Cracking the Code: Jobs To Be Done in HR

Introduction: Why JTBD Matters in HR, People Products, and Employee Experience

Creating meaningful employee experiences and awesome people products isn’t about adding more bells and whistles. It’s about getting to the root of what employees are really trying to achieve. This is where Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) come in.

I am going to write this as direct as possible over a few posts because there’s alot of over engineering when it comes to JTBD if you read everything on the Internet.. so here goes.

Whether it’s an onboarding or a leadership program, the JTBD is a tactic we can used to help design more human centred people products and experiences that our people actually “use/want” because it solves their real “why”

JTBD helps HR teams and people product designers build better products by answering core questions: What are our people trying to accomplish? What gets in their way? And most importantly, how can we make their lives easier?

What is JTBD?

At its core, Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) is a framework that helps us understand what our people truly need by identifying the jobs they are trying to complete. The idea is simple: people don’t buy products or engage with services just for the sake of features; they do so to solve specific human problem or achieve a desired outcomes.

Think of JTBD as a tool that allows us to understand what it is what people need and the reason why they need it at a human level.. supplementing with a tactic like the 5 why’s which I introduced in The Insightful Innovator and the upcoming People Product OS is the golden nectar.

In the context of employee experience, think about this:

An employee doesn’t use a feedback tool because it’s trendy—they “hire” it to feel heard and to influence change or many just to achieve their bonus.

Jobs to be done is really good a reframing how we look at things, it move from what does this people product do to what “job” is this helping someone remove or overcome in their lives its about outcomes over output

JTBD in Employee Experience

JTBD can be a game-changer for folks in HR and employee experience teams who have never used it. It gives folks a new way to solve complex people challenges by asking, “What job is this product, service or experience helping employees get done?”

Onboarding Programs

Job: “Help me feel confident and prepared on my first day and not look a fool.

Employees don’t want to wade through irrelevant content and they dont want to look or feel a fool on day one that’s their big concern—they need to hit the ground running.

Leadership Programs

Job: “Help me gain respect and influence in my team.”

Leadership isn’t just about skills—it’s about shifting how employees see themselves and how others perceive them. It like the social lens of JTBD

When we start to look at the human problem, through lens and tactics from human centred design and design thinking we start to design people products that are not generics and are instead targeted experiences.

It handy to try and break jobs down into three key groups

Types of Jobs-to-Be-Done

They are three primary types of JTBD: functional, social, and emotional. Each play a very specific role in how our people interact with our products, services and experiences so lets me try and break it down using a everyday ritual we all love…the morning brew (for non northers - that the morning cup of tea or coffee)

Functional Jobs:

This is the practical problems our coffee needs to solve

• Transform me from zombie to human by 9am (Wake me up ready for work)

• Fuel my brain some am Sharpe and alert for my first meeting (make me alert)

• Be my wingman during 1-3pm when the afternoon slump comes

Emotional Jobs

Most thing we do are driven by an emotion, it about what our people want to feel be it, comfort, relief etc. Okay lets stick with the morning coffee the Jobs could be

• Be my warming companion on a grey snowy morning

• Be my slow moment in the morning before the day gets wild full of meetings

• Make me feel like I'm living my best life and i’ve got this (hello caffeine)

Social Jobs

This is all about how we want to be perceived by others be it in status or reputation… because let's face we are all just performers, one more time with the coffee example

• Help me flex my coffee connoisseur credentials and appear sophisticated to others

• Let me blend in with the cool startup and MacBook cafe crowd

• Show me as a successful high end professional who doesn't pass out at the thought of dropping £10 on a tears of the cow gods fancy latte

Why Knowing the Type of Job Matters

Recognising the type of job ensures that you design solutions that align with what your employees actually need and as always this starts at the sensemaking stage.

I tend to see it simply like this

Functional Jobs: are often more about efficient and intuitive.

Emotional Jobs: are often more about empathy and simple

Social Jobs are often more about recognition and visibility.

Misalignment between the type of job and the product design is a common pitfall that can cause tools to fail despite good intentions . In the next section, we’ll dive into identifying these jobs through interviews and documenting them to ensure every people product hits the mark.