MURProgram
A gamified experience to onboard new hires to the organization. 20 Teams. 3 days. 1 Championship. All virtual.
Background
The new paradigm forced upon organizations by the Pandemic has meant that new hires were required to be onboarded to the organization while being confined in their homes.
In such a scenario, how can the cultural tenets of the organization be experienced and learnt in an immersive way? And how can the new joiners be made to feel both welcomed and connected?
Objective
The objective of this 3-day virtual journey was hence to:
• Introduce the new hires to the organization’s culture
• Bring home learnings related to collaboration, curiosity, critical thinking, resilience and growth mindset – in an engaging and gamified manner.
• Build team spirit and connectedness
Solution & Execution
The entire engagement was conceived in two parts:
• Four game-based team challenges followed by a debrief and reflections. These were run as VILTs (Virtual Instructor Led Trainings). The learning was brought alive through participant sharing post the experience, in line with Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle.
• Highly engaging wellness challenges that were executed across 3 days in an asynchronous mode (which means each participant could take it at any time during the day according to his or her convenience) to foster relatedness. This was conceived and delivered through a mobile app to the phones of the individuals.
How the themes were brought alive:
• Collaboration and Growth Mindset:
The BOMS Challenge is a relentless, non-stop race to the finish line that pushes team members to both collaborate and push their own comfort zones.
• Curiosity:
The Map The City Challenge set up for the client in London, nudged participants to engage with their own curiosity to uncover and unravel new sights and answers!
• Critical Thinking:
By getting into an Escape Room which challenged them as individuals and as a collective, the importance of critical thinking was brought alive for participants.
• Resilience and Survival Skills
Citius. Altius. Fortius. The motto of the Olympics – but executed virtually, through the Digital Olympics, brought alive both resilience and survival skills in team members.
• Connectivity and Bonding
The finale activity inspired participants to connect and bond by getting them to dance like nobody is watching through the Happy Feet Challenge!
Some snapshots from the app
The engagement was complemented by a live leaderboard at the individual and team level and an activity feed to keep the momentum and excitement going all through the engagement.
Some participant reflections after each game-based activity (verbatim):
How did you ensure you took everyone along during the activity?
• By putting forth the opinions by everyone
• By helping anyone who was left behind
• What did you do to ensure you are able to upgrade your skills?
• I got out of my comfort zone and performed activities that I don’t do usually
When faced with an obstacle, what did you do differently to overcome it?
• With wider perspectives, things can be different. And this can help us to draw conclusions
• We were thinking about the different possibilities that can happen.
• By retracing our steps and seeing where we went wrong
• We figured the alternative way
How did you evaluate different arguments within your team?
• By understanding teammates, because we all have same goal to reach
• We discussed about the views that the other teammate had and then went to the conclusion
What factors did you consider before nominating?
• Considering the interest of every team member
• Divided according to the capability and made sure each of us gets equal opportunity
Impact
With 200 participants, spread across 20 teams made a whopping 10,122 submissions.
We also asked the participants how they liked the format and the activities. Here’s what they said:
On a scale of 1 – 5, 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, please let us know how you liked the activities.
• 80% respondents rated 5
• 19% respondents rated 4
What are some of the things you really liked?
Team building activities and Human Story books
It’s really hard to name 1 thing. Everything had its own importance, and every activity instilled a new value in me.
To build the excitement, here are some of the customized team logos we created:
