People are the enablers of organizational strategy. Designing with employees results in solutions that have more buy-in and are better tuned to a company’s culture and context. When employees feel understood, valued, and involved in outcomes, they can bring their best to the work they do. Conducting employee engagement to learn about employee needs—not just what they need to complete tasks, but their needs for belonging, growth and purpose—helps a company successfully navigate change and solve problems.
Employee engagement means asking employees about their experiences and their ideas for the organization. It means involving employees in creating organizational changes that will affect them, whether that’s a company strategy, process, structure, or project. At Overlap, we have a unique approach to engagement and a wide range of methods that can help you better understand the employee experience and involve employees in upcoming company initiatives.
Engagement from a Design Perspective
By applying a human-centred design approach to engagement, we open up a range of innovative and leading practices for involving employees through all stages of a project—including understanding initial needs and problems, generating ideas together, and prototyping and testing new concepts.
Design methods enable us to involve stakeholders as collaborators—leveraging stakeholders’ experience and creativity, and building buy-in as we go. Drawing on the discipline of design, the deliverables we generate from engagement are purpose-built for synthesizing insights about human needs and presenting them in a way that prioritizes action.
Sample Engagement Methods
- Interviews
- Stakeholder Labs (In-person & virtual)
- Surveys & polling (Online surveys, Mentimeter, Dot votes)
- On-site short-burst interviews
- Company-wide events & forums
- Pop-up stations & Museum-like exhibits
- Employee Engagement Committees (Employees co-leading engagement initatives)
- Social media engagement
- Diary studies/journals, drawing activities, photo journals (photovoice)
- Observation, ethnography, guided tours/walkthroughs
- Collaborative visioning sessions
- Design Summits, charrettes, design sprints, and hackathons
- Foresight/Futures workshops
- Ideation workshops, prototyping workshops
- Testing/Validation events & interviews
Lead Contact
Rachel Hofstetter Vice President & General Manager Overlap Associates Canada
Rachel Hofstetter, is a strong leader with exceptional management, business and people skills. She’s a natural coach who inspires people to work collaboratively toward new outcomes, while developing organizational cultures that support continuous learning and innovation. Get to know Rachel, see some of her work and engage with her ideas here.
