There are two types of people: some people learn little from their experience; other people learn a great deal from their experience to get themselves better or get things better. I am not sure why and I don’t intend to analyse the cause, but this is translated into a habit of seeing an opportunity in every activity/event.
Once I had an unpleasant onboarding experience. There was a process in place, but something was wrong. So I decided to look at the on-boarding process more closely. A usual approach is to review the actions and the steps which form the on-boarding process in order to see an opportunity for efficiency. I decided to bring a different perspective: experience. On-boarding is the first exposure to a new organization. This is what we call “first impression”. Everybody knows that the first impression is important. There is no use claiming that you should not judge a person based on the first impression because eventually people make a decision instantly and it will take extra efforts to change the perception that was formed based on the first impression.
You will agree that first impression will be critical to motivate those who join an organization. If the on-boarding experience is the first impression, then, it makes sense to ensure that new staff remember the on-boarding experience with smile and excitement.
Peter Drucker wrote that work is impersonal but working is human. Similary, a process is objective, but experience is human. If we wish to improve the on-boarding experience, it is not enough to look at it from engineer perspective. We need to add another perspective. That is experience.
For instance, if you say "on-boarding process", that gives you an opportunity to improve efficiency around the process. This is good, but this is not excellent. Why? Because on-boarding is a personal experience. If you say "on-boarding experience", you will eventually put yourself into the shoes of those who join the organisation. This will turn your attention to what the new staff will feel when they go through the on-boarding process. Creative ideas can start to come to your mind such as "what can we do to impress the new staff that we are organised?" "what can we do to turn frustration into joy when new staff start to learn the policies and processes in the organisation?"
When I came across the above article, it was a bingo feeling. What I did while focusing on experience was actually design thinking. I did not think this was a big theme, but according to the article, this looks like an initiative which can have a huge impact on the entire organisation. This can make sense to us because we have promised to be more efficient. Robust processes are important to protect the organisation. Who operates the processes? It is certainly not robots, but human beings. If processes give you painful experience, who will care how robust the processes are? This is where "design thinking" can interfere and make a difference.
What do you think?
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