Achieving employees’ well-being by job crafting
My project's real-world problem was the loss of value in employees' well-being in startups that are scaling in size to become global organisations. In partnership with my colleague in the University of the Arts London, I was part of an ambitious final major project to design a software that enables employee job crafting within the organisational framework to achieve individual well-being.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted confidential information related to ual. All the information in this project is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of ual.
The challenge –
Enhancing employees’ well-being at the workplace
Our goal for the project was to enhance employees’ well-being in startup organisations heading towards becoming global.
Our ambitions were to design a digital platform used by employees as a communication tool to voice-out their interests based on their workplace competencies to achieve individual well-being.
This solicited our main research questions:
How can we design a system that allows employees to design their work environments with an emergent working culture, to achieve individual well-being?
Our key goals were:
1. Make our designed system fast, easy to use by employees in the workplace.
2. Give employees the ability to voice-out their interests effectively to their employers.
3. Create a platform for innovation, enhancing employees’ well-being in real work life.
My role
I designed ‘Craft’ software with my project partner between August 2020 and December 2020.
My role was to research, design and test all UIs related to this project. I collaborated with my project partner (Graphic Designer) in bringing this project to life.
The software was not launched as it was a project completed during my Masters degree at ual.
Introducing ‘Craft’
‘Craft’ is a collaborative software used by startups that are scaling up. It allows employee job crafting within the organisational framework to achieve individual wellbeing.
We built it upon a skill board that contains five main features used by both employees and employers. We developed this interactive software as a prototype in the form of a demo.
Interaction design -
High fidelity prototypes
We designed high-fidelity prototypes of the ‘Craft’ software frames (I was responsible for the UI interfaces). Then, we created interactive prototypes and demos of the user’s experience with ‘Craft’.
Link for interactive prototype:
https://xd.adobe.com/view/bc3b4407-88c7-4001-bb58-9c3b3c6d33c9-e968/
Demo link of employee using ‘Craft’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1ap5DLgGtY
Demo link of employer using ‘Craft’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzwhGufMZrY&feature=youtu.be
Design work process -
Connecting the dots
At the start of the project, we did not have a clear idea about employees well-being. Therefore, we decided to expand our areas of knowledge about employees well-being in organisational structures. Several covered research areas included: 1. Decentralisation 2. Worker cooperatives 3. Employees voice 4. Participatory design 5. Job crafting.
The design approach
After running background research on employees well-being, we conducted semi-structured virtual interviews with seven participants from different work sectors (therapy, food and beverages, nursing, and banking).
This study goals were:
1. To generally learn how employees' perspectives on their daily work journey and their work environments affect their well-being.
2. To collect qualitative data and first-hand stories on employees thoughts and experiences.
Interview scheme included:
• A total of ten open-ended questions, revolving around employees, their work satisfaction and perception of the work environment.
• We prepared a script with written consent for participants to sign to understand the purpose of the interview session.
Qualitative data analysis
Once we recorded the interviews, we analysed the participants’ transcripts and generated codes based on them. Each participant transcript was associated with a colour; then colours were linked to the emergent codes.
Data analysis codes - Credit: Nayla Fayoumi
The discovery
Our codes have led us to identify:
Key themes
• People, Environment, Type of Task, and Change.
We have tried to link words under themes to one another using four colours: red, yellow, green and blue for us to further extract essential insights.
Key Insights
• The need for extra emotional support.
• The need for enhanced communication and transparency.
• The need for an increase in the number of employees and transparency.
• The need for emotional support and employee rights.
Testing insights
Based on the insights we had extracted, we created two virtual workshops conducted on five participants.
Our goal was:
To identify ways in which employees can craft their work profile and the driven factors that would enhance their well-being at work.
Virtual participatory workshops -
Participatory workshop 1: Build your work profile
• The aim of this workshop was to involve the user (employee) in building his “Work Profile” to achieve individual wellness.
• Participants were told to build their own work profile and then shape their job role description based on the work profile they mould.
• We have used a participatory UX approach to engage users in their work profile design process.
Scheme of workshop
An intro question was asking the participant to describe his job in three words.
1. Giving him four sentences and asking him where he positions himself among these options.
2. Asking him to build his work profile that best matches his skills and passion using easily accessible tools at his home office.
3. Asking him to mould his current job position to match the work profile that he just created
4. Asking him to explain the changes he made by setting essential parameters.
5. Ending with an evaluation in which the participants develop a list of elements they think a work profile should include.
The discovery
The participants’ answers have led us to identify four key parameters to focus on: 1. Interests 2. Skills (job-related and future potentials) 3. Schedule 4.Personal commitments.
Key Insights:
• Employees have skills that are not incorporated within their work scope and don’t match their work tasks. Thus, there is no balance between their skills and job.
• Employees need to have the autonomy to craft their job according to their skills and interests.
Participatory workshop 2: Skill competency framework
Based on participants' evaluation, and given the project's limited time, we concentrated on the skills and future potentials as a core pillar of the employee work profile. Then, we developed a competency framework based on employees participants’ lists of hard and soft skills. This framework contained four categories: technical, imagination, interpersonal, and personal.
The workshop’s goal was to:
1. Gather employees’ skill sets
2. Test the validity of our competency framework with our participants.
3. Give them the chance to integrate their desired skills within their work scope.
Scheme of workshop
1. The employee first introduces his/her job role.
2. The employee then lists the skills for each category (Blue Circle).
3. Then, we ask him/her to add the desired skills for each category (Yellow Circle).
The discovery
• Participants selected some of their job-related skills (blue circles) and desired skills to improve. This mechanism was visually present through the overlap of blue and yellow circles.
Identifying a key concept
Based on the two previous workshops' findings, we recognised the importance of giving employees room to job-craft their work profile based on their skills and interests according to the employer and the organisation as they exist within the same workspace realm.
Therefore, we decided to create a software that enables employees to job-craft their work profile based on a collaborative interaction with the employer to achieve an employee job-fit and wellbeing.
Synthesis -
Developing users’ journey map
As a further step, we created a detailed script of different stages of the user journey, then developed a conversation between employee and employer during their evaluation meeting. I was responsible for the illustration.
Usability testing
Since 'Craft' is a collaborative software, it was essential for us to observe the negotiation between the employee and employer following their board modifications. Therefore, we designed a workshop intending to test our design concept's validity and measure its usability with the users.
Workshop scheme:
• Digital cards used virtually to ask the employer questions related to where he situates his employees, what methods he uses, and what challenges he faces in this process. Similarly, these cards were used to ask the employee questions concerning his job crafting, what technique he uses, and what challenges he faces in this process.
On a later stage, we presented the ‘Craft’ software for four employees and four employers in two virtual sessions over Zoom and separately asked them the following:
Employer target tasks:
1. To edit one of his employee’s board and add a development opportunity and coaching opportunity.
2. To change one of his employee’s desired skills to a job-related skill.
3. To open the employee profile and check his/her latest project.
Employee target tasks:
1. To change his skill knowledge.
2. To add a desired skill to his board.
3. To flag the skill that he wants to enhance and upgrade.
Then we asked them to negotiate their changes done in the skill board.
The Impact -
Satisfying feedback
As our usability test was over, the overall feedback was rewarding. We learned that:
• The employee and employer both agreed that this kind of software reduces anxiety and miscommunication, which helps achieve a healthy work environment. Thus, it reduces the amount of effort incorporated in evaluation meetings.
• They agreed that this software is customised and personalised, reflecting them in a sense where they get to see different views and perspectives.