Why we keep solving the wrong EX problems (and what to do instead)

Emma Bridger

Minutes
9th April 2025
Employee Experience
Employee Engagement
Internal Communications

If you work in employee experience, HR or internal communication… this might feel familiar.

You’re:

  • running surveys
  • gathering insight
  • launching initiatives
  • trying to improve engagement

And yet…

It still feels like you’re not quite shifting the dial.

Not really.

Here’s the uncomfortable bit

It’s probably not a lack of effort.

And it’s probably not a lack of ideas.

👉 It’s how the work is being designed.

Because most organisations are still working in a very expert-led way:

  • problems are defined upfront
  • solutions are built behind closed doors
  • initiatives are rolled out at scale

Even when intentions are good…

We often end up:

  • solving the wrong problem
  • designing for assumptions, not reality
  • delivering activity rather than impact

This is why things feel stuck

You can see it in the patterns:

  • the same issues keep coming up
  • different initiatives tackle similar symptoms
  • engagement moves… but not meaningfully
  • communication improves… but doesn’t land consistently

👉 It’s not that nothing is happening.

It’s that it’s not quite working.

And AI is making this more visible

AI is speeding everything up.

Which sounds like a good thing — until you realise:

You can now deliver more, faster…
…but still miss what actually matters.

AI can:

  • generate content
  • scale communication
  • automate processes

But it can’t:

  • understand lived experience
  • define the right problem
  • design meaningful moments

👉 Which means the design step becomes even more important.

So what do we do differently?

This is where EX Design Sprints come in.

Not as a “method” to add to the list…

But as a way to rethink how we approach problems altogether.

At a simple level, a design sprint helps you:

  • slow down just enough to understand what’s really going on
  • define the right problem to solve
  • co-create solutions with the people who experience them
  • test ideas before scaling

👉 In other words:

Move from activity → impact
and from assumption → insight-led design

What’s interesting when you use this approach

When teams start working this way, a few things shift quite quickly:

  • conversations get more focused
  • problems become clearer (and often different to what you thought)
  • ideas become more practical and grounded
  • there’s more confidence in what you take forward

And importantly…

👉 You stop trying to fix everything at once
👉 And start designing what actually matters

This is a capability, not just a workshop

One of the reasons we talk about this a lot in EX Space is because:

This isn’t about running a single sprint.

It’s about building the ability to:

  • think differently
  • work differently
  • design with people, not just for them

👉 That’s where the real shift happens.

If you’re curious about how this works in practice…

We’re running a session where we’ll walk through:

  • what an EX Design Sprint actually looks like
  • how it works in real organisations
  • where it fits alongside your existing work
  • how to get started (without overcomplicating it)

👉 Join the session here

And if you’re thinking… “we need to work more like this”

That’s exactly the point.

Because this isn’t about doing more.

It’s about designing better.

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