The Everyday Systems That Shape Employee Experience
- Jul 2
- 5 min read
Part 3: You Can't Program Your Way Out of Poor Design
Programs Don't Create Experiences, Systems Do
That's the idea I kept returning to while researching Centering the Student Affairs Workforce. It also became the common thread connecting countless conversations I've had over the past few years about employee well-being, burnout, engagement, and organizational culture.
Over and over, I found myself returning to the same realization: people don't primarily experience organizations through programs. They experience them through the systems that shape their work every single day.
If we want to improve employee experience, we have to pay attention to the systems producing that experience.
I don't know how many articles, newsletters, LinkedIn posts, and conversations I've encountered over the past few years that all arrive at the same conclusion:
Wellness programs and well-being initiatives aren't enough by themselves.
By now, I think most of us understand that.
We've heard that free coffee and donuts don't solve burnout. Walking challenges don't fix impossible workloads. Employee appreciation lunches don't eliminate role confusion. Resiliency workshops can't compensate for decision-making structures that leave people feeling powerless.
To be clear, this isn't an argument against any of those things.
In fact, I hope organizations continue investing in them. They create moments of connection, communicate care, encourage healthy habits, and remind employees they are valued. Keep the coffee, the lunches, the walking challenges, and the opportunities to invest in people's well-being.
The problem isn't that these initiatives exist.
The problem is when we begin expecting them to solve problems they were never designed to solve.
The message has become remarkably consistent, and honestly, I agree.
The challenge isn't convincing people that these initiatives alone won't solve our problems anymore. The challenge is deciding what comes next.
If we stop at critiquing performative solutions without redesigning the systems creating the employee experience, we'll simply continue cycling through new initiatives while producing the same outcomes.
The research only reinforced what many of us have been sensing.
Again and again, participants pointed us toward issues that had very little to do with individual resilience or access to programming.
Instead, they described experiences shaped by things like:
Unclear expectations
Expanding responsibilities
Inconsistent communication
Decision-making structures
Competing priorities
Workloads that continually grew while resources remained the same
Very few people began by talking about wellness programming.
They talked about what they experienced every day.
They talked about work.
They talked about systems.
They talked about the environments they navigated before, during, and after those programs ever took place.
These aren't programming issues.
They're design issues.
And that's an important distinction.
People don't experience an organization once a month when a program or event is offered.
They experience it every day through the way work is designed, expectations are communicated, decisions are made, and relationships are cultivated.
If we want to improve the employee experience, we have to pay attention to the systems producing that experience.
The Systems We Rarely Examine
One observation continues to stay with me.
Organizations regularly update strategic plans.
We refresh websites.
We redesign reporting structures.
We launch new initiatives.
We revise policies.
Yet one thing often receives very little intentional attention:
The design of work itself.
Roles evolve.
Responsibilities accumulate.
Projects get added.
Committees expand.
Temporary assignments become permanent expectations.
One thing I've continued to notice is that organizations regularly audit budgets, strategic plans, policies, and technology. Yet we rarely audit work itself.
Responsibilities quietly accumulate.
Expectations shift.
New priorities emerge.
But we don't always stop to examine whether the work still aligns with the role, the available capacity, or even the mission.
The problem isn't that change happens.
Change is inevitable.
The problem is that many of these changes happen incrementally without anyone stopping to ask:
"Does this still make sense?"
"If we are asking people to do something new, what are we asking them to stop doing?"
Over time, work gets layered instead of redesigned.
Eventually, people aren't carrying the role they were hired into.
They're carrying years of accumulated expectations.
That's not an individual performance issue.
That's a systems issue.
Misalignment Doesn't Always Look Broken
One of the biggest misconceptions is believing organizational misalignment always looks like dysfunction.
Sometimes it looks like high-performing people.
People continue delivering.
Projects still get completed.
Students continue receiving exceptional support.
Goals are achieved.
From the outside, everything appears successful.
But beneath those outcomes may be a workforce operating through constant adaptation, overextension, and unsustainable effort.
Success doesn't automatically mean the system is healthy.
Sometimes it simply means people are compensating for the design.
Eventually, compensation has a cost.
Sometimes that cost is turnover.
Sometimes it's disengagement.
Sometimes it's innovation and creativity that never have the opportunity to emerge because people are spending all of their energy simply keeping the system moving.
The organization may continue producing results, but it's doing so by relying on people to compensate for what the system was never designed to support.
Human-Centered Design Means Designing Everyday Work
When I think about centering the workforce, I don't immediately think about adding another program.
I think about questions like:
How are decisions made?
Who has clarity about priorities?
Is workload realistic?
Where does unnecessary complexity exist?
What work no longer serves the mission?
What expectations have quietly accumulated over time?
What experience are our systems producing every single day?
These aren't necessarily the conversations people get excited about having.
They're often slower, messier, and require us to wrestle with complexity.
They also aren't the kinds of changes that happen overnight.
But they may be some of the most important conversations we can have if we're serious about creating workplaces where people can contribute, thrive, and remain engaged over time.
Because people don't simply experience culture.
They experience the systems that create culture.
In many ways, employees experience an organization exactly as its systems have been designed to produce it—whether that design was intentional or simply allowed to evolve over time.
Sustainability Is a Design Choice
As I've spent more time researching organizational systems and engaging in conversations with colleagues across higher education, one theme continues to emerge.
Doing this work well takes time.
It's often slower than launching a new initiative because redesign asks us to examine the roots rather than the branches.
We naturally reach for the low-hanging fruit because it's accessible, visible, and allows us to respond quickly. There's value in that.
But the easiest fruit isn't always the fruit that nourishes the organization over the long term.
Real redesign requires conversations.
Reflection.
Difficult decisions.
It sometimes requires letting go of practices that no longer serve the organization so that something healthier can take their place.
But poor design has a cost too.
Broken systems don't stay broken in isolation.
They create cycles.
People compensate.
Workarounds become normal.
Stress becomes expected.
Extra effort becomes the culture.
Eventually, we begin celebrating resilience when what we really needed was redesign.
As I shared in Part 2, Systems do not redesign themselves.
If we want workplaces where people can contribute, grow, and sustain meaningful careers, not simply survive them, we have to become intentional designers of the employee experience.
That work isn't about abandoning wellness initiatives.
It's about ensuring those initiatives are supported by systems that make well-being possible in the first place.
Sustainable organizations aren't built because they continually add more support.
They're built because support becomes embedded in the way work is designed, decisions are made, expectations are communicated, and people experience the organization every single day.
Because in the end, you cannot program your way out of poor design.