Traveling around the United States and Canada on a road trip has found me in various styles of accommodation. What I find quite frustrating is that none of the bathrooms that I have encountered seem to have the same system to dispense water through the shower rose or initiating a toilet flush. I got to wondering who are the people designing these? Is their mandate to try and confuse the user in preparation for a candid camera skit because if that is the case, nine times out of ten, they met that brief for me.
Why does it need to be so complicated? The shower and toilet system in my house was likely designed in the 1940’s and it does the job. I’m all for reducing water, half flushing cisterns and more luxurious shower roses but from a user experience, can’t I just turn a tap or press a button? Don’t even get me started on the sensor-initiated toilet flush, WHAT is that all about 😱?
Working in engineering, the term “over engineering” comes to mind. “The client just wants a workable solution, and we are over engineering the problem,” I would hear. This is certainly what these bathroom fitting designers were up to, but there was a niggling suspicion that this was happening in my own profession. While trying to keep everyone happy embedding hybrid working, have we failed to lay the strong foundations. Has the promise of engaged and mobile employees failed to deliver? I think it has and due certainly in part to the overcomplicating of the solution. It is not a one size fits all solution dealing with people, never is but does it need to be as complicated as surveys, policies, ratings, 360 feedback and diagnostics?
People are individuals with different values and needs, and as such, a blanket policy to mandate how they should work will not deliver the desired result. Even the “guidelines” that some companies are trying to covertly use to pop people into a box are falling well short and serving to slide engagement lovely lower rather than lift them higher. When you sit down and communicate with those in your organisation, you will likely find they just want a system that works and if that means taking it off paper and communicating with people individually, that may be the simple solution we are choosing not to see. People want to be treated as individuals whose ideas and personal circumstances are valued.
Remembering that for two years we encouraged people to do what ever they could to make working remotely productive, consider why do we now need to start mandating aspects of that arrangement? There may be good reason but unlikely to be anything that we need an entire policy for (every argument I have heard is covered in one way or another by policies and processes already in place). Building and maintaining an engaged team does not need to be over engineered, talking and listening is likely the right design for the best user experience.
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