The User experience: What Drives Engagement in the Talent Management Process?

7/29/2019 The User experience: What Drives Engagement in the Talent Management Process?

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David RoeSenior User Experience Designer

The User experience:What Drives Engagement in the

Talent Management Process?


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IntroductionMindLeaders is progressively applying User Experience (UX) Design

processes to its software and product development projects. Integralto the UX process is getting feedback from users. Feedback is

acquired in a variety of different ways, including interviews, observingusers interacting with a system, focus groups, surveys, etc.

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Table of Contents

Introduction...................................................................................................................................................................1

The User Experience: What Drives Engagement in the Talent Management Process?About The User Experience Survey............................................................................................................................3

Methodology...............................................................................................................................................................3

Results and ImplicationsEffective and Meaningful Interactions ........................................................................................................................5

Relevant Goals............................................................................................................................................................5

Professional Development..........................................................................................................................................6Emotional Response ..................................................................................................................................................7

Conclusions: What Do Managers, Individual Contributors and HR Professionals Want?Managers Want Help..................................................................................................................................................9Individual Contributors Want Acknowledgement .....................................................................................................10

HR Professionals Want Interconnectedness ............................................................................................................10

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The User Experience: What DrivesEngagement in the Talent ManagementProcess?

About The User Experience Survey

In this white paper, Paul MacCartney (MindLeaders President) and David Roe (MindLeaders Senior User Experience

Designer) discuss the results of a formative research survey conducted to determine attitudes regarding the use ofhuman resources processes and systems, particularly those related to performance and development.

MethodologyFollowing a guerilla user experience mindset, the survey was designed to provide insights quickly and for a low

cost. When provided early in the product development process, these insights provide direction to the project

team, validate or invalidate hypotheses, and provide data on which decisions can be based.

The survey captured 109 responses between March 8 and March 20, 2012. Twenty-three percent of respondentsidentified themselves as being a human resources professional, 27% identified themselves as being in a management

role and 50% indicated that they were individual contributors (in roles that have no direct reports). Ninety percent ofrespondents indicated that they had some experience with a performance review process.



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Results and Implications

Effective and Meaningful Interactions

It might come as a surprise that the people in HR departments and the average employee have some of the

same goals when it comes to using HR systems and processes. It might be even more surprising that managers

share some of the same key motivations as well. Often, it can be easy to think about the relationship between

HR, management and the employee as an adversarial one. However, each of these constituents wants humanresources processes and systems to be an effective, relevant and meaningful part of their work.

Employees do not like using a system that is worthless. When asked what the number-one problem they have with

systems and processes related to performance and development, individual contributors top response was, I dontsee the value in the system / process. Employees are frustrated by processes that require them to make stuff up or

that allow conversations about performance to be put off or to be out of sight, out of mind. To be effective for the

employee, HR systems and processes must be relevant to the work they do and provide meaningful, frequent feedback.

Similarly, HR professionals want a system that supports meaningful conversations about performance and devel-

opment. HR respondents ranked Employees and managers dont have a good experience with the system/

process as the No. 2 answer in response to Whats the number-one problem that you have with systems andprocesses related to performance and development? The highest rated response to this question was, Systems

and processes dont work well together with other HR systems and processes.

Relevant GoalsSo, what can be done to ensure that the performance appraisal process is meaningful for all parties involved? Make

it easy to input, monitor and evaluate goals. When presented with a list of 10 tasks and asked to place them in orderof importance, each group (HR, managers and employees) ranked business goal-related tasks in their top two.

Individual contributors want to have clear goals. Managers want their teams goals to be achieved and human resources

organizations want to be able to evaluate performance on goals. Tasks related to goals are important to each user type. A

system primarily built around the easy entry and evaluation of business goals would serve all audiences well.

Human Resources

Respondents were asked to rank a series of tasks according to their importance.

Manager Individual Contributor

Retaining top employees

Evaluating employee perfor-mance on business goals

Identifying high potential

employees

Ensuring that your teams

business goals are achieved

Retaining top employees

Evaluating employee perfor-

mance on business goals

Having clear goals, tasks

or metrics that you need toachieve

Having a clear path forcareer advancement /

progression

Ensuring that your teams

business goals are achieved

1 1 1

2

2

2

3 3

3



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In order to be relevant to the daily work of employees and managers, systems and processes should be flexible

enough to accommodate different levels and types of goals. When asked, Which ability would provide the mostvalue to you in your daily work, 36% (No. 1 response) of individual contributors answered, The ability to track and

report on my work / tasks. Neither employees nor managers like trying to remember all of their accomplishments

when annual review time rolls around. Also, employees would like some recognition for all of the small tasks theyperform that they think may go unnoticed.

All user-types want the system to be meaningful. One way that HR systems and processes can accomplish this

is by being a part of employees daily or weekly work routine. By being an effective way to track the real work thatemployees are doing, the system may be used more frequently and be seen as providing more value. This may

mean that systems and processes have to be able to capture large, strategic goals as well as the medium to smalltasks, or put another way, the keep the lights on work that supports the larger, strategic goals.

Professional DevelopmentWhile goals ranked highly on task-ranking questions and questions related to frequency of use, when asked toselect five features that would make their performance appraisal or other similar HR system better, development-

related features dominated the top five overall features. Development recommendations based on your unique

set of skills was selected by 49% of respondents; Development recommendations based on your competencieswas selected by 43%; and, Better ways to create and track professional development goals was selected by 41%

of respondents.

The other two features ranked in the top 5 were: The ability to have different goal types, such as long-term,strategic, medium-term and smaller task-based goals at 41% and, The ability to collaborate on goals with

co-workers at 39%.

Another way to achieve meaningful interactions with performance appraisal systems and to encourage their use

is by providing development recommendations based on an employees skills or competencies. Suggestions fortraining courses, stretch assignments or other ways to grow professionally should be integrated into the develop-

ment planning process.

Features All

Development recommendations based on your unique set of skills 49%

Development recommendations based on your competencies 43%

Better ways to create and track professional development goals / objectives 41%

Different goal types such as long-term, strategic... smaller, task-based goals 39%

The ability to collaborate on goals with co-workers 37%

More ways to be recognized for your accomplishments 37%

Better ways to create and track business goals / objectives 32%

The ability to track goal progression visually on a timeline or Gantt chart 29%

Update your goals from other systems such as Outlook ... intranet site 28%

Better ways to visualize data (charts and graphs) 25%

Pre-written goals, example goals or a goal writing assistant 21%

Better ways to group, categorize and link goals 20%

The ability to make updates via email 19%

Tools that help you create better surveys (multi-rater, 360 feedback, engagement) 18%

Interact with co-workers via forums, activity feeds or other social mechanics 18%

Pre-written feedback, example feedback or a feedback writing assistant 17%

The ability to give feedback from a mobile device (phone or tablet) 13%

Better ways to view and navigate the company hierarchy (org chart) 10%



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Emotional ResponseWhile the use of a companys HR systems is likely compulsory, this does not mean that the users emotional

response should be disregarded. Just because everyone is required to use a system does not mean that the

system should not be one that people actually want to use. At a minimum, systems that contain confidential datashould feel trustworthy. If the system looks and feels old, for example, will we trust it to work correctly and keep our

data safe? Possibly not.

How we feel about using a system can be driven by the perceived usefulness of its features. But, emotionalresponses can also be prompted by many other factors, including content, writing style, organization and presenta-

tion of data, colors, pictures, etc. In order to understand how users felt about certain attributes, respondents were

presented with a series of word pairs designed to elicit an emotional response and asked, If you could design thesystem or process, would you like for it to be more like the words on the right or more like the words on the left?

Participants selected their response on a six-point scale.

Respondents selected words like custom over off-the-shelf, simple over dense and hand-crafted overmachined. They preferred the system to be more professional and serious, but not be overly so. The system

should not be stoic. Rather, there should be some elements that make the system seem that there are people

involved (hand-crafted). Do not use too much ornamentation or decoration the experience should feel morebare than decorated. However, the experience should not be completely sterile.

There should be some elements

that make the system seem that

there are people involved

(hand-crafted).



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Conclusions: What Do Managers,Individual Contributors and HRProfessionals Want?

Managers Want Help

If there was one overarching theme for respondents who identified themselves as mangers, it would be, Make this

easier for us! In addition to ensuring that their staff is performing, managers often have their own set of tasks thatthey must accomplish. Tending to the needs of their employees, their peers, their managers, and to their own tasks

means that managers may be more likely to multitask. Managers have a lot to do and little time to do it.

The top two responses from managers when asked, Whats the number-one problem that you have with systemsand processes related to performance and development? were: Systems / processes are too complex and,

Administration is too burdensome. Managers need these systems to be easy-to-use. They would like for the

process to be fast and streamlined.

Additionally, managers indicated that they could use help when using performance and development systems.

They could use guidance and prompts or alerts as to how and when to use the system. Having HR systems bemore active, rather than passive, would help the busy manager.

Manager Top 3Systems / processes are too complex 38%

Administration is too burdensome 31%

Other 14%



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Individual Contributors Want AcknowledgementIndividual contributors, more than any other group, expressed a desire to be recognized for their accomplish-

ments. Also, more than the others, they wanted frequent feedback from their managers. This aligns with their

desire to have a meaningful performance and development review process. They do not want to have once a yeardiscussions based on vague goals and sparse feedback. Rather, they would appreciate a process that allowed

them to initiate and receive feedback from their managers on a regular basis. Recognition for good work could also

be captured in the performance system. All of this information could then be used when more formal reviews areperformed. Because reviews would then be based on interactions captured throughout a certain time period, they

would feel less made up or disconnected from the real work.

HR Professionals Want InterconnectednessHR professionals ranked, Systems and processes dont work well together with other HR systems andprocesses as the number one problem they have with performance and development systems and processes.

HR professionals are concerned with tasks such as retaining high-performing employees and identifying jobs

that are critical to the company. Determining drivers of retention and ensuring that succession plans or qualifiedcandidates are in place for critical jobs might require data from different systems to work together. While this may

be technically complex, HR professional would benefit from a level of interconnectedness between systems such

as LMS, HRIS, Performance and Development, etc.

Individual Contributor Top 3

I dont see the value in the system / process 29%

System / processes are too complex 26%

Other 24%

Human Resources Top 3

Systems and processes dont work well together with

other HR systems and processes

52%

Employees and managers dont have a good experi-ence with the system / process

16%

Systems / processes are too complex 12%



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About the Author:

David RoeSENIOR USER EXPERIENCE DESIGNERMINDLEADERS

Dave is the Senior User Experience Designer for

MindLeaders, Inc. He has over 10 years experience

advocating for and designing quality user experiences.He has led teams through the experience design

process at Fortune 500 companies and also at much

much smaller firms. He believes that any size companyor team can produce great products as long as they

are committed to a constant focus on the end-user

experience. Dave joined the MindLeaders team in 2010

and has worked on the interface for MindLeadersCourseware and Talent Development products. Dave

earned an MBA from Otterbein University and a BFAfrom The Columbus College of Art and Design.

More About MindLeaders

MindLeaders provides tailored e-based solutions for development, performance and managerial challenges at the

individual and corporate level. Through comprehensive elearning services and fully integrative talent, performance

and succession management resources, MindLeaders leverages three decades of experience to give clientsacross a number of diverse industries the tools and support to improve efficiency, accelerate growth and foster

sustained success. MindLeaders operates from its global headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, and regional offices in

the U.S., U.K. and Australia. Visit mindleaders.com for more information.

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The User experience: What Drives Engagement in the Talent Management Process?