniques help me take a step back and think about the people that my work impacts. It forces me to build user personas in which I need to understand their needs and what they care about. What are they expecting at this stage in the employee life cycle? How did the business fail to support or delight them in the past? By thinking through these things and speaking with HR customers, I can create solutions with them in mind. Then, when solutions are deployed, employees (HR customers) can see how their feedback is heard. In doing this, employees become a part of the solution.

Prototyping is a quick and easy way to obtain employee and key stakeholder feedback on a project before launch. This ensures that everyone remains aligned on expectations and the definition of done for the project. The needs of a business change faster each day. Prototyping enables a consultant to ensure they remain in sync. Feedback from prototyping can ensure quick pivots are made before wasting resources entering the final stages of a project or launch. Prototyping provides the agility needed to launch a project that provides the rocket fuel an organization needs to get ahead and not just remain status quo or slightly better.

A great part of being an independent HR Consultant is that you are not constrained by the internal policies and systems your client organization may have in place. I love being able to be as creative as I want and the client has to listen! LOL