Prototyping an employee experience model. A participatory action research project to support organizations in redefining the working routines starting from Employee Experience Design.

In the post-pandemic context, organizations are facing critical and systemic changes, particularly in people’s way of working and related processes. In the last decades, Design and Business Innovation literature presented the different ways Design supports organizations' innovation and transformation processes. This paper starts analyzing experimental approaches - namely design intervention - that Design may implement to support organizations in redefining working modes. The focal point of this contribution consists in the redefinition of working routines through the prototype of employee experience models. Furthermore, the existing literature presents a gap in the experimentation and implementation of prototyping activities in the employee experience design. Indeed, the application of service prototyping to employees' experience represents a stimulating challenge among design practitioners and researchers. In a moment of massive uncertainty in knowledge workers’ routines, how can Design be applied to Employee Experience to support organizations in redefining working scenarios? More specifically, how may we be able to co-design employee experience through a service prototyping approach? The theoretical purpose is to reflect on whether implementing service prototyping to employee experience may represent a fertile design research topic. The study presents a qualitative analysis with a Participatory Action Research method, partnering with an Italian bank's HR department and involved employees. Specifically, the paper is built on an experimental project that applies Employee Experience Design and Service Design Prototyping methods to redefine working habits in evolving contexts. Findings show the importance of employee experience prototyping in activating behavioral changes by triggering awareness-raising mechanisms in individuals. Additionally, the lengthy process of changing working practices and routines within organizations can be approached effectively by co-designing employee experience models and iteratively testing and evaluating them. The paper aims to show the potential benefits of exploration for design research in applying prototyping to employee experience design.