Create a workplace that improves employee health and well-being
Create a workplace that improves employee health and well-being
Overview
Create a workplace that improves employee well-being
Google's SVP of People Operations, Laszlo Bock, put together a cross-functional task force that would create a workplace empowering its employees to improve their well-being and increase their life expectancy, while continuing to improve their job performance. We would accomplish these outcomes by leveraging user research to design services and products for internal employee use.
Context
Above all else, make people happy and healthy
In 2012, I reflected deeply on what I am most passionate for. At the end of the day, I believe making people happy and healthy is what's most important, so I launched a 20% project to research the health and well-being of Google employees (aka Googlers). The People Analytics team quickly saw the value of this work and hired me to spend 100% of my time leading research efforts in this area for the company from February 2013 to August 2015.
“Kirby is exceptionally passionate about improving people’s health. Coupled with strong analytical and people skills, it’s no surprise that he did very well in his role. He’s uniquely humble and intelligent — a self-starter who learns quickly, builds bridges easily and solves complex problems.”
My Role
Lead research and analytics
I led six complimentary user research projects focused on employee well-being at Google. These projects included more than 91% of the global employee population as participants (n >52,000) and continue to serve as the foundation for Google's employee health and well-being approach today.
“Kirby is one of the most focused, composed, and professional colleagues I have worked with. I was consistently impressed by his ability to lead project teams and meetings. He displayed an exceptional talent for aligning cross-functional stakeholders around ambitious, but achievable, goals and timelines. Kirby has a keen intellect and inquisitive mind which, combined with his methodic approach, result in the best product possible.”
Apply design thinking to the problem
We pursued an iterative, five step process to address the problem of improving Googler's well-being, life expectancy, and job performance.
Empathize
Empathize
**Note that this research was for internal use so this case study focuses on research process rather than findings**
Methods
Use different approaches to empathize
Our research process included speaking to Googlers in Focus Groups and 1:1 in User Interviews to get a deeper sense of their well-being attitudes, then translating their sentiments into structured survey questions to understand these attitudes from a population perspective. We also examined Googlers' behaviors with company wellness offerings and the healthcare system overall.
USER INTERVIEWS
Start the conversation with Googlers (our users)
My project team and I developed a stratified random sample by gender, age, and function to ensure we attained representation from key sub-groups. Our conversations focused on how Googlers perceive well-being, what's important to them, what their challenges are, and how they manage their health and the health of their families.
Surveys
Understand the perspectives of the overall target user base
We developed and launched three devices for surveying Googlers on the topic of well-being. Googlegeist was first with survey questions sent to all Googlers across the globe and we got 91% of the population (n >52,000) to respond. Googlegeist allowed us to track employee well-being for the company overall and for all parts of the organization. We also launched gDNA, which is a longitudinal survey that tracks an employee's well-being throughout her entire lifetime, even after leaving Google. gDNA enabled us to associate well-being outcomes with thousands of variables per employee, such as whether they have a growth mindset or if they went through a relationship change. Lastly, the People Health Survey focused on using validated scales used by the CDC and other health organizations, so that we could benchmark Googlers' health to other populations and track these benchmarks over time.
Define
Define
Insight Generation
Define "well-being" from a user's perspective
Rather than creating our own prescriptive definition of well-being, we identified through user research that our users had different perspectives on what's important to their well-being so our design philosophy would be driven by personalization. Our approach would be to offer internal products and services that were most important to the population as a whole and then nudge each individual to the options that were most relevant to her.
Identify what key factors are associated with well-being and why
Using SQL and R, I created a number of statistical models to infer what variables, such as exercise or time with family, were predictive of a user's overall subjective well-being. The statistical methods used included regression, analysis of variance, factor analysis, and structural equation modeling. The findings enabled us to hypothesize what would be most effective in improving well-being overall and then we'd test our hypotheses in random controlled trials with Googlers.
Design
Design
Ideate on what's possible
We partnered with designers at Google to host a design thinking workshop and would continue to host periodic workshops on the topic of employee well-being. After our first workshop we decided to focus on (a) developing an internal technology platform that identifies an individual's specific well-being needs and nudges them towards the most relevant resources at Google and (b) an initial set of services focused on mindful work breaks.
Prototype new solutions
Our focus on mindful work breaks would take the form of gPause as our first new wellness service that we would prototype. This service was designed based on research I conducted, which indicated renewal breaks during the work day could dramatically improve well-being by enabling Googlers to detach from their work and cope with its stress implications. In particular, the service provided meditation rooms and mobile guided meditations which tracked the amount Googlers meditated.
Test prototypes and hypotheses using experiments
We launched our services as random controlled trials to test the effectiveness of our service prototypes. For example, with gPause, we tracked key well-being indicators among a treatment group that utilized the service, among an opted-in control group that was waitlisted for the service, and among a representative sample of the Google population. We then compared the outcomes of the treatment group with the other two groups. To help account for seasonality and other potential confounders, we also later offered the waitlisted control group the service to see if their changes in well-being outcomes would be comparable to the changes in the initial treatment group's outcomes.
Impact
Impact
Share insights with the world
Google's plan is to release select findings from this research publicly as they are further validated over time, because the research devices we designed are longitudinal in nature.
You can find a summary of some early validated findings from gDNA employee well-being research published in the Harvard Business Review here.
"Focus on the user and all else will follow"
I'm fortunate that I was able to start the first five years of my career at a company that upholds this motto as it's core tenet. This user centric philosophy is now deeply engrained in the way I approach my work.
My primary job at Google was to understand it's employees - their needs, motivations, behaviors, work and personal lives - in order to improve their overall well-being. Googlers were my users. During the three years I was in this role, we saw improvement in all five core well-being measures across the global population and statistically significant increases in health outcomes for all three random controlled trials we conducted. That means more than 52,000 people, some of whom are my closest friends, were better able to spend time with their loved ones, cope with stress, exercise, eat healthy, and lead happier lives. That's real impact.