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Program

Reed Manch Exhibitions | Leadership Development

Objective

To take the whole team through an immersive learning experience that would help all participants answer the question: “What is Everyday Leadership” and how does one exhibit it in their behaviors?

Solution

The workshop was carefully designed keeping the profile of all the participants in mind. We were clear that we did not want to introduce any esoteric Leadership model that participants wouldn’t relate to. Hence the whole intervention was designed around
The Leadership Challenge construct.

Instead of introducing a new theory, we started by asking participants to list down their own “Best leadership experience ever” regardless of whether it was in their corporate work at office or anywhere else – at home, school, college or public life. From the stories that naturally emerged, we put brought to life the “Five behaviors of exemplary leaders.”

The workshop brought home the point for participants that – Leadership is for everyone. It is not the private reserve of a few charismatic men and women. Leadership is actually a process ordinary people use when they are bringing forth the best from themselves and others. It highlighted to everyone that they could make extraordinary things happen by liberating the leader within themselves.

Through an immersive workshop experience that involved a mixture of introspection, discussion, debate, sharing of experiences, stories from around the world and experiential activities, FocusU brought to life the paradigm of Leadership in a language so simple that it made a difference to all participants who embarked on this enthralling journey.

Impact

Here is what Anuj Mathur, the Managing Director of Reed Manch Exhibitions had to say about the whole intervention:

“The Leadership workshop helped all of us to take a step back and analyse ourselves on the kind of leadership traits we have and that we don’t have. How we could all become better leaders and help others grow along with us. It has been the most effective workshop for multiple levels in our organization. It helped our Leaders shine. It focused on how leaders can put their thoughts together in a more efficient manner, take ownership and be united with the team . The training has been extremely beneficial, our people are more oriented and have a clear vision on how to work with their teams seamlessly to deliver best results. We got coached on “One Team One Dream” vision which really helped the staff to be on the same page while performing tasks. The fun quotient mixed with the tasks made it an enjoyable and knowledgeable experience.”

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Program

HUL North Regional Leadership Team (RLT) Journey

Objective

Charting a journey for the regional leadership team to help build a bond between each other (strengthen team effectiveness) and align the larger team towards a single goal

Solution

The team had a new leader who had just returned after a stint overseas. Some of the team members had also joined the team recently from various parts of HUL. There was a clear need to bring the team together and strengthen alignment.

Working closely with the HR Business Partner and the Leader, we first agreed on a few things:
1. Bringing the team together would not happen through one intervention. We agreed that this would be a “Team Journey” to be done through a series of interventions spread out over a period of time.
2. The journey of aligning the entire team should start from the top

The first workshop was a 2-day intervention done in an informal setting. The journey was kicked off with a session using the MBTI tool – since every journey starts with a better understanding of self. The tool also helped in understanding team dynamics, blind spots, conflict zones, communication preferences. All this is a safe, light atmosphere that encouraged exploration. This was followed by a self-disclosure exercise using the Johari construct. The intent was to build trust based on vulnerability. The session was kicked off by a truly authentic and heart touching sharing by the leader – who put forward his vulnerabilities in a candid manner. That set the tone for the rest of the day, with each story coming from a similar authentic core. By the end of the day – a web of connections had been built between the team members, without them even realizing it.

The next day, the team was introduced to Lego Serious Play. Through the immersive methodology that lends itself to stories and conversations, the team talked through its challenges and strengths. By the end of the day, they had arrived upon a 2 year vision for the team and also a guiding mantra and inspiring identity for themselves. The foundation for the team to succeed was perhaps set firmly on that day.

Through the next two years, we conducted a series of 6 different interventions. These included team cascades, further interventions with the RLT, cascading these team connect interventions deeper down into the managerial team, fun team experiences to create shared memories and team feedback sessions. To be with this team through their entire journey of Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing & Adjourning has been one of our most satisfying experiences as Facilitators.

Impact:

The first intervention we conducted was seen as so impactful that internally, for the next two years, those days were referred to as, “Historic Thursday- Friday”. It makes us blush but it makes us extremely proud too.

The team had a dream run of achieving outstanding business results and a complete turnaround in execution metrics for all functions across the region. They also picked up a majority of the internal awards across the organization.

Here is what Aanchal Grover, the HR Business Partner of the team had to say about the whole intervention, much after the journey: “This definitely has to be the most fulfilling stint of my HR career till date. Using people engagement, leadership and team effectiveness to fuel business turnaround and results upped my faith in the power of the ‘more human approach’ that I have always believed in.

That ‘historic Thurs-Fri’ truly created magic for us! That web of deep connections that we established then grew over time, and we saw what a group of united, committed and intelligent individuals can achieve as ‘One Team’. The FocusU team were true catalysts in this journey, they made a huge difference without making their presence felt. Their support, understanding of our requirements, empathetic approach and deep desire to make a real difference to us sets them apart and makes them truly unique players in their field. They are crusaders for the ‘more human approach’ in everything that they do which the world so needs at this point in time.

Most of us have moved on from that stint now, but the web of connections still holds strong, beyond roles, organizations and even country borders! We are proud of what we achieved together and to me personally, that’s a demonstration of the power of a truly engaged and connected business unit.

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Program

Pepsico | Innovation Workshop

Objective

To run the annual workshop for the team from the Pepsico Global Value Innovation Center around the theme of making Innovation happen.

Solution

This was a team chartered with coming up with disruptive innovations around capital equipment – that could be adopted by Pepsico globally to make the organization more competitive.

The team was unique in the sense that it had made a mark for itself by designing around customer needs rather than around technology. Also, it comprised a very small group of people – who had worked with external vendors in a hub and spoke arrangement, orchestrating the network for success. The team was led by a very senior and experienced leader – who gave us a challenging brief: To run an intervention around Innovation for this successful group focussed on Innovation!

The intervention was structured around cutting-edge thinking of that time around Innovation – The 10 faces of Innovation by Tom Kelly of IDEO.

The workshop was largely experiential in nature. It was designed in a manner so as to introduce a few new concepts that the participants could Learn, Practise and finally Implement too. Hence, the workshop took an approach of introducing concepts, allowing participants to “much over it” – and then pick out whatever they deemed to be relevant/workable for them in a practical way.

Impact:

Here is what Tanmay Vats, Vice President & Head, Pepsico Global Value Innovation Center had to say about the whole intervention:

“FocusU organized our first offsite in 2013. That they were the obvious choice for our second offsite in 2014 speaks for the impact they had made with their first. The Facilitators were amazing. Their affable personality and strong communication skills ensure a great connect with the participants thus leading to a universal participation. They have the ability to connect the content and activities to the unique challenges faced by the team thus making the content all the more relevant. Their passion & commitment rubs on the rest of the team too. It’s not about the content or activities. Those can be replicated by others. It’s what the FocusU team does with them which makes the experience so special. It’s a pleasure partnering with the FocusU team. We wish them all the best.”

 

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About the Client

The client makes it easy to understand and buy insurance. Their intent is to “demystify” insurance by explaining the jargon in a simple way and providing smart tools to help a user make the right choice. From search to purchase, the entire process can be completed online in just a few clicks.

Background

The client was looking for a way to embed the culture of giving continuous feedback amongst its leaders. Below are some details:

  • The organization is expanding rapidly and has further plans to do so; the HR Team would like to establish behaviors amongst new joinees that are aligned with the organisation’s culture.
  • The module/course should encourage employees to give feedback periodically and not wait for the annual appraisal cycle.
  • The organization wanted to enable managers and CXOs to learn how to create a psychologically safe environment for their employees to receive feedback actively.
  • During the appraisal process, the leaders wanted their teams to know the best way they can contribute to the organization and their personal growth – learning how to give impactful feedback was one of them.

To make feedback work as intended, everyone (managers and employees alike) must know that feedback is a win-win activity

Problem

To create a culture where giving feedback encourages constructive change within employees, and to do it in a timely manner in alignment with the performance appraisal process.

Solution

FocusU team offered a customizable and quick-to-learn approach: A self-paced course on ‘Giving Impactful Feedback.’

Why Self-Paced Learning?

The team specifically wanted a learning solution that:

    1. Gave employees the autonomy to learn at their own pace
    2. Enabled long-term knowledge retention amongst participants. The storified format of FocusU’s self-paced courses are highly engaging and appeals to the team.
    3. Did not limit the number of participants and was affordable for larger groups.

Execution

We customised a 60-90 minutes long self-paced course and shared it with 250+ managers (including CXOs) providing 30-day access to the course. The course was designed to empower managers to:

      • Understand the benefits of giving feedback to their team members
      • Practice ways of creating a safe space to share and receive feedback
      • Understand the art of listening actively
      • Enhance consciousness of biases while sharing feedback
      • Use the SBI framework to help managers share feedback

To ensure that the managers learn these points practically (and not just theoretically), we storified the course. This storified learning approach not only engaged learners but also challenged them to showcase their learnings by having to give feedback to the story’s protagonist.

At the end of the course, participants evaluated their newly-acquired knowledge by taking part in our application exercises (which are included in the course to encourage self-assessment).

Impact

      • Total Number of Participants: 382
      • Active Participants (Completed at least 1 challenge on the course): 140
      • Number of graduates (scored 75% in the course): 57/ 382
      • 28 participants reached out with their curiosity and queries after the completion of the course.
      • When asked how was their learning experience via our SPC (in terms of content, challenges, and application of the tips), the client and learners gave us an average rating of 4.52/5.

Participants shared their feedback in the following ways:

“What I understand is mostly we take feedback as a routine but used to missed out its importance. Now I understand the requirement part also of this”

“What I liked about the course was it had videos and it had examples and stories that can be relatable”

“I like the way it started and journey was so good and we can relate it with our daily exercise. I liked the story well as it help to understand the situation”

“It was really good.it makes me understand more valuable points and how to give feedback. Thank you team Focus U”

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Problem

Keeping employees’ mental health in mind, the organization’s management team requested an impactful program that not only protects and enhances employees’ overall mental health but also does that in a way that is engaging and time-efficient. As all employees could not commit the same amount of time at once, we created a solution that would require nuggets of time from each employee and encourage all employees to leverage the program at its best

Background

The objective of this program was to:

(a) Encourage mental wellbeing

(b) Introduce participants to various mental well-being practices such as gratitude, compassion, sleep schedules, and more

(c) To encourage the formation of sustainable habits

Solution and execution

Mental health is not only a complex issue to resolve but also very subjective. While employees want to be at work on the whole, some struggle with concentrating, while others have problems with juggling tasks or communicating effectively. To reap the benefits of the program, it was important for employees to have multiple support choices. Therefore, RamG Vallath, a wellness coach and a best-selling author, worked with the FocusU team to co-curate the entire program. Nine traits that are the bed-rock of mental well-being were converted into simple yet exciting challenges that were made available to the participants one day at a time, so as to encourage participants to spend a few minutes each day on their mental wellbeing.

These were:

    1. Gratitude
    2. Physical wellness
    3. Compassion
    4. Self-confidence
    5. Sense of humor
    6. Authenticity
    7. Peace of mind
    8. Personal Integrity
    9. A Passion-filled life

These challenges were spread across 25 days so as to ensure participants were not overwhelmed and could easily spend a few minutes every day consistently and consciously. The importance of each trait and all challenges in cultivating the trait were explained through short videos. As an example, here is how the first 3 challenges out of the 25 challenges turned out: Challenge 1: Thank one person who has contributed to your success. Focusing on gratitude, this challenge served as a great reminder to participants that they are not alone and that they have people – be it friends, family, colleagues – to who support them. Challenge 2: List down all the things you are grateful for. To bring light to their current situation, we challenged the participants to count their blessings and relive the joy of those blessings and strengths. Challenge 3: Identify one good thing that happened because of a bad experience. Participants were encouraged to view their bad experiences from a different perspective and realize how things fall into place. Some screenshots from the app:

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Impact

To understand the degree of impact, we requested participants to share their experiences with us. With 300+ active participants spread across 35 teams, we received an average feedback rating of 4.2 on a scale of 1 to 5. The application allowed for peer motivation through upvotes and peer comments, and was complemented by a team and a player leaderboard that kept the spirits high. We asked participants to share one element of the challenges they will take with them and continue to do in the future in professional and personal aspects. Here’s what the participants had to say: Thank a person for success Yoga challenge Meditation challenge Peace time Help a colleague Good thing from a bad experience Incedents & feelings Besides individual experiences, we also wanted to understand how relevant each of these 9 traits was. Here’s what participants mentioned:

Participant feedback (stated here verbatim):

  • Provokes us to think on things which we never do but is necessary, I like how people are engaged into the activities and talk about it during their free time.
  • This concept is really good thought to reduce the stress.
  • The concept is paving the way to create a cool and happy person.
  • Once again thanks to the team.
  • This program covered all subjects in our life.
  • This was very helpful to recall our old memories.
  • It’s very fun and energetic and always loved to do task Relaxation in between work Visibility of progress and scores.
  • The way of organized content to engage.
video-1
video-2
video-3

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About the Client

The client is a digital-first, life sciences commercialization company. It helps biopharmaceutical, emerging biotech, and medical device companies develop products, get them to the market, and grow their impact through the life cycle in a more effective, efficient, and modern way.

Problem

From the Cultural Lens- Culture plays an integral role in shaping organizational success. There’s no debate its effectiveness has only multiplied in the post-pandemic era.

During the pandemic, the organization underwent bouts of upheaval and transformation concerning resources, operations, systems, and more. To continue offering top-notch digital-first solutions and sustain growth in times of adversity, the client added resources (employees) from diverse cultural backgrounds across the globe. The team size doubled during this period. To effortlessly align all new joinees to its culture and values, a partnership was initiated with FocusU. The aim was to introduce and educate participants about the organization’s cultural credo; and familiarize them with behaviors that are encouraged.

However, the implementation was a challenge – primarily, the selection of a learning approach that not only teaches and familiarizes participants with the culture credo but does so in an engaging manner and; importantly, it also facilitates implementation of the newly-learned lessons immediately, while they are fresh in participants’ minds.

Solution

The client was very clear that the selected methodology be highly engaging. After much deliberation, it was decided to implement the same through a tech-based app, through which the content could be made available to employees in a gamified and story-based format. This approach encourages participants to think of solutions independently yet interact with other participants to implement the best solution promptly, making it engaging. A tech-based, scenario-driven gamified solution was also appropriate given the volume of competencies that needed to be covered and the intensity that was needed for a session such as this to be impactful. Further, to set the ball rolling and give all employees the right context, it was decided to initiate the process through virtual instructor-led training (VILT).

Other methodologies considered included self-paced courses and instructor-led training. However, both were discarded as those are time-heavy. Further, self-paced courses did not seem to elicit the right kind of engagement in this context. The organization was keen on a more efficient and effective approach.

Execution

The gamified solution was designed on an app with an interesting storyline called ‘The Awards Night.’ It involved participants nominating team members who have demonstrated the right behaviors, based on the organization’s culture, for an award. On the day of the VILT, participants were required to go through a video-based case study before putting up their nominations. They did this in groups, via breakout rooms of a virtual meeting platform, where they deliberated amongst themselves why they selected a particular employee over another. This discussion was key in facilitating an understanding of which behaviors are in line with the organization’s culture credo and which aren’t – that too, through examples of their own colleagues. The focus was not on the right answer but on the reasoning and thought process behind the nomination.

Audience

The program was designed for mid to senior-level employees. Roughly 2,000+ participants joined this program in groups of 50. Some snapshots from the web-enabled app

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Gamifying the solution turned out to be the right approach as it truly helped in engaging all participants, across groups – instead of relying entirely on a facilitator. Importantly, the discussions enabled the direct application of the knowledge – participants were able to apply the lessons learned then and there.

A key takeaway from the discussions was that team members are always a mix of positive and negative attributes and that there is always scope for improvement in certain facets. However, it is important to give feedback when there is a lapse just as it is important to recognize behaviors that stand out.

Participants also realized how it is important to use data so as to arrive at an unbiased decision; moreover, data also helps overcome individual perspectives and blind spots, which can highly influence the final nomination. Some feedback from participants themselves (stated here verbatim): – The scenarios presented as ‘feedback’ were in sync with real-life cases. – The gamification made the workshop more engaging. Conducting the activity individually and then as a group offered brilliant insights.

  • The gamified experience helped in understanding how some may excel and some may fall short in different aspects of work.
  • Understanding how different people perceive the same situation is essential for developing empathy.
  • Recognizing how having a balance of traits is very significant for growth. – Practically connecting the characteristics displayed in the case study to the organizational culture.
  • The perspective of how you as an employee might be perceived based on the various values that the culture credo has laid out.
  • It was an eye-opener in realizing specific values in people and not just having a rigid perception
  • It was refreshing and made us think outside the box.

Feedback

Participants from across the globe attended the workshop (India, USA, Europe, Mexico, etc). The gamified version was well received by all participants and garnered the appreciation of participants from various geographical backgrounds.

We also asked the participants about their overall experience on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being “not good” and 5 being “very good.”

  • Average feedback score for overall experience: 4.4
  • Average feedback score for graphics and navigation: 4.4
  • Average feedback score for gamification: 4.5

Train The Trainer

To make learning and development more sustainable for the batches to come, FocusU proposed TTT (Train The Trainer). Upon completion of 25 batches, the FocusU team identified and trained their trainers to carry the delivery further.

Testimonial

“The Culture Credo roll-out was a key initiative for us. It was equally important to make it interactive, fun, and engaging, and include all our colleagues globally. We partnered with FocusU, and the team designed a gamified workshop and co-created a great learning experience for everyone. I am very pleased with the feedback and the outcomes and would like to work with FocusU on more such key initiatives”
-By Director- Leadership and OD

About FocusU

“Learning interventions need to deliver business impact.”

This is the core belief that has made FocusU one of India’s prominent names in the field of corporate Learning and Engagement.

How an intervention is designed, how it is delivered, how it is reinforced, and how it is finally applied back at the workplace is customized to what works for the learner. This is done after thoroughly understanding or client’s learning needs through 1:1 discussion.

Their learner-centricity is not an empty promise. They have backed it up for 12 years now with an unconditional promise to their customers that they call, “Happy or Free.”

More recently, they have ventured into the space of self-paced courses, offering online courses to individuals wishing to improve professional skills at the workplace.

They have 3 offices in India, a joint venture in Mauritius, and now in the brave new virtual world, customers all around the globe.

Every year, they conduct around 700+ learning workshops – that touch the lives of over 40,000 employees.

Customized Content & Design

This gamified workshop experience was implemented under FocusU’s Customized Content & Design (CCD) services.

Our Customized Content & Design services are primarily for the benefit of those clients whose needs are truly unique and do not fit under any of our standard offerings.

Simply put, if you have a business problem which can be solved through a learning intervention, we will leave no stone unturned to make that happen.

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Program

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

Team Leaderboard & Activity Feed

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:

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Program

PayPal | Mind Over Matter Challenge: A 21-day wellness journey using microlearning and gamification.

Background

The objective of this 21-day journey was to:
● Encourage participant wellbeing.
● Introduce participants to various wellness challenges ranging from movement, meditation, nutrition and more.
● Take the participants mind off from the current grim situation and re-focus it to enhance overall wellbeing .

With the Pandemic period stretching, employees were required to stay confined in their homes. Balancing work life and personal life, coupled with the monotony of staying at one place and not being able to meet with friends and colleagues had created an understandable strain in their lives.

Solution & Execution
The 21-day wellness journey was designed with the objective of alleviating the boredom and building stronger team cohesiveness.

There was a new challenge launched each day for all 21 days. The challenges were curated such that it positively impacts the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of the participants.

The idea of spreading the challenges over 21 days was also to ensure that if someone can consciously stay motivated for 21 days, the likelihood of staying motivated for long after the engagement is over, is quite high.

These were the list of 21 challenges covered:
1. The walking challenge
2. The long weekend sleep challenge
3. The hydration challenge
4. The staycation challenge
5. The skipping challenge
6. The healthy hacks challenge
7. The mental wellness and meditation challenge
8. The plank challenge
9. The lockdown hobbies challenge
10. The readers’ club challenge
11. The yoga challenge
12. ‘PayPal’s Got Talent’ challenge
13. The ‘bloopers’: a time-honored tradition challenge
14. The mid-week de-stressor painting challenge
15. The gratitude challenge
16. The nutrition challenge
17. The ‘go-green’ challenge
18. The OTT platform recommendations challenge
19. The laughter challenge
20. The stretching challenge
21. The finale challenge

Here are a few screen snapshots of the app through which the whole challenge was delivered seamlessly to the participants:

Impact

With 104 active participants, spread over 20 teams, there were a whopping 2013 completions. The learning journey 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 unfolded a new activity
● Above all, several participants mentioned that they will incorporate some of the activities from the 21-day challenge in their daily routines

This is what Kavitha Puttaswamy, our client stakeholder from PayPal had to say about the Mind Over Matter Challenge:
Mind over matter Challenge was meticulously organized. It was very engaging and refreshing for all the participants. We received a series of positive feedback as to how these challenges have been impactful and energizing to kick start the day. Each Challenge was well thought out keeping all our current state of mind. There was a mix of fun challenges as well as fitness and a few of them made us all nostalgic. Overall, it was fun to have been introduced to such a Challenge to bring the best out of us all. Keep up the good work as always.

We also asked the participants how they liked the 21-day Mind Over Matter Challenge and if they would like to rate it on a scale of 1-10, and this is what they had to say:
Loved the challenges. Taught me a lot more about myself.

Awesome – obviously 10 from my end. It was very good to enjoy. A few challenges were tough and stretched us as we had to do videos which was not my cup of tea. Still have tried my level best and I thank PayPal and team for such a wonderful challenge.

Definitely made me to reflect back what I did for all these years and helped me to watch out what I am capable of and what I missed.

This was an exceptional, well planned and an inclusive arrangement. Wonderfully planned and pushing people to come out of mundane work routine and live life. I would rate 10/10.

10 – It was amazing, something I looked forward to everyday. Will have to find something new now or maybe redo all of these again.

Would love to rate 10. loved this as it gave an opportunity to go back to my memories and get connected again. Thank you so much.

10, Such fun challenges and so many people participating virtually. Great last 21 days and new perspective to life.

10 – It was a great step to find a new hobby new passion to overcome stress and depression in the current situation.

To know more click here: The 21 day challenge or contact us.

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Program

Reckitt Benckiser | Intern Engagement

Background

Reckitt Benckiser Group plc (RB) is a British multinational consumer goods company headquartered in Slough, England. It is a producer of health, hygiene, and home products. The company was formed by the merger of British company Reckitt & Colman plc and Dutch company Benckiser NV.

RB’s brands include the antiseptic brand Dettol, the analgesic Disprin, the sore throat medicine Strepsils, the hair removal brand Veet and a bunch of other popular brands like Durex, Colin, Cherry Blossom, to name a few.

To keep pace with the market growth, RB regularly hires from the best campuses across the country. The current intervention was planned as a part of an engagement program for the 32 interns coming from various campuses like IIMs, IIT, XLRI, MDI etc.. They are going through a six weeks internship program at RB, post which they would return to their respective campuses.

Objective

Internship is a way for both the candidates and the organization to understand each other better. It can be challenging for candidates because for most of them, it is a first-time experience in a corporate environment.

A good internship program would not only make this journey from campus to corporate smooth but would also equip them to know and learn the critical competencies needed to succeed in the corporate world. The ability to communicate well and present impactfully, was clearly identified as one such competency.

Our objective was to hence engage with these interns and enable them to communicate & present their work virtually (due to lockdown) to a diverse group of people in the organization, in an impactful manner.

Solution

After much internal discussions and brainstorming on what would be the best way to deliver the results for this group, two key insights emerged:
1) In a varied group like this, different individuals would be at different levels of skill and understanding.
2) It was not enough if the participants were comfortable with the nuances of communication and presentation. They needed to be equally
comfortable with the technology platform too.

In terms of the actual delivery of the workshops, what we were clear was that to make the workshop experience engaging, the 4 steps of the Experiential methodology needed to be followed: Act – Engage – Share – Reflect.

ACT

ENGAGE

SHARE

REFLECT

Also in line with the core philosophy of our Digital-U workshops, the workshops had to have the human touch, follow a holistic approach, and have actionable insights for the participants. Hence along with designing the workshop flow, we also designed customized workbooks for the participants, so that all learning could be captured and revisited.

HUMAN TOUCH

HOLISTIC APPROACH

ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS

Hence, for the objective to be met, we decided to split the whole engagement into two parts. The first part was to take the interns through: ● The fundamental pillars (the 3D’s) of Design, Delivery and Drive for creating impact through their presentations. ● The nuances of understanding and becoming familiar with the virtual platform (MS Teams) on which the whole presentation was to be done. The second part of the intervention was in terms of actual delivery and practice. The proof of the pudding after all, is in the eating. Hence the objective here was to get them to present back, basis all the inputs they picked up in the earlier session, and receive critical feed-forward on how they could improve their presentations for the desired impact. Working with their HR team, the intervention was hence planned as a series of two Virtual Workshops spaced by a week to each other.

Execution

Phase 1: On the day of the workshop, all the 32 interns logged on to the MS-Teams platform. Unlike most learning sessions, we always like to start our sessions with a quick introduction followed by some fun energizers. After all, there can be no learning, if there is no engagement upfront. Once everyone was energized and engaged, we delved deep into the topic with trusted design frameworks, activities, videos and the platform walk-through. Unlike the generic webinars, these virtual workshops melded the ‘virtual’ with the ‘experiential’ to ensure that participants had a very interactive experience, indeed. The workshop concluded by giving participants the following task: “Work on your presentations basis everything that you have learnt and come back with the final product, for us, in the next Virtual Workshop.”
Phase 2: There was huge excitement and nervous energy as the interns came back to present their work in the second virtual workshop. Since there were 32 interns, the group was split into 3 smaller cohorts, so that each person could get the personalized attention that they deserved from a Senior Facilitator. Truth be told, each presentation spoke of the thought and hard work which had gone into designing them. Each presentation was followed by a detailed feed-forward, that put the spotlight on the small nuances and improvements that could further enhance their presentations. It was during these discussions that the theories learnt earlier, came to life for the participants. Besides that, listening to the feed forward for each presenter helped participants gather various impactful presentation tips and best practices. Truly, we learn best by doing! Furthermore, sharing our thoughts with each other and reflecting on them reinforces the lessons and ensures long-term retention. This is the power of experiential learning!

Impact

This is what
Ms. Saranya Mukherjee, Lead-Early Careers Development, Campus and Employer Branding from RB had to say:

“We were very happy with how well organized the whole training was despite the unusual virtual setting. The FocusU team was very approachable and helpful in sharing all necessary resources. The training was well designed and combined theoretical learning with hands-on practical practice.”

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Posted on by naren@hybreed.co

Program

IT Consulting | Virtual Team Building

Objective

Due to the high demand of Digitalization, the team had been working very hard during the 6 weeks of confinement. It was indeed tough to maintain a balance between the highly demanding work, and the family for most employees. Despite that, the team had been able to deliver good results and had been very committed.

Hence the head of the department has been very keen to offer them a small break out of the daily routine work.

Background

Our client is one of the premier organizations in the IT Consulting space. They regroup people with years of experience in the things they do best, “Deliver the Goods.” The company helps their clients sustain and extend their IT strategies and objectives whilst effectively mitigating the IT risks which may arise.

The key services offered by the company include: IT Strategy & Governance, Project Management, System Integration, Big Data Analytics, IT Assurance and Cyber Security.The company has worked on projects in Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar. Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

Solution

After internal brainstorming and discussions with the client, the engagement finalized was:

Actual Execution:

PHASE 1 : BOMS Challenge – for the smaller team

How it works?

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. In case you are wondering why this is called the BOMS Challenge, the previous sentence would give you a hint. A funny, crazy acronym that just stuck with all our participants and us!

BOMS (Body, Mind and Sole) is an activity with a combination of physical, mental and running challenges. The buzz for the activity was generated as the session started – with a few fun energizers! This got the participants primed up, in a competitive mode and ready to go, the minute the stop clock started.

Teams working in smaller groups had 15 minutes to crack an assortment of challenges – involving finding different items from the house, solving riddles, and also doing some “crazy” things! The challenge was done in two rounds – and it was nice to see teams coming back with resonating war cries that built up the energy!

Before they could realize it, 45 minutes had zipped by! Finally, the scores were unveiled and the winning team was announced. The team came out of the whole experience totally energized!

Impact:

The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive – sample a few:

Thanks FocusU for an engaging and fun session. I never imagined we can do a mini team building in a virtual environment. It’s a great booster, especially when we are all working remotely. It’s an excellent way to connect to our team members and know them better. Thanks again to your team and you. Keep up the good work.
Head of department

Thank you to you and the team for such a lovely time we had virtually. Never thought it will be so fun and that we will have so much of laughter. Hope we can do this activity with my whole team. I’ll speak to the management team tomorrow. Cheers.
HR Executive

PHASE 2 : #Donotrushchallenge – for the larger team engagement

Thanks to the impact of the Phase 1 session, done for a team of 12 participants, the Head of Department decided to go in for the engagement for the whole department of 60 participants.

This time though, the activity chosen was #Dontrushchallenge as this was trendy and had gone viral on social media. It was also felt that this activity would allow the team members to experience something different & new while challenging them to get out of their comfort zones. The key messaging to be landed was also that even at such times, where there was social distancing, they could all still be virtually connected through a fun activity and experience!

The entire session was kicked off with a few virtual energizers to get everyone into the right spirit for a challenge like this. Once everyone was sufficiently charged up, our Facilitators explained the ground rules and parameters for the #Donotrushchallenge – and then moved the participants into different break-out rooms!

The challenge was simple: Each and every participant had to shoot a video of 15 sec – with some conditions and parameters of course. Participants together brainstormed different ideas and recorded their video clips on smartphones. Use of props, help from family members was encouraged while shooting of the videos. The whole process of putting ideas into action, creating videos was thoroughly absorbing for all participants.

For example, one of the teams that had “Keeping Fit” as a theme, came up with a storyline of eating chocolates in one clip, and doing exercises in another. Each group had a unique storyline illustrated uniquely too!

Like in the teaser session that was run earlier, time just flew by. Finally came the wow moment for all the teams: Showcasing of all the final videos live and having team members to vote for them!! The excitement at this stage was palpable.

The activity was brought to a close by a meaningful debrief at the end of the session, where several themes related to good teamwork cropped up. Here were a few:

• Ownership: Every team had to come up with their own video. However, the quality of the video depended on the extent of ownership taken by each and every team member.
• Resilience: In uncertain times, the success of a team depends on how resilient they are. And a team’s resilience depends on how effectively they can tap onto each other’s strength, ask for help and support each other.
• Situational leadership: Natural leaders emerged during the course of the activity. We used the observations to debrief around the importance of situational leadership at the workplace. Leadership is not through the title we hold, but rather through the actions we take. Anyone can take up leadership through their actions at the workplace.

Impact:

Like in Phase 1, even after Phase 2, we received a lot of positive feedback from the participants that gave us the sense that the intervention had made an impact on them.

Here are a few we received:

• Thank you. It was a pleasure participating. We did enjoy ourselves
• We had a great time doing the video. Thanks
• Good job team❤️.We might be not the best.. but we did our best.. that is more important! We enjoyed
• Thanks FOCUSU. Much needed fun during the confinement
• We indeed had a great time together. Thank you FocusU team!
• Hi FocusU team ☺️. Today was really a refreshing change and break from the routine life. I fully enjoyed myself. Thanks again ✌
• Keep up the good work! Thanks to the whole FocusU team

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