Goal
The priority was to ensure employee safety and mitigate disruption as much as possible. The client also wanted to develop a vision and framework around the employee experience to attract, develop, and retain top talent in the changing environment.
Challenge
The client’s creative culture was accustomed to the energy of in-person interaction. Leaders, more familiar with an onsite workforce, were not aligned on how to create a work model that accommodated the reality of the pandemic. The 12 businesses needed a plan to navigate constantly changing transmission guidelines and the organization lacked the change capabilities to do so.
Solution
Expressworks collaborated with a cross-functional team of over 300 people spanning 50 sites across 22 countries in North America, EMEA, and APAC. We helped the client align priorities to develop a global model with enough flexibility to be able to adapt worldwide to meet local needs. Holistic and inclusive, the model focused on the employee’s day to day reality with flexible work options, new work behaviors, technology and tools, site readiness, workplace strategy, and remote engagement protocols. To cultivate the sponsorship necessary to drive this effort, Expressworks also established and curated an organization-wide senior leadership forum that communicated pandemic and future of work information to each level of the enterprise.
Business Outcomes
Our engagement provided the businesses with a framework to continue developing and testing new ways of working, workplace solutions, and technologies. With our help, the client also established a new function focused on building capabilities, improving distributed team effectiveness, and ensuring equity and inclusion across the enterprise. Communication and engagement that prioritized employee safety and well-being minimized disruption and generated employee trust, goodwill, and a sense of virtual connection. Engagement scores are currently higher than pre-pandemic levels.
