The Future of Doing: employee experience for creative work
Context
I co-created The Future of Doing, a research-led initiative exploring how organisations can better support creative practitioners across design, technology, and strategy.
The work focused on defining what effective employee experience looks like for creative makers, and translating this into practical frameworks and learning programmes.
The situation
There was growing recognition that attracting and retaining creative talent was critical to organisational success.
However, most employee experience guidance was not designed for creative practitioners, and often failed to reflect how they actually work, what they value, and what enables them to perform at their best.
At the same time, COVID accelerated changes in how people relate to work, increasing expectations around purpose, flexibility, and value.
There was a need to better understand these shifts and define what a more effective workplace experience could look like.
The work
I led a global research study exploring the needs and experiences of creative practitioners.
This included interviews and surveys with participants across the US, Europe, UK, APAC, and Africa, spanning designers, technologists, strategists, and creatives working in a wide range of organisational contexts.
From this, I developed a set of core experience pillars that shape how creative work is experienced:
Purpose
Value
Selling
Ideas
Environment
Collaboration
These were used to structure insights and define a framework for improving employee experience for creative work.
To bring this to life, I partnered with the Berlin School of Creative Leadership to develop a podcast series and a global learning programme.
What changed
The work created a structured and research grounded view of employee experience for creative practitioners, providing a language and framework that leaders could use to improve how creative work is supported.
The initiative contributed to a broader conversation about how organisations value and enable creative work, particularly in the context of changing expectations during and after COVID.
What this demonstrates
The ability to define new employee experience frameworks from research, and translate them into practical programmes that influence how organisations attract, support, and retain creative talent.
