In a workplace climate increasingly focused on listening, traditional employee surveys often fall short. While well-intentioned, they can contribute to fatigue and deliver surface-level insights that don’t lead to meaningful change. That’s why Lara Kruger Nieuwenhuis, workshop lead at First Person Research and a consultant with a background in art and design, is exploring new ways to make employee research more engaging and revealing.
In this Q&A, Lara shares how she and her colleagues are using creative techniques — like metaphor, storytelling, and sensory prompts — to spark deeper dialogue and more emotionally honest feedback. The goal? To move beyond measurement and toward human-centered, two-way conversations that connect data with lived experience.
Read on to explore how creative research methods can transform your employee engagement strategy and reveal perspectives that standard surveys tend to overlook.
Tell us what trends you see when it comes to sending surveys for employee feedback and engagement, and what challenges communicators run into (i.e., survey fatigue).
In my work, I’ve seen that while there’s a clear commitment to listening to employees, the default approach is still the online survey. However, employees are often tired. Not just of surveys, but of giving feedback that doesn’t lead to visible change. There’s a risk of feedback becoming something abstract, disconnected from real people and relationships.
That’s one reason I’m so interested in approaches that create more meaningful, two-way exchanges. In my consulting work, we often talk about building feedback experiences that are human-centered and rooted in real work contexts, so people feel heard, not just measured.
How and why did you decide to explore more creative techniques, and what does this look like in practice?
I’ve always been drawn to the intersection of creativity and research, partly because of my background in art and design, and partly because I’ve seen how powerful it can be when people are invited to express themselves beyond just words.
In my consulting work, I’ve supported organizations in designing one-on-one sessions with employees that include a creative element. Employees are invited to reflect on their experience and bring a small creative output into the conversation. This sparks richer dialogue and creates space for both feedback and future visioning.
At First Person Research, where I am the workshop lead, we actively encourage creative research techniques — including visual methods, metaphor, storytelling, and even tools like sensory boxes — as ways to go deeper into people’s experiences and to ground abstract feedback in embodied insight.
Explain how using these innovative techniques (artwork, sensory boxes, etc.) has provided richer insights compared to traditional surveys.
One of the most powerful things about creative techniques is that they often bypass the expected or rehearsed answers. When people are invited to express how they feel through image, metaphor, or storytelling — rather than rating something on a scale — they tend to access more honest, emotionally grounded perspectives.
In a project I did with an HR company, we presented employee feedback to the directors of our client — an architecture firm — using visual narratives of illustrated scenes with characters and speech bubbles. This approach helped management engage with the insights on a more emotional, human level, rather than viewing them as abstract or impersonal data. It sparked deeper conversations and a more empathetic response, exactly what’s needed if decision makers are going to truly care about stakeholders and take meaningful action on their behalf.
What are some of the challenges researchers may face when implementing resource-intensive methods?
The biggest challenge is often not the method itself, but the mindset. Creative, participatory approaches require time, trust, and often a shift in expectations both from leadership and from participants. They aren’t as neat or easily quantified as surveys, so they demand a willingness to sit with nuance and complexity.
That said, I’ve seen how valuable it can be to integrate these approaches into existing work rhythms, so they don’t feel like “extra work” but rather a deeper, more meaningful way of engaging with what’s already happening.
How do you balance the need for detailed insights with employees’ time and resources required for these approaches?
Respect for people’s time should be the cornerstone of one's approach. The key is to make the process purposeful and meaningful. For example, in the one-on-one feedback sessions I mentioned earlier, employees aren’t asked to create something for the sake of it. The creative prompt is there to support reflection and expression, and they often say it helps them articulate things they hadn’t been able to before.
At First Person, we design our training to be project specific. That means delegates work on a real challenge from their context, and employee engagement or feedback could be a perfect case. The value is twofold: Not only do you generate insights and ideas relevant to the business, but participants also build skills they can use well beyond that project. That’s a smart use of time and investment, especially in stretched organizations.
How do you analyze — and ultimately package — the data from this research to gain buy-in from management and other stakeholders? Can you share any examples of how this has worked successfully?
For me, how we communicate the findings is just as important as the insights themselves. Visual thinking, storytelling, and narrative formats all play a big role. With the architecture firm, for example, we turned employee feedback into illustrated scenes with dialogue, almost like a graphic novel. This helped decision-makers engage with feedback not just intellectually, but emotionally.
At First Person, we often use design tools, like journey mapping, and persona creation to translate qualitative data into actionable strategy. These visual formats support decision-making and make it easier for diverse teams to engage with the findings. It’s not about dumbing down the data; it’s about making it land.
How has this type of research led to meaningful changes within a company, both from the perspective of the employer (positive outcomes) and the employee (feeling heard)?
For creative, two-way feedback approaches to be effective, leadership must do more than just listen; they need to be prepared to act. It’s not enough to say you’re open to feedback; there must be a clear intention to follow through. When employees invest energy and vulnerability into engagement processes and nothing changes, it can leave them feeling discouraged or disillusioned, and sometimes worse off than before. That’s why closing the loop is essential. These methods invite openness, but with that comes a responsibility to respond meaningfully. Trust is built not just through insight, but through visible, intentional action.
At First Person, we also see huge potential in combining design thinking training with employee engagement efforts. If you use a live work challenge — like a current organizational pain point — in your training, you generate insights, build innovation capacity, and create ownership across teams. The result is not just feedback that sits in a report, it’s insight that gets turned into action. We found that when employees develop an intuitive understanding of the stakeholder you’re trying to help, they can confidently walk into meetings and represent that stakeholder's voice, without the need to have the report on hand. When done well, your research doesn’t stay in the presentation; it walks out the door with your colleagues and informs action.
From Data to Dialogue
Creative research methods offer more than just an alternative to surveys, they foster deeper connection, richer insights, and more authentic dialogue between employees and leadership. As Lara Kruger Nieuwenhuis emphasizes, when organizations treat feedback as a meaningful exchange rather than a data point, they unlock the potential for real change. It’s not about replacing surveys altogether but about rethinking how we listen, and how we respond.
More About Lara Kruger Nieuwenhuis
Lara Kruger Nieuwenhuis is an independent consultant, creative facilitator, and visual artist who thrives at the intersections of creative practice and research. She brings 16 years of art and design education experience, a master’s in Fine Art, and collaborations with diverse organizations to her work. As workshop lead with the First Person Research team, Lara combines art thinking’s open-ended exploration with design thinking’s structured, human-centered approach to help others uncover insights and create meaningful solutions. Skilled in both traditional qualitative and art-based research methods, she designs and facilitates workshops and engagement strategies that connect ideas, people, and experiences in transformative ways.