#WeAreCurious
A learning campaign pivot to adjust to new realities
The challenge:
Following the hugely successful 2019 Learning and Development culture program #IAmCurious, we sought to build on its success. As well as driving a culture of learning, we took a more targeted approach, looking at the future skills needed to achieve Novartis’ strategy.
We were confident in the success of our previous framework and had planned a similar campaign with a blend of local and global events.
But... in 2020 the pandemic hit. Overnight we had to adjust our plans to cater for the new reality, and in many cases new technology platforms that we were unfamiliar with.
My role was to create strategies around the learning workstreams and manage the deployment team.
Not having access to on-site studios meant we had to get creative with campaign videos using MS Teams recordings
The initiative:
#WeAreCurious was structured in 4 work streams that came together to engage the curious minds across and beyond Novartis, build our curiosity ecosystem and help bring to life our cultural commitment to Go BIG on Learning:
• Capturing Learning Hours in new ways helps us see that learning happens anywhere and anytime
• Webinars share our boldest ideas from the greatest curious minds with our curiosity ecosystem
• Communications and engagement activities bring the campaign to life
• Friends and Family programs build community. Learning together enabled growth and connection in even the most challenging times
What we delivered:
Webinars
Due to COVID, we planned to downscale the learning campaign compared to the previous year. But interest around the organisation was snowballing. Instead of 132 online learning events in September, we produced 215! These were organised into four key tracks that supported our global strategy.
Innovation & Intrapreneurship
Novartis & Society
Power my growth
Reimagining Medicine
Curious Communities
Online curious communities allowed associates to connect with each other and share their learnings and experiences around a track.
Facilitated through channels on MS Teams. Associates had access to extra learning resources, in channel text messaging with speakers and Curiosity Live sessions allowing smaller groups of track members to engage in Q&As with external thought leaders.
Friends and Family
As the pandemic took hold, we opened our ecosystem to friends and families to help them upskill and manage their wellbeing. This included:
Free access to vendor content and certifications from Coursera
Free access to Henry Stewart Science Talks
Free access to the Awakened Mind mindfulness and wellbeing app
Free access to TIGNUM X, a customized platform of scientifically backed tools and strategies designed to help develop qualities to have a sustainable positive impact at work, and at home
A Novartis parent led initiative, we set up a CoderDojo initially in English and expanded to create parent/child communities in 21 countries!
With a $1m donation we supported Khan Academy, a non-profit providing standards aligned free online learning for children around the world
Learning Tracker
We developed a new app within our Learning Management System so that associates, coaches and trainers could capture any learning hours that happened outside of our campaign or the LMS.
Engagement:
I designed a dynamic, interest-based subscription newsletter so employees could sign up for updates on the specific learning topics that mattered most to them. To expand reach without increasing email fatigue, I partnered with local and divisional communications teams to embed our messaging into their existing channels. I also worked with HR so our promotional content was included in onboarding journeys and standard welcome emails, giving us visibility with 6,000+ new joiners without adding a single extra standalone message.
To drive engagement, I experimented with unexpected channels and creative tactics. The Chief Learning Officer regularly promoted the campaign on LinkedIn to his 22,000+ followers, while internally I built reusable email templates for senior leaders to promote their own webinars and cascade a curated selection of others. We used Yammer interest groups, custom MS Teams channels, “ask me anything” sessions with external thought leaders, gamified attendance with badges and leaderboards, and created speaker promo videos, profile overlays, and branded Teams backgrounds. I also built a Curiosity Volunteer network of 400+ advocates who localized promotion, encouraged teams to add event plugs to their email signatures, and helped amplify the impact of post-event follow-up by sharing recordings and curated content that drove ongoing traffic back to the LMS.
The results:
We issued over 31,000+ digital badges for attening 1, 3, 7 or 10+ webinars. Over 1000 associates attended 10 or more events. The badges we so popular we had to create a new catagory for those who attended 20 or more sessions.
Over 6335 associates joined our communities and generated an extra 234 learning hours from exclusive track events
Our webinars generated 60,000+ hours of learning (13,991 in 2019)
Overall the campaign (including LMS curated content to support the webinars) generated 213,000+ learning hours
Within three months we had over 7,500 unique, highly engaged newsletter subscribers.
The internal engagement score for ‘opportunities to Learn and Grow’ grew from 2 points below benchmark to 5 points above
5,000+ unique associates joined our MS Teams & Yammer channels
We saw a 21% increase in unique learner reach and an 18% rise in voluntary learning hours compared to 2020
The campaign SharePoint portal attracted 55,000+ employees globally, becoming a central hub for learning across the organization
We secured a #3 global Association of Talent Developers (ATD) Best ranking and won Gold for Best Learning Culture at the Learning Awards
All major spotlight events had between 500 and 1,200 attendees.
21,000 + associates attended events (some more than 10 times)
