Insights

Every organization has a mission to follow, a goal to fulfill. These differ across industries, branches and trades. However, all organizations also share a mission: maintaining or improving the wellbeing of their employees. Today’s fast-changing world stresses the importance of the wellbeing of our people.

During the pandemic, employees discovered a new set of challenges, because a large part of the previous support system disappeared. Where they would normally have been surrounded by colleagues and managers to offer help, they were now working from home. Grace Liu, HR Director Global Learning & Development at Delaval, noticed this shift and initiated an employee wellbeing program to offer support. She is passionate about encouraging people to learn and offering useful tools to maintain and ideally improve their happiness. Delaval partnered with Relevance to create 90-minute Boostcamp sessions. The program supports employees’ wellbeing through connection and self-reflection. After two years of successful implementation, Grace looks back on the merits of the program with Camiel Gielkens, Relevance’s CEO.

Anticipating challenges emerging through change

“What challenges does Delaval face?”, wonders Camiel. Grace identifies two different aspects of key challenges at Delaval, and essentially for every worldwide organization. Wellbeing was always high on their agenda, but the way of supporting employees changed tremendously the past few years. Firstly, the learning method has shifted from collective learning in a classroom to individual and digital learning. Besides challenges, this development brings opportunities. Grace: “The workforce is invited to step into new ways of learning. Instead of sitting in the traditional classroom, learning is now digital and self-paced.” Contrary to what some might expect, Grace thinks this makes learning more social. Especially in a multinational organization as Delaval, virtual learning enables colleagues from all over the world to get to know each other and share their experiences. >

Improving employee happiness with Boostcamp Sessions

The challenge

• How to support employee wellbeing during the pandemic
• Shifting from classroom to individual digital learning
• New relevant topics: hybrid working, leading remotely, diversity and inclusion online, self-awareness, flexibility
• Learning engagement

The learning solution

• 90 minute boostcamp sessions on e.g. managing work-life balance, strengthening resilience and a positive mindset
• The goal was to create awareness and provide support systems
• Connecting people (also internationally) in an accessible way

Learning mindset as a result

• 700 participants
• Employees felt encouraged, inspired and energized
• Find support and recognition with international colleagues
• Boosted curiosity and learning mindset as a new starting point for future leadership programs

< Subsequently, this virtual and multicultural learning method requires more self-reflection. Grace explains the importance of reflecting after an online learning interaction with others. “We think about questions as: ‘How do I digest what I have received from others? How do I combine this with my own core qualities and leadership style?’”. Because of the changed learning method, individual learners need to synchronize what they have learned.

Secondly, next to learning methods, learning skills are shifting too. Delaval wants to address new and different topics, such as hybrid working. Grace emphasizes the prerequisite of diversity and inclusivity, especially online: “How do I, as a manager, stay connected and available for employees in a hybrid work environment?”. Camiel: “That requires a lot of different ways of learning, with a lot more tools and variation.” For that reason, businesses are reimagining the business model and organization structure. “This is crucial, since we need to anticipate on and prepare ourselves for changes and disruptions, instead of being surprised by them,” Grace says. “In doing so, self-awareness is key. We ask ourselves what kind of awareness we have. What kind of leader am I? How can I engage my team into this digital information?”

Supporting and inspiring employees

Self-reflection poses the all too familiar question: are we good enough? Do we still have the energy to deliver and reach our goals, and perhaps reach beyond? Delaval did the same. The organization wanted to support the wellbeing of their employees, especially during the challenges that emerged during the pandemic. They organized sessions with nine topics, where participants could pick and choose which to follow, including: ‘manage your work-life balance’, ‘strengthen your resilience in changing times’ and ‘develop a positive mindset’.

"We wanted to show people we are here to help and they are not alone."

Grace: “The goal was to help employees become aware of their own wellbeing and providing tools and different support systems.” Camiel elaborates: “We saw it was not easy for people to deal with the pandemic. There were high levels of stress and uncertainty. We wanted to create a program to show employees we are here to help. To show them they are not alone. Through the 90-minute Boostcamp sessions, we aimed to connect people and decrease stress in a very accessible way.”

This was the reason, Delaval and Relevance hosted sessions of 90 minutes. Grace explains this gives participants enough time to feel comfortable to open up, feel the connection and get to know others who are facing similar challenges and learn something, without taking up too much of their time and making it feel like an obligation. Another way of making the sessions feel more causal was the self-registration process. Everybody was welcome to join, without manager approval or additional costs. This made participating easier.

Over the past two years, nearly 700 people took part in 90-minute Boostcamp Sessions. Employees say they feel encouraged, inspired and energized after participating. They enjoy connecting with people from all over the world. During the Boostcamp Sessions, they find comfort in knowing they are not alone, while simultaneously becoming aware of differences and overlaps throughout various countries and cultures. This requires a safe, inclusive environment. With these sessions, Delaval aims to support inclusivity and diversity throughout their organization. Camiel: “The program helps to create a learning and growth mindset. How to deal with emotions, difficult situations and new ways of working. With the 90-minute Boostcamp Sessions, we create a new awareness. People start to think about these topics and become more curious. Eventually, they understand the need and use of these programs better. In that sense these programs cultivate that learning mindset. As an organization, you build a platform for future leadership programs and learning interventions.”

What’s next?

The 90-minute Boostcamp Sessions have definitely contributed to the improved employee wellbeing and satisfaction, Grace tells us. Would she do anything differently? “No”, she says jokingly. “The program was perfect! But I would love to make learning in Delaval more personal in future. For our leadership program we offered nine different topics. I wish we could make learning even more bite-sized and personalized. To offer more creativity and flexibility.” Camiel agrees: “Making learning more personal and also in the moment of need!”

The name of their talent development program says it all: U.Gro ensures personal growth. Manon van Beek, Global Program Manager for U.Gro at geodata specialist Fugro, talks about the origins of this program for young professionals and future managers. What does the talent program involve and how was it developed? What challenges are they facing and – importantly – what have been the results so far?

 Focus on young talent

“With thousands of employees around the world, Fugro is a complex organization,” Manon says. “A few years ago, our leaders felt the distance between them and the group of starters was becoming too great. They wanted a better understanding of them, their skills and their potential. To get to know the group of young employees better and be able to help them develop further, management decided to set up a young professionals program. This talent program would also facilitate collaboration across borders, increase transparency and help employees seize opportunities for growth.”

 Welcome Relevance

“The offering from Relevance appealed to me immediately. First, it met our requirements; the content was timely and inspiring. We also wanted certain things like local trainers in parts of the world, and that could be arranged. Second, the supporting online platform was logical, attractive and flexible. There was a lot of room for our own ideas, and we designed the talent development program together. The collaboration went smoothly from the start; we clicked instantly. Everything was ideal.”

 Online launch

“Initially, we got started in Europe, completely online. We informed management, HR joined in, and we organized the first kick-off meetings. A new group started every month with a maximum of 14 participants and all nationalities mixed together. The kick-off with the Relevance trainer was the green light to start a learning journey that will last a couple of years. In the program, people learn from videos and articles on the platform, attend training sessions and workshops about motivation, communication and collaboration, participate in interactive deep dive learning blocks, and attend peer coaching sessions, among other things.”

“From e-learnings and workshops to deep dives and peer coaching. It has everything.”

 Deep dives

“For example, one of the deep dives was designed around our core competency of client awareness. Someone from Fugro talks about what they are up against on project X and outlines the case. The participants then consider how they would approach it. What are the customer’s requirements? Instead of just coming up with the best solution, they first investigate what the customer wants. Sometimes that’s something completely different. This kind of deep dive helps people become more conscious of the content, and they learn to present and reflect. All the practical cases are close to reality, so they sink in better than yet another e-learning.”

 Two groups and two phases

Fugro is using the talent development program for all college graduates with up to two years of experience. “Since 2020, a new group of starters has started every month. They take about 2.5 years to complete their U.Gro. In phase 1, ‘Engage 2 discover,’ they get to know Fugro and themselves better. In phase 2, ‘Drive 2 succeed,’ they learn basic leadership skills and take part in the deep dives into critical and strategic thinking. We then invest a little extra in a small group, about 5% of the participants. Those high potential talents are put on the International Leadership Track (ILT), a customized traineeship consisting of several assignments and an in-between phase called ‘Challenge 2 grow.’”

 Challenges

“We’ve definitely found areas for improvement in the past year,” Manon continues. “Someone who’s working on a ship or drilling a well in the middle of the desert can’t attend a two-day workshop. The poor coverage alone... So recently we started a pilot in which people can register themselves for the deep dive learning blocks. This makes learning more flexible. It also means we’ve abandoned the principle of learning with and from each other in fixed groups, but people can now set their own pace. After all, real life is also full of changes.”

“I have a close relationship with the designer of the program. Do we want to add or remove a topic? Make something shorter or longer? It happens. That flexibility is really ideal for us.”

Feedback

Most participants have been very enthusiastic about the talent development program. “Some were a little skeptical beforehand. Like, ‘Do I really have to learn to communicate differently?’ But once they get started, they’re pleasantly surprised about the power skills the training gives them. To me, that’s part of the reason I’m in this business. It really does energize you to see people grow! A person may be very smart, but if they can’t get something across or don’t get anyone on board, they won’t achieve much. Isn’t it great that young professionals feel confident enough to take charge in a relatively short time?”

Culture wave

So in practice, Manon sees that people are being energized by the talent program. “And by working together with their colleagues elsewhere in the world, they also learn more about what Fugro does than they would if they had to get the information from the website. This program expands everyone’s bubble, which creates opportunities and enlarges worlds. It’s still a bit early to draw conclusions, but I’m convinced that talent development will reduce absenteeism and turnover and create happier employees! What’s more, U.Gro is spreading like wildfire and triggering a genuine culture change. Since starters get a mentor, we have to teach colleagues to be mentors. And because we let young professionals discuss things with their managers, managers are also held accountable for their behavior. We’re creating a more open culture with more room for feedback, exactly what we’d hoped for from the beginning.”

The Covid-19 pandemic forced many companies to transition towards remote working. Philips did too. In an incredibly short amount of time, almost the entire staff traded their office booth for their home. To accommodate their employees in this challenge, Philips' HR department developed an innovative support system. Philips develop@home helps employees to maintain their personal effectiveness and vitality at work. Relevance is honored to have been a partner on this project of facilitating power skills improvement with Philips. 

As a large international corporation, Philips has certainly felt the challenges this transition causes. Fank Visser, HR cluster manager of Employee & Social Sustainability at Philips, acknowledges this: "Our teams needed to switch from collaborating in the office to working online entirely. This shift required the obvious home office, but also a new work-life balance. New topics arose, think of exercise and energy management. The transition to working remotely changed the way we manage people. However, simultaneously, a lot of projects carried on like they did before. 

Remote development and support

So how does such a substantial employer like Philips handle these radical and rapid changes? Frank explains: "Philips offers services to promote and improve people's health and well-being. We want to project that towards our own people as well." To achieve this, their HR department created the develop@home initiative: a selection of health and wellness interventions to support Philips' employees, working from home. As an expert in power skills, Relevance collaborated with Philips to provide these through the company's online learning portal. Frank elaborates: "Over 5,000 employees use the existing portal each year. Upon completing the develop@home pogram, we sent a newsletter to inform all employees and managers in the Netherlands. We wanted to reach as many people as possible."

Remote work seminars and online workshops

Some aspects of the develop@home program were already implemented in non-digital form. Other elements were developed from scratch, by Philips as well as by working together with Relevance. "When deciding if we wanted to include a specific material, we wondered: can it be converted into online learning content quickly?" Frank explains. "To achieve this, we requested the help of our existing partners. It was crucial to act quickly, without compromising on quality. We were glad to be able to rely on the expertise of our partners. And with Relevance, this is a given: blended learning is in your DNA."

“The crisis is teaching us to look differently at personal development.”

Before the big switch to online learning, most of the training material Philips had to offer surrounding sustainable fitness for work and vitality consisted of face-to-face and conventional training sessions. Due to the challenges posed by the pandemic, these were rapidly converted to virtual learning. Some workshops were easily switched to an online environment, others raised new questions, such as the timing. How can we effectively convey information without wearing people out? As we all know by now, online communication requires more energy than offline conversations.

Therefore, Philips also developed new resources, next to the existing ones. HR created remote work seminars. With these interactive self-study pages, employees can learn about various topics in their own pace and time. Relevance aided in creating new online courses and workshops about energy management and resilience. Such courses help in maintaining vitality at work and personal effectiveness. To combine these factors, the focuspoint of the develop@home program was launched in April: the work@home scan

The work@home scan

Relevance designed the work@home scan to support all Philips employees in working from home, as smoothly as possible. "Because we expect employees to keep doing their jobs, even during such challenging times, we want to help them transitioning from the old way of working, to the new way. With this scan, employees are able to overlook everything they need to keep in mind for them to stay healthy and effective when working from home. It covers a feedback report, followed by coaching, which helps us to promote personal development, adaptability and vitality." 

Upon requesting the work@home scan through the learning portal, employees fill out the quick scan via a form and then discuss their results with a coach in an online session. The scan takes several aspects of working from home into account. For example the physical work environment, work-life balance, lifestyle and relationships with coworkers and managers. After completing the scan, the employee receives a feedback report. This gives an overview of which elements of working remotely are going well and which aspects could be improved.

Sustainable development through coaching

These results are discussed in an online coaching session. Together, they take a closer look at the findings and discuss the possibilities the employee has to make positive changes for themselves, as well as what their manager can do to facilitate these changes. "This is a crucial component of the scan," Frank states. "It's the coach's job to aid in interpreting the results. Discussing the employees' results directly with said employee, specific follow-up actions can be formulated, resulting in huge improvements." Such follow-up actions can simply be improving the home office space or participating in specific virtual workshops surrounding the topic of the employee's needs. Four weeks later, another feedback session is scheduled. During this follow-up session, the taken actions are evaluated to make sure the scan creates lasting behavioral change and improves well-being of Philips' employees.

Staying healthy and effective while working at home

Frank is optimistic about the future: "I truly believe that the experience we are gaining now will result in remote working going forward. This new world we are living in, with social distancing, new challenges and skills included, stresses the importance of devoting more attention to stay healthy and effective while working from home. Moreover, it's crucial to keep facilitating our employees to continue to develop themselves, even when working remotely."

To make this happen, offering internal services such as the work@home scan is a strong requirement for the effective functioning of HR departments. With develop@home program, Philips is able to offer a new way of teaching and supporting their employees. Frank says: "This program originated because of the pandemic. Now, we see the advantages to online learning we never would have imagined just a few months ago". 

Are you curious about how Relevance can support your organization? 

Feedback: it can be a tricky aspect of our professional relations. On one hand, we like to be critical to achieve the optimal result, together. While on the other hand, having our own work criticized can cause frustration. That’s why becoming a master in giving and receiving feedback is crucial to create an open culture within your organization.

VodafoneZiggo noticed this importance as well. To help their employees give and receive feedback, we developed a tailor-made training course, supporting their change management. Together, we focused on openness, behavioral change and teamwork. Nynke Hagen, Culture & Engagement Manager at VodafoneZiggo, and Marianne van Munster, Senior Trainer at Relevance, discuss this wonderful project.

Culture program

VodafoneZiggo starts their journey of opening up their company culture at the first value of three cultural values: ‘Open Up’. This value aims to create a culture of openness and accountability, a place where employees feel free to give feedback and ask each other questions. The other two values are ‘Team Up’ and ‘Step Up’. Nynke says: “Our company culture has been a high priority ever since the joint venture between Vodafone and Ziggo in 2017. From that point, we explored what we stand for as a company in the first year, which was followed by focusing on what we know about our values in the second year.” By taking these important steps, VodafoneZiggo was ready to take off behavior development within the company by the third year. 

Meeting the need for change

The company conducts an engagement survey amongst their employees numerous times a year. The results showed a strong desire among employees for improving (cultural) behavior. VodafoneZiggo wanted to respond to this need. This was certainly a good call, since the Covid-19 pandemic hit simultaneously. The result: a stronger need for clear communication and efficient teamwork than ever. “We started out by asking ourselves what kind of behavior we want to reinforce and prioritize in our company culture. That’s where the value of ‘Open Up’ came in,” Nynke explains.

Marianne proposed to visibly embed all three VodafoneZiggo values into the learning modules. She says: “We believe in making a meaningful contribution to support an organization in their strategically development and shaping partnerships instead of just providing a training.” Nynke agrees: “We collaborate in figuring out ways to inspire and improve behavior. Relevance has been a great sparring partner and source of inspiration to us.”

Feedback in teams

“The training set out to make a clear distinction on what feedback is, and more importantly, what is not! Then, we practice the ‘how,’” Marianne says. “The trainings were done from an individual perspective, but we soon learned that we needed to shift our focus towards creating a feedback culture within our teams. Now, more than 150 teams have followed the training. These teams vary from technicians and store staff, to our HR director and his team. By following the feedback training, employees create the basis for stronger teamwork and feel empowered to experiment. Exactly these skills are what the other two values, ‘Team Up’ and ‘Step Up’ focus on.

“If you're good at giving feedback doesn't matter if the other person is unable to receive it. Once you improve the way you receive feedback, how other people give you feedback is no longer important.”

Marianne van Munster

Major success

“The training was tailor-made for us, by Relevance. Each team had different content, placed into their specific context,” Nynke mentions. “The responses we received have been incredibly positive. The other day, someone told me he had reached his learning goals. He explained he went from feeling like a weak cup of coffee to a strong espresso!” Marianne elaborates. “I also saw a manager being visibly moved after our training. She was genuinely touched by seeing her team opening up.” These wonderful examples were also reflected by the date gathered from the conducted evaluations and effect scans. Upon completing the feedback training, people rated themselves two points higher on average than before following the training. Nynke adds: “I hear people are more comfortable and find it easier to give one-on-one feedback than before. Now, they are much more likely to comment on positive aspects instead of focusing on the negative. This wonderful development is entirely in line with our new mindset of continual learning. We look forward to embedding this mindset in other processes and programs too, such as leadership development and performance management.”

Unlimited learning

Now, employees at VodafoneZiggo think of feedback in terms of “supportive” and “developmental” instead of “positive” and “negative.” “This is a wonderful development, which is fully in line with our new mindset of continual learning,” explains Nynke. “To truly create a culture in which everyone feels safe to speak openly, we are also embedding this mindset in other processes and programs, such as performance management and leadership development. In addition to this feedback training, we still have hundreds of training modules and courses on the Archipel platform, a sister company of Relevance. Our employees have unlimited access to these.”

“Are you working on your company culture? Embed your values in everything you do and involve people from all over the company to create a new norm.”

Nynke Hagen

Safeguarding the future

Because as we all know: the learning process never ends. That’s why, in addition to this feedback training, VodafoneZiggo employees have unlimited access to hundreds of training modules on the Archipel platform, a Relevance sister company. Meanwhile, Nynke and Marianne continue to think of ways to expand the feedback training by organizing additional modules or refreshers. “We’re exploring how to give feedback from every possible angle,” Nynke explains. Managers are facilitated by custom developed practical tools, which help them to optimize their leadership skills, inspire their team members and help to give them feedback.”

To any organization that wants to work on its culture, Nynke would like to say: “Embed your values in everything you do. Involve people from all over the company. Choosing some standalone training module and expect for it to have an effect, doesn’t suffice. Make sure to continue the learning process after the training is over, so that new behaviors become the norm.”

Are you interested in creating a more open company culture?