Designing for Humans: A Revised Consumer Experience-Based Approach Towards People Management Practices

Promises in action: The role of employer brand, employee value proposition and employee experience in delivering on psychological contract expectations

“…The practical human-centred experience design methodology is applicable to any people management practice, where a particular experience is shaped through interactions and touchpoints. The method has successfully been applied to the talent attraction experience (Veldsman & Van der Merwe, 2022) and to a lesser extent to the design of employee-centric well-being practices (Veldsman & Van Aarde, 2021). Although in practice the methodology is not always applied as a linear and step-wise process, it does prompt and facilitate consideration of the consumer or "end user" in a structured manner, based on psychological contract expectations.…”

“…The method is based upon the premise of empathizing with the human being, understanding their wants, needs and desires and experimenting with various possibilities to craft a solution. Techniques borrowed from consumer psychology become important perspectives in applying this type of approach, as the focus is no longer only on the process and the "what" but rather to also consider the "why" and the "who" (Veldsman & Van der Merwe, 2022). This approach has been successfully adopted in product and software design and has more recently entered other areas such as customer service, retail and marketing.…”

“…The authors believe that by adopting a different perspective when designing people practices, this will have a positive impact on the authenticity of the promised employee experience while also bringing organizational impact and value. This article builds upon the work done by Veldsman and Van der Merwe (2022) that positioned a more consumerist-driven approach towards people practices and shifted from the employee's perspective as a customer of people services to the employee as a consumer of people solutions.…”