By addressing existing problems, creating feedback loops, encouraging collaboration, and utilizing digital tools, HR can meet the needs of a rapidly evolving workforce.
By Sejal Patel Daswani
As younger generations enter the workforce, they bring expectations of more personalized and flexible digital solutions that mirror the consumer products they’ve grown up with. As a result, it’s becoming increasingly clear that people leaders need to rethink their strategies to provide the same type of tailored experiences for each and every employee.
While HR has historically served as a reactive and support-oriented function of the business, employees increasingly expect flexibility at work. As a result, many employers are beginning to explore “productizing” HR programs to deliver proactive and flexible solutions that adapt to the organization’s evolving needs and long-term goals.
Here are three steps people leaders can take to “productize” their HR solutions to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving workforce.
1. Identify Problems
People leaders often already have a good understanding of the pain points employees face when it comes to existing HR processes. However, when “productizing” HR programs, leaders are provided with the opportunity to dig a little deeper into the issues facing employees and truly listen.
In many ways, HR leaders have the toughest job within an organization. Company initiatives will not have a one-size-fits-all approach so HR leaders must often segment needs to provide thoughtful change management. As a result, people leaders need to have real-time insight into what employees are struggling with on a daily basis and keep their experience top of mind.
Similarly to how marketers, product designers, and engineers collect customer data and market insights prior to building solutions, HR needs to prioritize listening to its “customer base.” By conducting focus groups with employees and scheduling one-on-one meetings with department heads and leaders, HR will have a better understanding of the specific pain points these “products” will need to address.
For example, HR may learn that beyond the typical company onboarding process, the marketing or sales functions of the business have historically experienced difficulty getting new employees ramped and up-to-speed on the technology and services offered to them. Through this inquiry and listening process, they’ll gain necessary insights that will help them build successful “products” that add strategic value to the business.
2. Create Continuous Feedback Loops
By taking a “product-oriented” approach, HR leaders are able to adapt and make changes to people solutions quickly, but only if they have implemented effective and continuous feedback loops. By creating processes to gather real-time feedback, HR can help ensure that these “products” meet the need of the workforces.
For example, Deputy uses focus groups both before and after implementing an HR “product.” This helps the organization understand what “products” are needed and how they are being received by the larger workforce in the field, ultimately guiding HR to make improvements and changes in real-time to address specific pieces of feedback on the end-product.
By “productizing” HR programs, people leaders are also presented with unique opportunities for cross-functional collaboration—not only in the information gathering process but in the product building phase.
Here are several ways people leaders can implement continuous feedback loops.
- Create specific Slack channels for each product launched so employees can share real-time feedback on pain points, successes, and more.
- Conduct monthly or quarterly surveys to ensure the “product” is delivering ongoing value to the workforce. Through this process, leaders may learn that a product they designed a year ago is no longer needed and can be sunset.
- Following the launch of a product, hold one-on-one meetings with department heads and leaders to ensure the company is hearing direct feedback on how the change has been received.
3. Facilitate Cross-functional Collaboration
By “productizing” HR programs, people leaders are also presented with unique opportunities for cross-functional collaboration—not only in the information gathering process but in the product building phase.
Deputy leaned on its experience building onboarding solutions for the hourly workforce and custom built an onboarding “product” that worked best for its global workforce. Similarly, each organization can lean on existing products, engineering, and IT expertise and team members to build custom solutions that meet employees’ specific needs.
By leaning on the larger team’s expertise, Deputy has been able to pilot new ideas, learn, and iterate quickly, helping reduce the likelihood of launching a new “product” that is received poorly by the larger organization.
The Future of HR
HR professionals will continue to see the world of work evolve rapidly for years to come.
With hybrid becoming the new norm and younger generations joining the workforce, people leaders continue to see demand for new and flexible approaches to HR that are augmented with AI for faster execution.
By providing organizations with innovative, digital-first approaches to HR, employees will gain access to “products” that facilitate cohesive end-to-end experiences and see their feedback implemented in real time. Running HR programs like a “product” can future proof organizations, providing employees with solutions that can be adapted and evolved to meet the changing needs of the ever-evolving workforce.
Sejal Patel Daswani is chief people officer for Deputy.
