HR Solutions Insights from Cases
HR Solutions driving organizational transformations for some of the world’s leading brands.
Employee Value Proposition
Using history to
shape the future
See how d’frens’ HR solutions helped a leading enterprise IT company get in touch with their roots
The challenge
Although the client is a leading information technology company that has innovated and developed products that have impacted multiple industries and the lives of millions of people, the R&D teams at their Bangalore facility had little to no knowledge of the company’s glorious heritage.
The approach
d’frens designed a calendar plan that can bring to life the essence of the EVP. The HR solutions presented drove intent, pride, and passion among the employees and allow them to understand that they are working amongst highly skilled professionals in a culture has always focused on ground breaking innovation.
A show and tell approach was used to turn employees in to advocates; along with the execution of a scalable, measurable and experiential plan that appealed to the multi-generational workforce.
Outcomes
Anything experiential can definitely be measured. And we built smart mechanisms to measure physical, phy-gital & virtual experiences. The icing on the cake is when we got a medal at the top industry events for this experience.
Values and Behaviors
The straight line between values and victory
See how a major airport infrastructure company leveraged our R.E.A.L. framework of communication to percolate their new vision and values stack
The challenge
A change in leadership kicked off a changed vision and values stack. While the vision was well received and articulated by the CEO, the challenge for our HR client was to ensure that the values were percolated across all levels of the organization.
The approach
A key element of the campaign was first creating ownership among the managers to then activate a systemic change through our proprietary R.E.A.L. framework of communication:
• Raise Awareness
• Educate Audience
• Amplify Purpose
• Leverage Advocacy
d’frens devised High Flyer—a values campaign that addressed each tier of the organization. Helping employees learn and live values everyday at work, the 5 month long campaign included floor walks, escape room experiences, live examples through improv exercises with the campaign reaching its crescendo when a 300 sq. ft. mural created collectively by employees was revealed.
Outcomes
Through the HR solutions presented, d’frens garnered a total of 1978 touch points from the universe of 500 employees – i.e., each employee participated in 3-4 touch points during the 5 months. The campaign received a consistent high approval rating and the crowning moment was the absorption of the values rated at 4.5/5 by each function.
Culture Transformation
Learning to learn
The challenge
The client reached out to d’frens looking for an HR solutions to grow the learning culture across their 19,000 pax O&G conglomerate. The concern drew from low adoption rates of their digital learning ecosystem, low visibility into the impact of various academic programs, and the lack of ownership in employees’ learning and development.
The approach
d’frens developed “ABC Learning Week” as the vehicle for introducing organizational transformation in the client’s culture. The campaign focused on on-the-floor awareness experiences, informal learning workshops formal career development workshops and experience zones which brought the learning ecosystem to over 7000 people across 10 corporate office locations across the country. A digital communication funnel point (custom app) drove buzz, engagement and registrations across the campuses.
Outcomes
Learning Week has since turned into a flagship HR event for the client over the last 4 years. Averaging 18,000 learning hours generated during the learning week every year, and a whopping 65,000+ views on Lynda.com, the event has received growing participation and engagement scores through the years. Beyond the learning culture activation, the campaign has also achieved a phenomenal advocacy of 70,000 impressions on social media as well. The scope expanded in the second and third years of the intervention to include all manufacturing plants as well, bringing 18 sites into the fold of the Learning Week.
Inclusion and Diversity
Embracing positive change through proprietary HR solutions
Read about how a multinational retail giant weeded out unconscious bias using our HR solutions revolving around proprietary change framework
The challenge
The degree of unconscious bias among the employees of this multinational retail giant had reached unprecedented levels and the challenge was helping employees consciously understand their own unconscious biases in order to live the values, culture, and beliefs of the organization.
The approach
d’frens deployed its proprietary 4 level LPRC framework to bring about grassroot change among the employees. The four dimensions of the framework are:
Learn: Where people became cognisant of unconscious bias.
Play: Where people can safely enact scenarios and test theories that provided the foundation required for subsequent stages.
Reflect: Using learning and experience to enable deep introspection so one can initiate the process of holding oneself accountable.
Change: Experiencing aha moments that help internalize and reinforce positive behavior.
Outcomes
830 participants went through a 6 week long intervention where game theory was employed to create a app based challenge that not only invited them into a story and engaged them competitively, but also brought out unconscious bias that they themselves exhibited in a non-accusatory manner.
Bolstering this experience was a series of workshops and short, impactful videos that amplified need, elaborated on how they themselves would benefit from dropping these biases, and create a more inclusive culture that nurtured stronger employee relations.
28% less escalations were reported in the 8 weeks post campaign.
Empowering Managers
The high level view for people at the top
Learn how an F&B major employed technology to both empower managers and create a more efficient internal communication platform
The challenge
Our F&B major client wanted HR solutions to organically elevate managers from going beyond managing and possessing technical skills to building a comprehensive outlook in nurturing manager-reportee relationships with focus on open dialogue.
The approach
As the client’s HR business partner, d’frens recommended a communication and socialization app, exclusive to managers which provided a platform that facilitated open dialogue and information hosting and exchange. The app became a repository of all official internal communications and was a focal point of campaigns intended for manager groups. Engagement on the app was augmented through gamified experiences that were created on an ongoing basis.
Outcomes
The app helped shape perspectives in developing and breaking out of the old mold. A sense of community started to evolve with managers sharing real day to day examples of how being a manager means a lot more things. By understanding the pulse of the group, the client’s HR team could alter the form official communication took, time it right and create more adoption of initiatives focused to uplift their managers and their reportees.
Virtual Teaming
HR solutions driving
Further, together
Understand how a virtual teaming challenge was converted into an Employer Brand win by this technology company using our HR solutions
The challenge
This 90 employee team was carved out of a larger tech team that used to work as a single business unit earlier. The nature of the work required them to work collaboratively with each other. With 50% of the team hired during lockdown, the organization foresaw reduced opportunities for peer to peer engagement and micro-learning resulting in the formation of small but strong silos. The client needed HR solutions to prevent this from happening!
The approach
The cornerstone of the approach was humanizing the team – by designing an activity that required participants to communicate and share information unique to them, but relevant to the rest of the group. Throughout the rest of the competitive activity, participants were forced to swap roles and had to seek help or support teammates in order to progress. Additionally, participants realized that teams only succeed when the group eventually succeeds as well.
Outcomes
The 90 minute experience had several takeaways—empathy with team members, building trust, a willingness to initiate conversations, ask for help and being receptive to ideas and suggestion. People moved away from internally competing to collaborating as a group. Most importantly, the client’s EVP was authenticated in their Employee Experience resulting in a deeper connection with the Employer Brand.</span
Employee Onboarding
All aboard
See how a technology giant onboarded new members to their organization with more than just an inspiring welcome
The challenge
With the pandemic affecting the client as much as anyone else, they had to find new ways of communicating their key tenets of Collaboration, Influence & Persuasion and Creativity & Innovation to new hires across the APAC region.
The approach
d’frens created a 9 hours experiential workshop across 3 days, where we curated content for Collaboration, Influence & Persuasion and Creativity & Innovation. The key focus to create high levels of engagement and to deliver the messaging powerfully. d’frens also proposed a self evaluation assessment (based on Big Five personality traits that are basic domains or dimensions used to describe human personality) which helped the participants assess themselves.
Outcomes
While the participants internalized the client’s value system in a short while, it also reinforced the fact that despite the odds, virtual learning can promote a human-centric work culture and produce the results that participants and their organizations seek.
Remote Working
Closer than ever
Find out how a multinational professional services organization imparted a memorable graduation for their new seniors, completely digital across multiple geographies and business units using our HR solutions
The challenge
The client wanted to organize their annual learning workshop (New Senior Program) in 2020, but with venues where people can congregate no longer viable options, another way had to be devised of bringing 2200 employees from across the world onto a common shared platform.
The approach
d’frens was selected to run the client’s workshop with d’frens designing the experience, content and conceptualizing the workshop. To support the scale and spread of the project, d’frens developed an app-based engagement that delivered flexible and gamified learning experiences.
Outcomes
Stepping up a whole new group of seniors to a new role not only became a memorable learning intervention for the employees, but the HR solutions offered strengthened the L&D team’s reputation as a game changer.
Testimonials
What our customers think
We’ve brought value to our customers. As always, we’re grateful for their appreciation.
“Aiming to build a learning culture, they not only helped us with our plans but also added value to make it much bigger and a huge success”
Sunil Singh,
Reliance Industries Ltd.
“d’frens helped us identify our brand identity, clarify our message and revived our organization. Their expertise and agility guided us to become a brand we are proud of!”
Stuart Harris,
Growth Academy Asia, Hong Kong