Design in employer branding

A single glance at a company's job advert is enough to give potential applicants a first impression. How is the ad laid out and structured? What language does the advertiser use?  How does the corporate logo look? On a deeper dive into the company's website and social media, the corporate design theme continues. The company's culture, professionalism, friendliness and competence aim to convince and attract at first glance. Complete employer branding has to consider the influence of design on the recruitment process.

Design at the workplace

The trend over the past few years has been for employees to move out of cubicles and into open spaces. However, the cubicle, big brother to the locker, gives a clear demonstration of how differently employees style their work space. Some hang up little works of art, others have pictures of their children. There are corners with plants and corners that come across as sterile. And people's needs at the workplace differ just as much as the cubicles. The trick is to create an atmosphere for all employees with clever design that has a positive impact on their productivity and well-being.

UX design

The computer programs of the noughties were hard to handle. It was the era of monochrome user interfaces, typescript and grainy icons. The intuitive graphic user interface was an alien concept. But the programs could handle tasks that previously had to be tackled using ring-binder files, lists, calculations and many working hours. And that was revolutionary. Software development followed the "Form Follows Function" principle, and was anything but user friendly in most cases.

Nowadays, we know that beautiful, harmoniously designed products are more user friendly and more frequently used. Before an application is launched on the market, it is tested for its usability and target group. The complex processes depicted have to run perfectly in the background. When they appear on the interface, the user has to perceive them as simple and intuitive. That is good UX design.

These tools help to determine our satisfaction at the workplace. When software solutions for workers are evaluated, the design of the user interface, user experience and the functional scope therefore have to be convincing.

Design – a strategic success factor

Design in the working environment is successful when it reflects the company's own corporate culture: form influences the way we view content. For example, how a workspace is designed or whether software offers user-friendly interfaces makes a big difference to people's sense of well-being – or otherwise – at the workplace. Employees have different needs. Design is therefore a strategic success factor in finding the right workers or supporting people positively in their activities. And one particularly important factor: good design makes people happy!