In an ever-changing business landscape, the ability to navigate change seamlessly is a key component of successful organizations. Journey mapping, a regularly used research method, can play a pivotal role in this success. Whether a part of design or when seeking efficiencies and cost savings in existing tooling, emotional journeys are integral to driving business transformation and cultivating a workplace culture that not only embraces change but also tackles problems at their root.
In this guest post, Lucy Seby, Senior Technical Consultant at Fidelity International, delves into the importance of understanding emotional journeys within the employee experience in a digital workplace. Her advice reveals how understanding emotions can revolutionize the way we approach technology and transform the workplace for the better. Skip ahead to:
1. Understanding employee perspectives
2. Delivering experiences that engage users
In this section, we'll dive into three critical aspects: uncovering the 'Why,' humanizing the tech journey and addressing those pain points that impact employee experiences.
When looking at digital tools and processes, the predominant focus is often on usage stats and data, a trend that intensifies during harder economic times. However, this conventional approach fixated on the “What” (pertaining to actual usage data) and the "How" (related to the choice of tools or processes), doesn’t tell the full story. Until you understand the “Why”, you’re not getting the whole picture.
Let’s look at an illustrative example.
Meet “Claire”. In this instance, we’re using a tech support journey, but the scenario is transferable to any task that requires someone to interact with a digital tool or process.
If we only looked at usage data in isolation in this scenario, all we would see is the final 3 points, where Claire connects with the digital support toolset. But that’s only a third of Claire’s journey. What about the rest?
The data only paints a partial picture: Claire is trying to avoid engaging with the available digital systems. In order to change this behavior, we need to understand the “Why” behind her actions. Knowing what she did or did not use doesn’t help us drive change. If we can understand why an individual might avoid using a particular tool, we can eliminate the wastage of the initial two-thirds of their journey.
We don’t just want people to use technology; we need them to like using it. You may be thinking that a company’s employees are a “captive audience” as they have no choice but to use the systems and tools provided. While this is technically true, we shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that a captive audience doesn’t vote with its feet.
Consider Claire: Engaging with the proper support channels was the right thing to do, but she used up two-thirds of her journey time actively looking for any way she could avoid engaging with the service. This digital portal is the only means of getting support; Claire is a “captive audience,” so why not simply go straight there?
Here is where we need to dig into the why.
Creating a user-friendly, efficient, and supportive tech journey is essential for fostering employee engagement: even when employees are seemingly bound to use certain tools, they still have choices.
When it comes to solutions, tools, processes, or journeys, we often hear talk of “pain points,” and this concept is more accurate than we realize. When a system proves “painful” to use, such as in Claire’s experience, we will instinctively steer clear, even if no logical alternatives exist. As humans, we’re hard-wired to avoid pain in all its forms: physical, mental, and emotional.
Let’s try a quick thought experiment.
Within this section, we navigate three essential considerations for delivering effective digital experiences that engage users.
A company’s employees have the same service expectations of internal tools and products that they would outside the company: they anticipate the same level of efficiency in the tools they use both in and outside of the workplace. Yet, here's where a divide emerges between those who provide internal digital services and those who use them. Internal service providers often have a "captive audience" approach, whereas the service users view themselves as customers. This disconnect frequently leads to scenarios similar to Claire's, where functionality takes precedence over the user experience.
The takeaway: Disconnect between those providing internal digital services and the users can result in scenarios where functionality overshadows the user experience. The key takeaway here is the significance of aligning internal digital services with user expectations for a more engaging and effective digital experience.
Let's try another thought experiment.
Numerous studies have shown that we're more likely to make choices that negatively affect others when we can't see the immediate effects of our choices. This is abstraction, or rather degrees of abstraction, in decision-making.
The takeaway: Emotions play a crucial role in digital experiences. Understanding and addressing the emotional aspects of technology in the workplace enables us to foster meaningful and lasting changes that positively impact the organization and the people inside it.
As we know from Claire’s experience, when implementing solutions or processes for people, there's typically a heavy focus on data, including usage statistics, volumetrics, and measurements of progress to showcase improvement.
However, the further we distance ourselves from the individuals and the closer we get to the numbers, we inadvertently increase the level of abstraction: The further we move away from the emotional journeys of those involved in the digital ecosystems we provide, the easier it is to make decisions that don’t benefit the employees who use them.
As the customer experience transforms into abstraction and we lose touch with the consequences of our decisions, we find ourselves swayed by self-interest or external pressures, such as stakeholder demands, economic factors, ROI, and senior management priorities. We detach from those for whom we are implementing the solution, tool, or product and lose that True North.
The takeaway: Don’t let the data blind you to the real experiences of your users. Stay closely connected with the genuine needs and emotions of the individuals you're designing for.
The future is now.
As the conversation matures around GenAI and its impact on digital capabilities, it’s essential to remember the unique human dimension we bring to the table. Emotions and emotional responses to digital journeys live in the domain of the human experience (thus far!), and viewing technology through the lens of human understanding enables us to design more efficient, people-centric solutions.
Additionally, recent changes to the FCA Consumer Duty charter require firms to get much closer to their customers’ needs than ever before. To ensure compliance with the spirit of the regulations, a need to connect on an individual level with customers is emerging. This shift towards a 'Customer First' ethos may usher in a significant cultural change for many organizations. It’s my personal opinion that a deeper understanding of customer emotions and behaviors in their interactions with our technological solutions will soon become as essential as analyzing graphs of usage data.
It could be that there’s a substantial change in the air.
How do you feel about that?
Wherever you are in your journey, Stott and May Consulting provide a range of services to support you through business change and transformation. Find out more and get in touch to see how you can collaborate with our subject matter experts to plan for success.