Changeathon 2 In Review: Improve Relationships, Offer Better Benefits, & Elevate Social Learning
In February, the Cultivators community hosted its second Changeathon event.
What is Changeathon?
Changeathon is a hackathon-inspired event where contributors share their change initiatives aimed towards improving their organization. Contributors get feedback, resources, and support on their initiatives from our Cultivators Community of business leaders, organizational changemakers, and innovation enthusiasts. After Changeathon, contributors have a month to make progress on their ideas, ultimately sharing their status update with the community. You can read more about our first ever Changeathon here.
During the February 25 event, three contributors (all relatively new to the Cultivators community) shared their ideas and received feedback from the community members via Zoom.
Meet The Contributors
Rachel Richard, Director of People & Culture at Creative Works
She shared her idea for improving employee relationships through integrated activities and meetings to build trust and improve morale.
She pointed out an opportunity to merge two silos by rotating people who lead daily morning meetings from one silo to the other. She would also like to bring people together through social events in which employees who don't normally interact with each other would have a chance to connect through shared experiences.
Deborah Madelaine, Learner Experience Manager at Mars
She shared her idea for establishing an employee program that empowers people to elevate social learning to complement the current culture of learning by consumption.
Since Mars is a global company with employees worldwide, virtual solutions are paramount to the execution of her idea. She has identified various platforms that are already in use at Mars but feels that there might be a better solution out there. She pointed out that one current obstacle is identifying who should be the first group of people to share knowledge with fellow employees.
Bethany Goldson, Human Resources Assistant at SnapStream
She presented her idea for improving their offerings to increase employer brand awareness and talent attraction. Fortunately, Bethany has support from the leadership team, but her ideas still need to be approved because they affect budgets. She is also exploring opportunities to inform policy decisions that would improve the quality of life for SnapStream’s workforce.
Meet The Community
But who was on the other side of the screen? Members of our Cultivators Community, a collective of changemakers from around the globe. This diverse group of professionals gathers to swap ideas, share advice, and hang out at the virtual water cooler. When members are stuck on how to handle a thorny interaction or want another set of eyes on a proposal, the Cultivate Community serves as a brain trust of like-minded professionals. And since members range from teachers to pharmaceutical executives, it's a place to gain perspectives outside an industry bubble.
Cultivator Commentary
For Rachel, Cultivators pitched a weekly Monday podcast with key 30-minute updates from different people with breakout room discussions of no more than five people to discuss further. To help employees struggling with technology, the community recommended having someone from the other silo spend time teaching the new tech. Rachel's primary focus in her first 30 days will be to get meeting hosts to agree to swap silos. She'll schedule a meeting with the non-tech representative to discuss what it would take to increase their comfort level; she plans to collect ideas from employees for what types of fun games/activities they'd like to do.
Feedback for Bethany included suggestions like offering flexible time off, ways to provide LinkedIn Learning access for free (with a public library card), and researching what similar businesses are offering employees. Bethany's next steps include: researching additional employee benefits, surveying at least three team members, and hosting 1:1 conversations with leadership members to identify changes they’d be keen to support.
The Cultivators community erupted with suggestions to help Deb curate her idea. Everyone agreed that choosing a suitable format and platform would help encourage people to share knowledge with each other. More ideas circulated about how to start a community where one doesn't exist, including a lot of personal outreach to recruit the first round of members. Another suggestion focused on how to identify opportunities for employees to share what they know. Deb’s next steps include creating a list of departments that she expects to be involved and scheduling 1:1 meetings with someone from each department. By including these people from the beginning, she will create a larger sense of ownership and community.
30 Days Later…
Each Changeathon contributor returned to the Cultivator community on Slack on March 25 to share what progress they made, what response they got from taking their first steps, and how their plan evolved in their first 30 days.
The contributors were asked how Changeathon has helped them move forward with making their ideas happen.
Bethany was asked if any of her original plans had changed from what she originally expected.
One suggestion offered to Deb had been to find “sages” in the company who she could recruit to seed the community. She was asked if she’d taken action relating to that advice.
Rachel was asked if she’d identified any fun activities to bring employees together.
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