Podcast Summary: "Culture Change at Scale: How Design Gym Transforms Organizations by Talking to Employees"

Work For Humans | Host: Dart Lindsley | Guest: Andy Hagerman (Design Gym) | January 14, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode dives into how The Design Gym, led by co-founder Andy Hagerman, approaches large-scale culture and organizational transformation by deeply engaging with employees—particularly frontline workers—to inform business strategy and build environments people love to work in. Dart and Andy walk through a detailed case study about redesigning the retail employee experience for an unnamed B Corporation, unpack methods for employee design research, discuss the integration of work and life, and explore the impact of empathetic research at scale.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Evolution of The Design Gym’s Focus

• Transition from Product to Work Design: Initially focused on product/service innovation, their practice has shifted over the past 7-8 years to emphasize designing internal work systems and cultures (03:00).
  • “Most probably about 70 to 80% of our work is focused on the inner workings of organizations...” – Andy Hagerman [03:00]
• Intentionality: Work design is not for its own sake, but always in service of business outcomes and aligning strategy with real employee needs.

2. Service Design as a Bridge

• Toolkit Cross-Pollination: Service design tools (like journey mapping and personas) were a natural conduit for bringing product design sensibilities to workplace and process challenges (04:59).

3. Case Study Introduction: Designing the Retail Frontline Employee Experience

• Ambitious Scope: The client—a B Corporation retailer—wanted to understand the “lived experience” of frontline employees to fuel long-term business and people strategy (07:31).
• Deep Listening as Strategy: Success meant closing the gap between stated values and day-to-day reality through intentional, deep listening (07:57, 09:00).
  • “...closing the gap between who they say they are and how they show up in the world...” – Andy Hagerman [07:57]

4. Role of Stakeholder Engagement and Co-Creation

• HR as Conduit: Chief People Officer was the main sponsor; involvement extended early to the C-suite, internal comms, finance, legal, and even regional/store managers (12:14, 13:34).
• Co-Creation Ethos: Bringing stakeholders into the process is essential for both adoption and sustainability of cultural change (14:21).
  • “Co-creation will be the dominating factor in the world of work over the next five to 10 years.” – Andy Hagerman [14:21]
• Purpose Alignment: Initial “discovery” phase aligns the research and listening with the company’s language, business model, and strategic context.

5. The Product Manager Analogy & Distribution of Ownership

• Emerging Roles: Discussion on the need for an internal “product manager” role for work experience—potentially as a standalone function reporting to the CEO (18:01–21:41).
• Distributed Business Acumen: Store managers and frontline leaders increasingly need the tools and mindset of product managers to deliver both business results and great employee experience (21:41–23:19).

6. Research Methods: Beyond Surveys to Empathy

• Employee Design Research Tools:
  • Rejects traditional surveys as insufficient for insight into why things happen.
  • Uses ethnography, in-depth interviews, journey mapping, shadowing, storytelling, and immersive observation (25:27, 30:56).
  • “Pulse checks and surveys...are great for telling you what is happening, but very rarely are they able to tell you why something is happening.” – Andy Hagerman [25:50]
• Research Principles: Relational, storyful, collaborative, and creating “two-way dialogue” (27:22).
• Immersive Fieldwork: Multi-day store visits with a joint team of Design Gym and client staff, using various qualitative techniques to observe, interview, and participate in daily routines (30:56–33:28).
  • “Day one we’re going in, shaking hands...building trust...then start pulling folks off [the floor], doing in-depth interviews... shadowing.” – Andy Hagerman [30:56–33:28]

7. Life-Centric Design—Beyond Software

• Daily Reality as Medium: Focus is on the full experience of frontline employees—physical environment, daily challenges, work-life integration—not just systems or software (34:05).
  • “The medium of design in this case is life.” – Dart Lindsley [33:28]

8. The Power of Deep Listening and Shadowing

• Day-in-the-Life Immersion: Accompanying employees from home to work, observing the junctions of work and personal life (39:15).
  • “We travel into work with employees...walking their dogs, grocery shopping...You start to learn where work fits into their broader life.” – Andy Hagerman [39:15]
• Surface the ‘Why’: These moments reveal unspoken needs, tensions, and opportunities that surveys can’t.
• Revealing the Real Issues: Unexpected themes emerged, such as management of polarizing issues like safety and inclusion on the frontline (43:05).

9. Artifact Share-Outs and Card Sorts

• Probing for Deeper Meaning: Employees are asked to bring in physical objects that symbolize their relationship to work, and participate in card sorts, yielding emotional and metaphorical stories (45:48–49:38).
  • “Bring an artifact that best represents your relationship with this job...You’ll never be more surprised by what comes back.” – Andy Hagerman [45:48]
• Recognition of Hacks and Local Innovations: Uncover and showcase inventive adaptations or “hacks” created by employees—a source of insight and scalable innovation (51:15).

10. Synthesis and Communicating Findings

• From Research to Change: Deliverables include insight summaries, employee journey maps (both daily/weekly and broader “hire to retire” versions), and immersive experiences for leadership (54:51–58:55).
  • “We’re trying to make these insights and stories as useful and actionable as possible...so that each person...is saying ‘that’s one very concrete thing I can change tomorrow.’” – Andy Hagerman [54:51]
• Immersive Share-Outs: Using photos, live calls with store team members, and first-person leadership stories to create emotional resonance (58:41).
• Internal Capability: Involving client employees throughout builds skills and ensures lasting impact after external consultants leave (60:47).

11. Real-World “Aha” Moments & Organizational Blind Spots

• Retail as a Vocation: Dispels the myth that retail is merely a transitional job; the research revealed deep pride, loyalty, and business acumen among frontline staff (62:05).
  • “The commitment and passion of folks who work retail is just bar none.” – Andy Hagerman [62:05]
• Frontline as Intelligence Source: Employees closest to the customer have invaluable insights for business strategy—yet are rarely leveraged (63:50).
• Employees as Innovators: Found local leaders building solutions to company-wide problems independently (51:15, 52:53).

12. Sustaining the Approach

• Building Ongoing Listening Systems: Examples include Kiehl’s and Heineken, where store and sales teams are taught to continuously gather and relay insights, creating a feedback loop that informs HQ and fuels ongoing design (66:00).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Co-creation will be the dominating factor in the world of work over the next five to 10 years.” – Andy Hagerman [14:21]
• “Bring an artifact that best represents your relationship with this job...You’ll never be more surprised by what comes back.” – Andy Hagerman [45:48]
• “When you can create better transparency and autonomy at all levels...it opens up a whole lot of opportunity...within boundaries.” – Andy Hagerman [23:19]
• “When you can connect [employees] to actually something that is meaningful and powerful...and they have a clear role in how to contribute...that’s a really important sweet spot.” – Andy Hagerman [63:50]
• “Getting closer to your people is the best path forward to navigating...complexity, change, and ambiguity.” – Andy Hagerman [43:05]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:00] – The Design Gym’s transition to internal work design
• [06:56] – Introduction to the frontline employee experience case study
• [13:34] – Stakeholder engagement beyond HR
• [18:01–21:41] – The need for work experience “product managers”
• [25:27–27:22] – Employee design research: differences from surveys
• [30:56–33:28] – In-store research: shadowing, interviews, immersion
• [39:15] – Day-in-the-life shadowing: integrating work and home experiences
• [45:48] – Artifact shares and card sorts for deep exploration
• [54:51] – Synthesis and share-out: making research actionable
• [62:05] – Retail as a career: frontline pride and insight
• [66:00] – Building ongoing systems for listening and feedback

Takeaways for Listeners

• Proximity trumps assumption: Real change comes from direct, empathetic engagement with employees—especially those on the frontline.
• Co-creation and distributed ownership are essential for sustainable work experience design.
• Established HR and traditional research tools are insufficient for capturing the complexity of contemporary work lives.
• Simple tools, such as artifacts and card sorts, and immersive practices like job shadowing, can evoke rich insights and emotional investment.
• Lasting organizational impact depends on embedding these practices and skills within teams—not just relying on outside help.

Resources & Connect

• Andy Hagerman on LinkedIn: Andy Hagerman
• The Design Gym: thedesigngym.com
• Downloadable tools & research kits: Available on The Design Gym’s website

“It’s our ethos to give more away than we take. The more people that know about this and are practicing it, the better it is for all of us.” – Andy Hagerman [71:40]