Tag: Case Study
Program
Pre-workshop engagement | A 14-day experience followed by a virtual team building activity
Background
With the Pandemic still in full force, employees have been required to stay confined in their homes for more than a year now. The monotony of staying at one place and not being able to meet with friends and colleagues had created an understandable strain in most peoples’ lives. While a few in-house virtual activities were planned earlier, it did little to change the mundane situation.
Objective
The objective of this 14-day pre-workshop journey was hence to:
• Break the monotony of the work from home situation
• Boost the team’s engagement
• Build team spirit and cohesiveness
Solution & Execution
The entire engagement was conceived in two parts:
1. The 14-day gamified engagement was designed to be run asynchronously through an app. This built the much needed momentum.
2. For the finale activity, a virtual escape room with multiple story lines running in parallel was proposed.
To ensure everyone got onboard, a small kick-off was executed at the start of the 14-day engagement that helped build the anticipation and excitement for the journey ahead.
Once the engagement got started, the momentum kept snowballing from Day 1. Initially hesitant to share much, the participants looked at each other as a source of inspiration and with each passing day, the votes, comments on submissions and consequent participation only increased.
There was a new challenge launched every alternate day. The challenges were curated such that it engaged the entire team with something for everyone. The challenges were curated around one basic theme – to get to know each other better.
The activity culminated with a mega event of (7 parallel storylines) virtual escape room.
With so much energy already built, the only fitting ending was with a video capturing all the fun and epic moments through this journey of 14 days plus the mega event.
Some snapshots from the app
Impact
With 56 participants, spread over 7 teams with 16 challenges made a whopping 726 completions. The engagement was complemented by a leaderboard which kept the competition on and an activity feed which kept the engagement going.
Some tangible benefits:
• The participants were able to connect with one another at a deeper level
• They were engaged and were looking forward to each day for it held a new, unknown activity
This is what our client stakeholder from the Tech major had to say about the entire engagement:
10/10. 2 weeks of fun ! Loved it. Thank you to the whole team for making this virtual event memorable for us! It certainly rekindled our team spirit and bonding. And well done to all teams! Despite being Zilwa Confis in this covid period where Mcnuggets are scarce, you stayed as Cool as Panthers and completed all the challenges with distinction. Keep flying Sky High like Pegasus. May the Lightning Bringer spirit always keep you engaged ! We also asked the participants how they liked the engagement activities and if they would like to rate it on a scale of 1-10, and this is what some of them had to say: • Awesome, interesting and challenging.. Keep this spirit
• You made us wait for a challenge impatiently everyday
• Awesome and fun experience!
• Concept – 10 – Fantastic activity during confinement for team bonding. Engagement of FocusU – 10 Challenges – 10 App perf – 9.5 – it is marginal compare to how we enjoyed it… totally worth it
• Thank you for bringing out our craziness and raising our spirit with these challenges
• It has been a very amazing week. The challenges helped a lot and the made the difficult times a lot easier. Got into some good habits and discovered new things. Amazing Concept.
• I would say a 10/10! ‘La salle d’evasion” has brought up team engagement at its core and made us motivated each day to do something new. I feel sad that we’ve reached the end but was great fun! Thank you FocusU
• FocusU made me do thing i never thought I’d do, so for this it deserves a 10/10 Very interesting platform
Download this Case Study
Program
Teleflex India | New Leader Assimilation
Objective
Assimilating a new leader into a team in a manner that the team gets to know the leader in a deeper way and the leader also gets a better sense of his team members.
Solution
The team had a new leader who had moved in recently. He had also recruited many of the leadership team members recently. As this new team was coming together at the start of a new journey, there was a need for the team to know and understand each other better in order to synergize for producing better results.
Working closely with the HR Business Partner we decided on a few things:
1) While this was a very important intervention for the team, they did not want this to be done in a very serious tenor. “Fun at work” was after all, one of their core values!
2) The session had to give the participants a tangible language by which they could better interface with each other’s strengths and differences.
Basis these two key inputs, we decided to anchor the workshop design around a psychometric tool. The tool of choice was Emergenetics, since it was something that participants could very easily relate to and its colour coding gave a language which everyone could easily adopt even after the workshop. One other very tangible benefit that Emergenetics has over other psychometric tools is that, post the workshop – all the learning and insights are captured in the form of a very handy app that each participant could always refer to. Participants could also use the app for a quick understanding of how their preferences would play out against the dynamic of another person in the team.
The workshop itself was conducted in a signature FocusU style of leveraging the Kolb’s Experiential methodology. This meant that the intense discussions about preferences, behaviors and thinking styles were punctuated with activities that were light and yet powerful enough to be used as props for the debriefs.
In the many times that we have run New Leader Assimilation workshops, we have often also run a very interesting activity called the Hot Seat, that gives the team members a much deeper insight into the personality of the leader. It also helps builds bridges between the leader and his team – since it brings out the human angle to the person behind the persona too.
Impact:
This is what the leader Rajeev Nagi (The Managing Director of Teleflex India) had to say about the intervention:
“At the very outset, I would like to thank Focus on behalf of my management team for having organised a memorable team-building program for the Teleflex India management team, and for our senior leadership team.
As the leadership team of a fast paced medical devices company in India, we have an arduous, and at the same time- an immensely enjoyable challenge, of consistently out-performing the industry in India by a significant degree. In parallel, we have to ensure that the task of organisation and culture building continues, given our long history of having existed in India as a rather ‘placid’ joint venture company where any kind of change was an exception! Put both together, and you have the perfect situation of an organisation that really needs change management, and needs to build a team that works closely together with high levels of synergies.
While team building is a long journey for any organisation that wants to pursue it in letter and in spirit, what team FocusU managed to achieve in a day for us was to act like a ‘catalyst’. You managed to run a deft script designed to make us think, understand ourselves better- as individuals, and as a collective, and helped us understand our individual and collective inflexion points that would help unlock our untapped potentials. All this- in a day’s work!
Thanks once again for organising a workshop high on energy, and the ‘fun’ quotient: It resonated very well with our core value of ‘Fun at work’!”
Download this Case Study
Program
A gamified workshop experience to understand unconscious bias and D&I.
Objective
• While D&I has always played a major role in driving innovation and results, this was cemented as one of the key values for this organization, only
recently.
• Hence, the objective of the program was to introduce and make participants aware of the six prevalent unconscious biases that exist in teams.
Audience
• This program was designed for the entire leadership team with 250+ leaders from all business units of the company participating.
Solution & Execution
The entire execution was planned through a combination of engagement on an app and a video conferencing platform.
A gamified solution was designed on the app with an interesting storyline of ‘the chamber of secrets.’ On the day of the intervention, participants were sent to breakout rooms of a virtual meeting platform and challenged to crack clues that would help restore a ruined ancient monument.
To set the context and as a prelude to the workshop, participants were requested to go through some curated content related to D&I. This also
enabled to get the participants to immediately relate to the gamified content and for us to build momentum from the start.
On the day of the workshop, the context was set, the participants were split into teams and then put in breakout rooms. Each room had the same
objective – to solve the clues in the shortest possible time. As participants began solving the clues, they were for themselves, also uncovering the widely prevalent unconscious biases, one at a time.
The activity was interspersed with reflective questions. These nudged participants to think about any behavior that they would like to change/
eliminate/ incorporate in their own lives. The whole engagement was finally culminated with a debrief that brought all the learning together in the
organizational context.
Some snapshots from the app
Impact
While the participants had a fun and engaging experience with each other in the breakout rooms, there were several intangible benefits too.
Participants reflected on how they would change their behavior. Some of the participant inputs that we received are stated here verbatim:
• I will listen to new ideas with an open mind – even if I do not agree with the person
• I will never create stereotypes and prejudices only on looks and other useless traits.
• Check myself before applying any horn or halo effect. Don’t judge a book by its cover
• I will focus on the facts and data and remind myself of biases
• Unconscious biasness is difficult to leave behind but not impossible, will try to not look for similar to me effect
• I will monitor my own behavior, question my own decisions and drive a culture where there is Diversity and everyone feels Inclusive
• Giving talent an opportunity to flourish and recognizing that strength comes when different races, religion, ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, nationalities and social statues work together. This is true inclusion and diversity for me
• Don’t judge the employees basis their past performance. Measure them on objective and realistic goals.
We also asked the participants how they liked the gamified activity and if they would like to rate it on a scale of 1-5, and this is what they had to say:
• Brilliant – more than 5
• Rocking game !!
• Excellent and interesting
• 5- it’s been a great activity
• 5; nice new experience of get connected on virtual platform
This is what our client stakeholders from the company, had to say about the entire engagement:
Client stakeholder, Head of Learning, Talent & OD
Focus U team, Big thanks for facilitating and designing this engaging activity. Our leaders and managers had a fabulous experience with the collaboration and competitiveness.
Client stakeholder, D&I Lead
THANK YOU to the FocusU team ! It isn’t easy to engage a group of 250 + managers. And you did it awesomely well.
Download this Case Study
Program
Khaitan & Co | Pathfinder : Digital onboarding journey using microlearning and gamification.
Background
The objective of this exploratory virtual learning journey was to onboard the 48 Law Associates by :
● Introducing them to the Firm, its inception and history
● Enable them to know each other and develop as a cohort
● Solve engaging challenges while knowing the Firm
● Complement the virtual learning sessions through engaging activities and reinforcements
With the Pandemic still active, new Associates had to be onboarded virtually – while they continued to work from home. The virtual onboarding, delivered through an app, was built on an engaging storyline centered around travel. The Associates board a plane, complete check-in formalities and visit multiple locations in India. Read on to see how the journey unfolds.
Solution & Execution
The 7 – Week Journey was designed to ensure that the Associates progress gradually through a journey. We began with brief history of the Firm before proceeding to more complex topics and challenges, all the while, using an engaging storyline.
Below is a brief outline of the journey.
Let us take a deeper look at each of the 7 weeks – the content covered and the storyline that we used in the app.
Week 1 :
The Pathfinder journey began a week before the Associates were due to join the Firm. This was to ensure that Associates felt more connected with each other and also a little more confident before they joined and interacted with some key stakeholders.
Content Covered :
● Introduction to fellow Associates
● Welcome Message from Director HR
● History of the Firm
● Employee Engagement Initiatives
● Messages from Associates of Last Year
● Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives of the Firm
Virtual Journey on the App :
● Associates are welcomed onboard a flight where they share selfies with their home workspaces. They visit 3 cities – Kolkata, Delhi and Bengaluru – in the same order that the respective offices in these cities were established by the Firm. They learn about the Firm as they move from one location to the other.
● As part of the ‘In-flight Entertainment’, Associates binge watch a series where they hear the Associates from last year talk about their life at Khaitan & Co, the culture and tips on how to approach their first year.
● Associates were engaged in interesting activities such as talking about the talents they pursue, movies that describe them, sharing details of their family members, painting unique handprints and participating in the polls and quizzes.
On the day of joining, the Regional HRs of the firm commented on how prepared the Associates seemed to be. As part of a team call, some of the newly joined Associates were quizzed and the remaining team members were pleasantly surprised about how well prepared they were. The Associates also complimented the onboarding journey thus far and were looking forward to more.
Below are some snapshots from the app from Week 1 of Pathfinder :
Week 2 :
In Week 2, Associates had already joined the Firm. Through the day, they attended virtual learning sessions wherein they listened to key stakeholders from the Firm and built their capability in specific areas. In the evening, they were asked to use the app to check – in, share insights and more. By triggering recall, learning ensued.
Content Covered :
● Introduction to the Firm
● Learning & Development Function
● Office policy and essentials | Work from Home
● Knowledge Management Policy
● Timesheet
● Khaitan & Co Style Guide
● ERGO & Publications
Virtual Journey on the App :
● Associates set up camp in a forest while attending virtual sessions to build capability as Associates of Khaitan & Co.
● Associates returned to the App ‘basecamp’ at the end of the day, shared their key takeaways from the day and played some puzzles which refreshed the concepts.
● One of the days, they also recognized the role of the buddy (assigned to them by the HR) and connected with them with an introductory email.
Below are some snapshots from the App :
Weeks 3 & 4 :
Content Covered :
● Career Aspirations and key experiences
● P.O.S.H
Virtual Journey on the App :
● Associates were invited to undertake a trek to a summit which closely represented their journey to fulfill their career aspirations. As they try to brave the summit, they discuss their strengths, areas they would like to improve and key experiences which can help them move closer to their aspirations. All the while, we draw parallels to their trek : the summit they want to reach, the cliffs they foresee and the trails they wish to choose.
● After the trek – the Associates moved on in their journey and they decide to make a pitstop at a village where they solve a couple of instances related to Prevention of Sexual Harassment. The villagers are thrilled with the insights from the Associates.
Below are some snapshots from Weeks 3 &4 of the Pathfinder Journey :
Weeks 5 & 6 :
Content Covered :
● CLE Credit Policy
● Time Sheet Policy
● Style Guide
Virtual Journey on the App :
● Associates play a friendly match of cricket with the villagers and answer quizzes and puzzles related to CLE and Time Sheet policies.Very soon, they realized that their cars have been stolen, while they were busy playing and they have to find a way to reach the next destination.
● The villagers offer to help them but only if the Associates help them once more. Associates use their skills to decipher an encrypted manuscript. Once the Associates complete this, the villagers award them with an alternative mode of transportation – mules! With no other option, the Associates load their luggage and start moving towards the next destination – which is in fact a spot for treasure hunt!
● Alibaba has hidden a century old treasure in the caves. Will the associates be able to solve the puzzles in each cave to retrieve this treasure? Through a series of puzzles based on the Style Guide, Associates spot errors in the emails, redundant words, appropriate citations and other important skills that are critical for them to get started.
Below are some snapshots from Weeks 5 & 6 of the Pathfinder Journey :
Week 7 :
Content Covered :
● Summary & Closure
● Feedback
Virtual Journey on the App :
● After retrieving the treasure hidden by Alibaba (which was infact the values of KCO), Associates head on to their final spot – a beautiful scenic spot by a waterfall
● They reminisce their journey this far, share their favorite moments and share their feedback.
Below are some snapshots of Week 7 of the Pathfinder Journey :
Impact
There was good engagement on the journey from Day one. 48 Associates participated in the journey which had a total of 73 Challenges. And we had a total of 1659 completions. The learning journey was complemented by a leaderboard which kept the competition on and an activity feed which kept the engagement going.
Other tangible benefits that we saw were with respect to the preparedness of the Associates before they joined the Firm. It also helped the Associates to get to know each other at a deeper level despite being caught in the virtual world and this is a significant point. It will play a big role in how the Associates develop as a cohort within the Firm.
Below are some things that we heard from the Associates who participated in the journey :
Q : A moment in the Pathfinder journey that really stayed with you
“The beginning of it. Suddenly getting a mail that the firm wants us to play games. Then slowly realizing the intent behind it.”
“Quizzes about different cities/offices”
“A moment in the Pathfinder journey that really stayed with me is the day when we all were allotted mentors. I had no mentor back in law school and in my first year, the initial two months were so difficult. The moment I realized I had good seniors made me feel hopeful about the fact that I won’t get lost because I have someone to look up to know what is right and how to go about things”
“The overall effort put into this entire journey and the information about the culture of this firm will stay with me.”
Q : A challenge that you really liked :
“The puzzles were definitely my favorite challenges.”
“I liked the challenges which had crosswords to solve.”
“Make a funny face challenge”
“The one where we had to put our hand imprint.”
Q : Any emotions that you felt as you took this journey
“Excited, happy and ready”
“I was very confused initially. Things made some sense in between. I am still learning but right now I know stuff which seemed completely alien. That feeling of being able to navigate is peaceful.”
“Awe and wonder at the talent of colleagues. May it be art or just the way they use their words or even how everyone interpreted a challenge in a very similar manner or were poles apart in the submissions.”
“I would say I discovered that it helps to share and learn about others, no matter how different they are to you.”
Q : Anything else?
“The way the first week and month was planned was incredible. It worked as a great transition into the fast-paced corporate world we now find ourselves engulfed in. The team at KCO has put in tremendous effort in welcoming us into the firm and I couldn’t be more grateful!”
“Thank you for putting in this effort and ensuring our transition from university to work, in this virtual world, has been seamless.”
“I felt really connected with my colleagues, even though I have not met most of them. It was an overall excellent experience!”
“I’d like to thank the entire team for arranging this for us. Thank you for your effort, thought and time. I absolutely enjoyed the whole induction process. It couldn’t have been better looking forward to seeing you all in person :)”
Download this Case Study
Program
Induction program done virtually
Objective
To plan a virtual team building session for the summers interns of PVMI as part of their induction with the objective of they getting to know each other on an informal level
Solution
The HR Manager of PVMI approached us for this. The discussions had started before the lockdown started. At that time the plan was to run an activity at their office. After the lockdown started and running face to face workshops was not an option, we quickly got together as a team to brainstorm virtual alternatives. After a couple of hours, a new activity ‘
Knowing Me Knowing You’ was born. We pitched the plan to the client and they instantly liked it.
The key idea of the activity was to get the new team members to know each other better – at an informal level. As future colleagues, knowing different facets of others (their aspirations, fears, hobbies, achievements, dreams, values etc.) deeply helps in establishing an instant connection between new inductees. Working together hence becomes much easier.
We worked closely with the client to do the pre-program work, that was shared with the participants along with a zoom (platform client choose to run this session on) invite. Participants were asked to come prepared and come with an open mind.
The group was pre-divided into teams by the client and the list was shared with us.
<!–On the day of the Masterclass, the client himself moderated the session along with the FocusU advisor. The 60 minutes session by Simon Taufel was extremely well received. The session was capped by an open Q&A session that saw great participation from the audience.
–>
Execution of the activity:
Time – 15 mins
• At the scheduled time, participants logged in to the session via the Zoom link
• The facilitator started the session by welcoming the participants and kicked off the session with a few fun virtual energizers!
• The group was divided into 4 teams of 5 participants each (as was pre-decided by Perfetti).
• The lead facilitator then briefed the participants about the activity, along with objectives, instructions & end goals
Time – 35 mins
• Each team was sent to the breakout rooms where they did the sharing in a certain manner that was briefed to them.
• After the sharing in the breakout rooms, all the teams we re-congregated.
• The facilitator then enquired with the teams about the strategy they had adopted to ensure maximum sharing within their groups. Interesting methods emerged
• The participants were then introduced to a customised design software and were given a quick crash course on the same
• Each participant was then tasked to make a creative profile or slambook of sorts for one other member in their team using the information they gathered during the sharing
Time – 15 mins
• We downloaded those profiles from the editing software and shared them with those for whom they were created. Participants were asked to share in about 30 seconds – how they feel about their profiles.
• The session was then debriefed around some values of the organization.
A sample profile that was created during the activity:
Impact
Here is what Dibyo Choudhary,HR Manager, PVMI had to say after this workshop:
“I would like to congratulate and thank you for helping PVMI with such an engaging and fun session for the summer interns as part of their Induction. You already had various options for the session in mind when we were planning for the induction in our office. But when Covid19 situation led to the lockdown, you were able to quickly suggest us other options, which could be done on a virtual manner. It was wonderful working with the team who were ready with the entire flow of the program from Day 1 and were able to execute it exactly how we had planned the sessions to be. The session held true to what we at PVMI stand for – Fun, Connecting and Enriching.
Even in a virtual session they were able to maintain the mood as we have got used to during FocusU physical sessions. Last but not least, I would like to thank them also for helping us with such a beautiful video and posters of the interns. They were always available to help us make the video and the posters look perfect. The entire management of PVMI was really appreciative of what we had to show at the end of the session.
Thanks to the entire team of FocusU who made it possible and helped us in giving a very differentiated experience to our Interns”
Download this Case Study
Program
Unilever Bangladesh | Influence Workshops
Objective
A series of three workshops at Dhaka, Chittagong & Dhaka targeted at the entry level cadre of Unilever Bangladesh. The workshops were designed for executives who handled around 7 field level DSO’s. The intervention was intended as an opportunity for energizing this group and arriving at a common understanding around what would make them exercise Influence better & scale up to be Leaders.
Solution
Leadership in the context of these employees was about exercising Influence on the teams they worked with and with external stakeholders. The whole workshop was hence constructed as a 2-day intervention woven around the Cohen Bradford Influencing Model.
Through the use of experiential activities – melded with open discussion amongst the participants, the workshop brought out the key learning as mentioned above, in a facilitative manner.
The methodology of addressing a serious topic with deep insights in a playful manner worked extremely well in the context of these employees.
Impact:
Here is what Taslima Hasnat Jaigirder, the HR Business Partner of the team had to say about the whole intervention:
“I have never received such overwhelmingly positive feedback from each and every participant before for any other program! Even the typical critics came proactively to thank me for organizing such training. But the real credit goes to FocusU of course. Unlike typical training filled with slides, theories and handouts, FocusU brings in a different way of learning while enjoying participation. Their use of simple activities to relate with key learning points makes learning more effective. No wonder participants found it instantly convenient to identify key learning points and action plan at the end of the session. Moreover, the level of energy, positivity and enthusiasm the trainers exerted within the participants was brilliant. I believe FocusU India has more such learning interventions to offer which Unilever Bangladesh Ltd will be keen to explore. We look forward to building a lasting relationship with one of the most dynamic training solution providers. All the best to FocusU for their future endeavour.”
Download this Case Study
Program
As the organisation navigated through the Pandemic, one of the challenges Avery Dennison, like every other organisation, faced was to keep the momentum going for the team. Avery Dennison looked to run an APAC-wide initiative, sustained for six months. The format that emerged was that of a competitive, high-profile, team-based, sport-like event. The intent of the event was to create engagement, excitement and high spirits at times, where virtual connects replaced in-person employee interactions.
Objective
The brief that was shared with us was this: “Create an opportunity for cross-cultural relationships & collaboration through a sustained campaign of fun, team building engagements for a 3000+ employee base, spread across many countries in the Asia-Pacific region.”
The objective was based on the following premises:
Engagement – With so much changing so fast each day in these times, boosting morale and bringing the team together have become all the more important. When a team exhibits good morale, there is excitement and enthusiasm generated. Engagement in that sense becomes critically important.
Collaboration – When relationships between employees are strong, they are better able to communicate, work together, problem solve and manage conflicts. The activity is hence to be designed to strengthen relationships and collaboration in these challenging times.
Team building – Virtual team building can reinforce positive behaviour when working from home. A remote team building event gives employees the time to get inspired and come together as one team. It gives teams an hour to forget about the outside world and motivates the team to keep calm and carry-on working.
Solution
Engaging a large base of employees spread across different geographical regions has its own challenges. At the design stage, we gave ourselves a few broad guard rails within which to design the intervention:
• Something that would be ongoing for 6 months
• It couldn’t be one-off events. There had to be an all-encompassing story.
• The excitement had to be sustained in the period between the actual events too
• All activities had to work for a multi-cultural audience spread across APAC
• The whole intervention had to end on a high!
And hence was conceived, The Avery Dennison Premier League (APL)
APL was a 6-month long tournament where representatives from seven team came together once every month, to engage in a virtual team engagement activity. Like any large-scale sporting event, a live leader board was put up on a common virtual platform accessed through an app, to keep the individual and team scores ticking, along with their heartbeats! The platform also served as a buzzing social-media like channel for the entire Avery Dennison APAC employees. Apart from the live leader board, there were challenges, photos and videos that got posted after each event and employees were engaged by liking and commenting, thus sustaining the buzz.
Executiion
• The entire APAC team was divided into 7 Teams for the whole year – each with their own unique branding, logo & war cry!
• Team Leaders were encouraged to create a video clip for inspiring their teams!
• Nominations were sought for the position of team captains.
• The chosen captains were tasked to weave their teams together and motivate them with a Unique War Cry!
• Branding was accentuated with badges, Templates etc.
• Every month on a scheduled day, these teams would virtually compete with each other over different team engagement activities that were lined up for that day. Whoever from the team was nominated, would play that day.
• A Dynamic Leader-Board would keep track of team scores on the year-to-date basis, keeping the competition always alive!
• The entire engagement would culminate with a day-long Grand Finale & Award ceremony!
The Teams:
To keep the excitement going, exciting logos were designed for each of the teams for them to engage with and build pride around their shared team identity.
The Sport:
The activities were carefully chosen keeping in mind the diversity of the audience and sequenced in a way that participants were kept guessing what challenge would come their way next.
Take a look at what the teams had to encounter:
1. Body, Mind & Sole Challenge
Think of it like the Ironman fitness challenge. The buzzer goes off and the action starts! A series of challenges – one after the other, that engage different aspects – Body, Mind & Sole. It is pure fun with the quirky challenges which make players get over inhibitions and let the fun side of their personalities show!
2. The Escape Room Challenge
The players are transported into a dramatic mythical world of dragons, magic, djinns and demons. Teams solve clues, puzzles, take tough decisions, and solve challenges as a team navigating through a nail biting and spine-tingling plot!
3. Map the City Challenge
A city filled with sights and sounds, museums and monuments, heritage and modernity. This could be just any of the modern cities around the world. The task for teams is clear and crystal: identify a set of different spots across the city and decipher the clues that would help unravel the not so hidden mysteries there!
4. The Quizimodo Challenge
Your colleague has been captured and kept in a lonely looking caravan in a deserted beach. Your team has to navigate through multiple stages to reach out to your friend and set him free. The only way forward is by solving quizzes!
5. Crime Scene Investigation
There has been a murder in the premises and your team has been called to investigate – can you piece together all the pieces of evidence to nail the murderer?
6. Countdown to Sixty
Inspired by the TV game, “Minute to win it” – this is one challenge filled with excitement and nail-biting moments as participants battle it out in various 60-second challenges.
7. The Digital Olympics Challenge
A perfect test of energy (roaring war cry!), mental agility (solving puzzles, riddles with cryptic clues), and physical endurance (squats, push-ups and a face-off planks finals – where the last person standing wins!
Here is a quick snapshot of the whole engagement:
Impact:
From the kick-off to the closing ceremony – this was one long party for the participants, with non-stop excitement, great competitive spirit, buzzing virtual channels and all eyes on the leaderboard! All the monthly engagements were very well contested from employees all over the APAC region.
The periodic teasers sent as mailers to the teams kept the excitement going and the nominations pouring in for participation. The excitement and anticipation peaked as the great finale approached in November, with everyone rallying behind their teams to inspire them to win the APL.
This is what Ms. Nivedita Debnath, Director, Learning & OD|APAC, had to say:
“Thank you so much to you and your team for a wonderful APL 1.0 journey. All the activities (both live events and Gametize) were designed and managed perfectly. We look forward to a similar partnership with your team for APL 2.0.”
Here are few other testimonials:
“The Avery Premier League has been such a great experience to be a part of, and I am so honoured to have been voted captain of the Grey Leopards. It’s been such a fun and comprehensive adventure, and given the current climate, it’s been a great way to engage with others around the world! The games have been so well thought out and provided a space for entertainment and engagement for those of us involved. Overall it’s been a fantastic experience!”.
– Sophie Rayside, Sales & Mktg Coordinator, Australia.
“With most of us working from home right now, the APL games have brought us back together each month in a social way. The games are well thought out, challenging, but most of all, fun. I always look forward to each session.”
– Keith StMart, Regional Telecom Lead, AP.
“I would like to congratulate and thank the L&OD team for helping us with such an engaging and fun event- APL. These sessions gave us a chance to meet and know people across APAC, and have fun together as a team. This will also help in future when we reach out to these people for work-related projects. All the activities were well planned and really brought the team spirit in us. Overall, it’s been a fantastic fun and learning experience!”
– Suhas Bhatia, GRS, India.
“The engagement on the app gave us an opportunity to know each other at a personal level and to build diverse relationships”.
– Mohit Kukreja, Segment Dev Mgr, India.
“The whole APL activity was filled with lots of fun, interactions and cherished moments. Not forgetting the challenges, we have to complete every time it is posted on the app. Overall, it was like taking a break from work once in a while and getting connected with people around the region”.
– Gomathi Sollamuthu, Executive Asst cum Admin Malaysia.
Program
HUL Market Immersion And Team Engagement Workshop
Objective
To engage 120 professionals from the Homecare division of HUL in an activity that serves the purpose of both team building and spreading brand awareness.
Solution
The opportunity was brought to us by one of our favourite event partners – Shobiz, who were working closely with HUL on this engagement. The brief they came to us was as stated above.
While exploring various options along with Shobiz, we figured that in our discussions about the home care products and how they get used, the word ‘housewife’ cropped up several times. This led to a question – How can we make a difference for the housewives belonging to lower-middle-class families? And from there was born “The Home Make-over Challenge”.
The broad idea was this: To identify houses in the city from the lower middle class strata and challenge the team, broken into smaller units to give them a make-over using mostly (but not restricted to) HUL Homecare products.
The roll-out involved different steps:
⦁ Step 1: Ideation
How do we deliver to the client brief and yet bring something more to it? Some fizz as like to call it. In this case, it came from the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) angle of the whole engagement.
⦁ Step 2: Planning & Preparation
Ideas are dime a dozen. At the end of the day, it comes down to the rigour in planning and preparation. We set out on the streets of Jaipur, where the HUL team offsite was scheduled to do a recce of possible households who would be amenable to an engagement like this. It was a revelation of sorts. The trust levels in our society is so low because of people always trying to pull a fast one, that we had to contact 3 times as many houses to shortlist and identify 10 houses, which the teams would work on.
⦁ Step 3: Getting our co-conspirators on board
At home, the wife is generally the boss. To be able to pull off something so audacious, we had to first get the husbands to secretly collaborate with us. Brave husbands are few and far between. And yet we did finally manage to find this intrepid species. Their role as co-conspirators was to find plausible reasons for sending their wives out during the make-over of their homes. From visits to beauty parlors, shopping, to complimentary coupons – which were arranged by the HUL team.
⦁ Step 4: Actual Execution
Vision without action is fantasy. So it came down to the D-Day execution. On the day of the workshop – the session started with some interesting energizers to get the ball rolling. Once the team was sufficiently energized we randomly split them into 10 groups and handed them their challenge for the next 4 hours. Jaws dropped in awe and anticipation. But the excitement was palpable. We knew that this would be one of our most joyful experiences so far.
All the teams had pre-designated houses and were shown pre-captured video of the house that further helped them broadly plan all that they needed to procure for the makeover.
Each team was handed a virtual budget, which they used to buy the material from the shops we had set up with all the household material that was pre-purchased. This included curtains, flower vase, lamps, bed sheets, cushion covers, plants, cleaning mop, Vim, Rin, Domex, etc.
After the procurement, teams headed out with a mission to transform someone’s house. The next 3 hours saw the teams getting their hands dirty in the execution of this holistic activity and giving their best. The time pressure was real here because the woman of the house can be kept away from her kingdom, but only for a limited period of time. Work happened at a frantic pace, with everyone working as a team.
Finally, came the moment of truth. The housewives knocked on the doors and the sheer look of surprise, delight, and wonder on the faces of the women when they entered the house made this challenge worth all the effort. All this was of course recorded discreetly by our team with handycams.
Impact
Here is what Mayur Thakkar, the Account Director, Shobiz Experiential Communications had to say after this workshop:
As the name says F-Fantastic, O-Outstanding, C-Confident, U-Useful, S-Safety – I have been working with this Team from the past 4 years and trust me they have surpassed the Quality & the way Team Building Activities that are conducted. They get into the minutest details at all times, they plan well in advance and manage the entire event with so ease, they you really don’t have to ask anything what’s going to happen next. An amazing Team with brilliant concept and assured outcomes.
Download this Case Study
What is a Masterclass?
A Masterclass is an immersive online experience, where participants learn from the industry’s best experts.
Avery Dennison: Background
A global company with locations in over 50 countries, Avery Dennison employs approximately 36,000 people worldwide. Avery Dennison is a materials science and manufacturing company specializing in the design and manufacture of a wide variety of labeling and functional materials that enhance branded packaging, carry or display information that connects the physical and the digital and improve customers’ product performance. Avery Dennison leads in serving a vast array of industries worldwide, including home and personal care, apparel, e-commerce, logistics, food and grocery, pharmaceuticals, and automotive.
Objective
Innovation within a well-run organization has always been a sure pathway to business success. With the recent disruptions brought about by the pandemic, innovation becomes crucial to staying afloat in today’s highly competitive world.
A leader in material science, Avery Dennison thrives on a culture of innovation. The client requested a methodology that taps the imagination of employees and opens the organization to diverse possibilities by bringing in an expert’s perspective. A Masterclass seemed the perfect fit!
Audience
To adapt and overcome the challenges of change, a program that fosters innovation in a fast-paced environment was designed for the LGM (Labelling & Graphic Material) Team, APAC with 300 participants.
Challenge
Engaging an audience of 300 virtually – all at once was a challenge. Hence, we recommended bringing in 2 experts to cover various facets of innovation.
Execution
FocusU recommended
Greg Orme:
To speak on building a culture of Innovation
Greg is an award-winning author, CEO, entrepreneur, and organizational change veteran who helps leaders thrive in a world of accelerating disruption through creative thinking, innovation, and entrepreneurial spirit.
Rajashree Rao:
To speak on driving Innovation for a sustainable world
Rajashree (Shree) is a globally acclaimed industry thought leader, visionary, advisor, principal consultant, and mentor in next-gen technologies – Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud Computing, Data Analytics, Robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), among many others.
Greg’s session threw light on why some organizations are innovative and others aren’t. He spoke about innovation mindsets and innovation strategies the teams could implement through different tools.
Shree sprinkled a unique perspective on how organizations can innovate while keeping the world and sustainability in check. She suggested the best practices that the organization can adopt while advancing in technology, busted myths, and also shared case studies where some organizations have succeeded in innovating for a sustainable world.
The client’s initial interaction with both the Masterclass speakers instilled them with confidence in the success of this dual Masterclass program, even before it took place.
Impact:
The Masterclass session was a massive success! The participants were thrilled and inspired by the interactive sessions delivered by Greg Orme and Rajashree Rao. The session was deemed valuable and garnered the praise of all 300 participants.
Testimonial:
A heartwarming testimonial from Sachdev Singh, L&OD Manager, LGM, APAC says it all. “I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation for providing us with some of the best speakers we could have during the Innovation Master Class Series that took place last year.“
Greg Orme who spoke about building a culture of Innovation was absolutely amazing in his delivery. He made his presence felt brilliantly and we also had some of our leaders appreciating him sharing how Innovation will engage with tech disruption to grow value in a world of constant disruption, discover ‘great problems’ to accelerate innovation, and experiment to learn, innovate and grow. Rajashree Rao who spoke about Driving Innovation for a Sustainable World was equally amazing. Speaking about the types of Innovation and why reconstructing and restructuring the Innovation model helped a lot of us to understand its purpose of it. She was powerful, and vocal and shared some great case studies.
Overall, I would like to say thank you once again for all your assistance, and looking forward to many more collaborations.
Explore Our Popular Masterclass
To know more, visit: FocusU Masterclass