Want to deliver an optimal employee experience? Practice design thinking by ensuring you provide your team the four F’s: form, flow, feeling and function.

Form: Clarify your expectations. Employees can’t do their jobs well if they don’t understand what is being asked of them, the purpose of the work, or how they should prioritize their tasks.

Flow: Create a sense of flow within your systems by streamlining and simplifying processes to boost productivity and reduce frustration.

Feeling: Ask yourself what it would take for the employee experience to be a delight — for example, through gamified training modules or KPIs.

Function: Employees have a right to expect that the tools and systems they use will actually work properly and efficently. It’s also critical that user experience be accessible to all, including employees with any type of disability.

Source: “The Four Fs of employee experience,” strategy+business, April 20, 2021

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Leaders can increase employee engagement and boost team performance by improving the way they use internal communications.

Have a real conversation. Instead of top-down communications where leadership just talks to the team to push information out, consider talking with them. Two-way communication allows for collaboration, co-ownership, consultation and feedback.

Move beyond storytelling to “storydoing”—for example, show tangible proof that you’re “walking the walk” when it comes to valuing diversity and inclusion. What progress has the company made?

Source: “How leaders can use internal communications to engage and motivate teams,” The Mandarin, April 23, 2021