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HR that works for you, not the other way around

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Read time: 2 minutes

Hey Reader 👋🏻

Have you ever had this experience...

You have spent months diligently designing the "perfect" People programme (insert which ever programme feels most relevant to you). You have considered all possible end users and stakeholders.

You have built in as much rigour as you could manage. You have created how-to guides, a detailed page in Notion describing every element of the programme and how it should be used. You have addressed all the imagined FAQs you could fathom. You have sent instructions and a loom walk through to all core users, managers, and execs.

This thing can't fail! It hits on every level. You f***ing nailed it. 👏🏻🥳

Fast forward to the next quarterly review. You can't wait to see the engagement and utilisation numbers. But, what's this?! There has been a mistake, someone has missed a digit in the data, surely! 🤔

You see an 8 where you expected to see an 80 in the % utilisation/completion rate. WTF 😱

It's a complete flop.

Hmm, missed the mark it would seem.

It's OK. Maybe I need to add that thing I didn't have time to put. Maybe my release comms got missed. It was around the time of the offsite. No drama, I can rescue this. I will create a more detailed user guide. I will add a few more features. I will make this so stacked that Forbes will probably pick it up and feature it as the People programme of the decade. Glory and adoration awaits. 🏆

Boom, quarterly check-in time comes round again 👀

WTF 😡 I give up. I am out✌🏻

OK, that was too much fun to write 😅 but I know it will resonate because I have done it myself and I hear these stories all the time. Usually something like:

"Hey, Luke - we launched "X" programme a few quarters back. It was a huge project for us and we put a lot of work into it. Honestly we think it's solid but no-one is using it. How can we increase engagement and get more people to use it?"

Well intended, but the wrong question to ask.

Most of the time, when utilisation is low and your initiatives aren’t landing, it’s not that you need to do more, or that you need to "market better" (although better internal marketing certainly won't hurt!).

It’s usually the case that you need less - but better. Not more and louder.

You don’t have an engagement problem. You have a design problem.

Less is more

There’s a well-known design principle (you would have heard it said many times): “Less is more.” - popularised by the minimalist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, originally used to describe the elegance of functional, unembellished buildings. The phrase has evolved into a universal design philosophy. One that applies just as much to UX and Product as it does to architecture, and in our case, PX design.

To be clear, Minimalist Design is not about being plain or austere. It’s about stripping away distraction so that function and clarity can shine through. It’s a design principle with a commitment to removing the unnecessary, so the necessary can speak clearly.

I found an awesome article on Minimalist UX Design which you should definitely read as an expansion on what I am sharing with you, but out the gate this paragraph spoke right to the heart of why minimalist design is relevant to PX design:

You can literally swap UX for PX (along with a few other minor wording tweaks) and this statement could have been written about product design as it applies to solving employee problems and improving organisational efficiency:

If ever there was a phrase most relevant and applicable to the work of a Lean People team, this is it!

What Apple Got Right that PX Can Learn From

When Apple launched the first iPhone in 2007, it broke every expectation of what a “smartphone” was supposed to look like. No stylus. No physical keyboard. No complex interface. Just one button.

It wasn’t an act of rebellion for rebellions sake, it wasn't purely and aesthetic choice, and it wasn't cost-cutting measure. Stripping back almost all features of other smartphones at the time was the result of deeply thoughtful, minimalist design.

Steve Jobs and his team applied the minimalist design principle to understand your user so deeply that you can remove everything that doesn’t serve them.

Jobs famously said:

That’s what makes minimalist design deceptively sophisticated. Absence of features is not the absence of thought. Quite the opposite. It’s the result of relentless thought about end users and their jobs to be done.

The same principle applies to People Programmes.

Most HR teams over-design. We add layers of steps, tools, training, comms plans, and templates. Don't get me wrong, we do it with good intent, to leave no stone unturned, to deliver a “comprehensive” programme.

But comprehensive often becomes complicated.

The more options, workflows, and touchpoints we add, the harder it becomes for employees and managers to find the value in what we build. The cognitive load goes up, adoption goes down.

If you have read this far, the fix should be obvious... Apply the minimalist principle to PX design.

Strip back to the core job to be done and remove everything that doesn’t directly support it. It stands to reason that a well designed minimalist People programme - which is simple and intuitive - will be far easier to engage with, easier to scale, and more likely to add the value it was intended to create.

Applying Minimalist Design to PX: A Simple Framework

You probably know my process by now, so... Here’s how to bring minimalist UX thinking into your People work with a super simple (some might say minimalist 😉) 5 step framework 👇

1️⃣ Define the Core Job to Be Done

• What single problem must this initiative solve?
• Who exactly are we solving for?
• What has to be present in the solution for us to solve the problem?

2️⃣ Audit for Friction and Redundancy

• Where are employees or managers confused, overwhelmed, or dropping off?
• What steps, tools, or layers could be removed without losing value?
• First principles thinking can be very useful here!

3️⃣ Simplify the Experience

• Reduce cognitive load: one step, one message, one purpose per screen (or slide, or process).
• Avoid parallel workflows or duplicated content.
• Include only what gets the end user to value most quickly and efficiently.

4️⃣ Prototype + Test with Real Users

• Co-create with end users - Don’t build in silo and launch blindly.
• Share drafts or early versions with 3–5 users and watch them interact.
• If there are features they don't use in testing, strip them out - If they get stuck, drill down to the first principles of why

5️⃣ Iterate in Public

• Ship early, gather feedback, refine continuously.
• Simplicity is not static - it’s a moving target that improves through use.
• Improve the solution (add, improve, remove) based on observable user behaviour.

And remember; Minimalist design isn’t about doing less work. It’s about doing more thoughtful work.

It’s not about austerity, it’s about clarity.

The goal is to design People Experiences and programmes that are usable, intuitive, and valuable.

Just like great product designers, the best People teams aren’t constantly adding more, they’re getting better at identifying and simplifying the high impact initiatives, and removing friction, bottlenecks and redundancies.

Ultimately, People initiatives should feel like Apple (simple, intuitive, and valuable), not Excel (clunky, rigid, and formulaic).

OK, that’s a wrap for this week.

Grab your coffee and open up your inbox same time next week for insights, tips, and resource flags on how to smash HR silos, add strategic value and turn your People function into a growth driver 🚀

With love,

Luke ✌🏻

PS, when you are ready you might like...

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