CASE STUDY: PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Co-defining culture

After a decade of acquisitions, a professional services provider needed radical changes. This included rebranding, internal restructuring, repositioning offerings, and significant reductions, including reducing the workforce in half.

Change on this level and magnitude requires a human-centered approach to ensure employees remain hopeful for the company’s long-term success.

During organizational transformation, the impact on employees can vary widely depending on the nature of the transformation and how it is managed. Employees face changes in roles, responsibilities, or reporting structures at this particular company. This could involve restructuring teams, departments, or entire divisions to align with new strategic goals. There are significant concerns about job security. Layoffs or redundancies have occurred as specific roles are deemed unnecessary as the organization is restructuring to become more efficient. Transformation efforts have impacted the organizational culture. Employees have experienced changes in workplace dynamics, communication styles, and the overall work environment.

Maintaining morale and engagement has become crucial during this period of uncertainty. Successful transformations involve engaging employees in the process, gathering feedback, and ensuring transparency. Because the changes had already been happening for over a year, a change management strategy needed to be implemented as it was being developed. Although this isn’t an ideal approach, the reality is that most leaders haven’t led this level of change, and there is an understandable gap in experience. Instead of dwelling on what could or should have been done, Mindful Studio founder Jess Lowry worked with a core team of internal subject matter experts to help mitigate uncertainty and resistance to change and foster a more supportive environment.

The first step was to identify the purpose of a research-based approach to identifying ways to improve change adoption. The group aligned on having the research deliver validated solution(s) to improve employees' support with change adoption. There was consensus that the company was stuck in survival mode based on their sense of loss, apathy, and mistrust and the recognition of how those feelings negatively impacted morale and productivity. Although the adverse effects were company-wide, they felt it was important to prioritize issues among members of the client services department. As a professional services company, any disruption or delay in delivering services on time, within budget, and meeting customer expectations could result in lost opportunities for future business. 

How might we integrate human-centered design at an organization undergoing transformational change, given the likelihood of facing considerable skepticism about the effectiveness of a design-led approach? 

Business expectations:

The goal is to avoid organizational change failure, referred to as planned organizational changes that do not achieve their intended objectives or outcomes.

Participatory deign activites:

  • Systems Mapping

    Purpose:

    A tool to look beneath the surface of a situation to understand why the organization is stuck in survival mode.

    Insight:

    Survival mode results from reactive decision-making, short-term fixes, siloed departments, stagnation in innovation, and a focus on immediate results over long-term sustainability.

  • Digital Employee Experience (DEX) Service Blueprint

    Purpose:

    Visualize what support looks like today and identify the most significant opportunities for improvement.

    Insight:

    Employees are struggling to adopt change for many reasons, but a major issue is that employees cannot keep up with the pace of c n

  • Design Science

    Purpose:

    The research used design science methodologies, which question existing beliefs and assumptions to uncover new insights and possibilities

    Insights:

    By involving employees in co-design activities, the key stakeholders were able to develop further the solutions produced during the co-design research activities.

Jess Lowry, Mindful Studio

“Organizational transformation is one of the biggest challenges businesses face.”

Transparency builds trust.

It is okay only to know some of the answers. Employees want to have a way of asking questions and receiving information within a reasonable timeframe.

How employees cope during organizational transformation largely depends on how effectively the process is managed, communicated, and executed. Organizations prioritizing clear communication, supporting skill development, and involving employees in decision-making tend to navigate transformations more successfully while mitigating negative impacts on their workforce.

Peer knowledge sharing is a powerful tool. By sharing information through dedicated channels, the organization created a sense of community and expedited the dissemination of knowledge. These channels are the perfect place to address questions and provide training through peer support. Unlike general channels, they offer a more focused and supportive environment. 

Introducing human-centered design as a method of leading a change strategy is extremely challenging because it requires complete buy-in and commitment at all levels of the organization.

Leaders commonly understand the logic of being human-centered; however, when the concept moves from theoretical into an organizational process, several challenges and gaps come to the surface. These gaps are partially because the organization needs time to adjust to a human-centered culture. Incorporating service design is a fundamental change from assigning an implementation manager who considers the business, corporate, and operational needs.

Mindful Studio was created to address the needs of an organization that is ready to take on new ways of solving complex problems. This is why situations like those faced by this particular company must co-define culture with employees. Systems thinking and service design methods create guiding principles focused on the desired outcomes. This required incorporating several participatory design activities and collecting data through surveys, diary studies, focus groups, and stakeholder interviews.

Employee feedback is invaluable because it provides real-time insights into how changes are perceived and experienced across the organization. By understanding these perspectives, the organization can make informed decisions that are more likely to align with employee needs and expectations.

“A design science approach resulted in the creation of tools that effectively addressed why employees resist change during organizational transformation.”

— Jess Lowry, Mindful Studio

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