Case Study

Interview with Elaine

Faith, the Marketing and Comms Manager at AKD Solutions recently had an interesting conversation on the topic “Diversity and Inclusion Workplace” with Elaine, the Head of Production at Noah Media Group. We want Noah Media Group’s story to inspire others and shine a positive light on your organisation.

Elaine has been with Noah Media Group, a multi-award-winning production, distribution and technology company for 5 years, but has had a connection with the group for around 15 years. Elaine had a constant focus on bringing in changes but was not sure how to implement these and was aware that people were apprehensive due to the sensitive nature of the topic.

One of the challenges Elaine faced was getting the more senior leaders in the business to give the time and commitment to the topic. This was tackled with a few video calls with senior members of the company with Akin which got everyone excited about working with AKD and what they could really achieve.  

Faith: What challenges did Noah Media Group face before contacting AKD?

Elaine: The Noah Media Group were facing a number of changes in their organisation.  From my own point of view, I always felt I was working in a male-dominated industry throughout my career. Plus, the calls to the companies and the clients were all mainly from white men. 

There was also a movement within the company with many people wanting to get a Diversity and Inclusion Council up and running. They had a lot of different tools and things they had set up through COVID, plus lots of ideas and plans which needed to be pulled together, but I was not sure how best to tackle this.

Additionally, during COVID, they had to make some redundancies and they were looking for people to come and gain work experience, to go into schools and run filming programs. For this aspect, they were looking to find new ways to recruit and look for places to find different talent and new ways to reach out to different, diverse people, rather than getting the same people from the same backgrounds.

At this time, they became very aware that recruitment needed a new focus because they wanted to offer new opportunities but were finding it hard to find the right places to look and the right way of taking this forward. Every other week I attended a workshop until I went to one of Akin’s talks on language and being an ally. 

Shortly after I followed up with Akin on LinkedIn, and Noah started their journey with AKD. We soon discovered it was a great fit because Noah was founded on trying to disrupt the traditional space because they had bad experiences making a film, and they really look at authentic different ways of telling content, telling stories, which are both aspects that particularly appealed to Akin.

Faith: That sounds great. Can you tell me the service offered by AKD Solutions to Noah?

Elaine:  Once everyone was on board and the initial meetings were complete, the first topic was agreed on for the Language for Diversity and Inclusion, which was a starting point for their journey. It created the perfect opportunity because the board and the senior management team got together to think around this topic; what are the values of the company when it comes to the perception of Diversity and Inclusion, what should they be thinking about during recruitment, the words they use, what they want to achieve.

Faith: Perfect. How did Noah find working with the team at AKD?

Elaine:  I felt the workshops were really well planned and everyone felt very supported. Everything was very clear and the AKD team were really good at bringing everyone together and making everyone feel included in the different conversations. They ran three workshops: Language for Diversity and Inclusion. They brought different groups of people in at different times, taking into consideration different working patterns and who would be most impacted by each topic.

Faith: That’s glad to hear. What were the impacts and takeaways for Noah?

Elaine:  Having these sessions has opened up so many conversations across Noah, and people have been bold with their thoughts. Conversations in the office, and in meetings have naturally carried through to socials in the pub. People have spoken out and challenged where they would not have done before. Biases have been realised where they were overlooked before. A real shift has happened, and a very positive one. 

The sessions also taught that everyone’s perspective is valid and that all conversation is good. It’s about seeing everything from different angles, thinking in a different way understanding where everyone is coming from and learning from this. I felt there is now a shift in awareness about who they have in meetings, who they have going to pitches, who they have talked to at the workshops, and how they are going to recruit going forward. 

Faith: Can you tell me what did Noah feel were the standouts?

Elaine:  Everyone felt really encouraged, and that everyone on the AKD team was really good, really well prepared. Plus, there have been so many follow-ups, all really very good all around. 

Faith: What piece of advice would Noah give to someone who is about to embark on the same journey as their organisation?  

Elaine: Everyone should just be open; open to themselves and to AKD’s solutions, and for the person organising to get as many people as possible involved from across their business. 

If you would like to find out more about what we can do for your business after reading our diverse and inclusive case studies, click here.

In 2015, Holiday Inn made significant changes to their brand globally.  This included a major refurbishment of their whole estate, redefining their guests and the guest experience.  This required a major learning and development programme to support staff to understand “Making Guest Smile”.  We worked with Holiday Inn on the Making Guests Smile project from 2016-2018. We were commissioned to equip colleagues to bring to life the Making Guests Smile brand experience. 

The Challenge  

We needed to create a suite of learning and development solutions that could be used for all staff throughout Europe. So, we needed to be mindful of: 

• developing a learning journey with different touchpoints that could be managed within the day-to-day operations of a hotel.  
• the learning had to raise knowledge and awareness and also embed behaviours.  
• General Managers and Assistant General Managers would be responsible for facilitating a lot of learning with their colleagues  
• All of the content is relatable and relevant.     
• Meeting tight deadlines to coincide with the launching of the brand experience in the UK and Europe.   

What we did?  

We worked with Holiday Inn for over 10 months in the development phase of the project.  We began the project whilst a lot of the detail was being worked through globally and in Europe.  This meant we were able to contribute our ideas and thoughts for Making Guest Smile using our experience from hospitality, retail and automobiles.  In addition, our experience of working on other Europe wide projects was invaluable, because this allowed us to be mindful of testing prototypes with a wider audience than originally scoped for to ensure we took account of tone of voice and cultural nuances that would be important.     The final design of the Making Guests Smile learning journey included:  

Storybook – this was an animated ebook for all staff to read pre-classroom learning.  It was the first part of the journey and provided a high level introduction to Making Guests smile.   

Learning Map – we designed a bespoke learning map (board game) for Making Guests Smile.  This provided a fun way for colleagues to gain greater knowledge and awareness of the ethos, principles and behaviours that underpinned the programme.  We provided a game with a basic and advanced level.  This meant that hotels had the option to revisit behaviours with more complex scenarios and focus on creating moments of delight.   This was delivered in a 2 hour workshop.  

Three card game – a deck of cards that is used to help staff, create moments of delight spontaneously.   These were delivered in 5-15 minute huddles at the beginning of a shift.   

Making Guest Smile App – The app had a dual role. Firstly, it was used in connection with the learning map, which included an electronic dice, the questions, team scores and facilitators notes. The second function gave managers/supervisors a platform to have feedback conversations with managers. A manager and colleague could have a conversation, referring to the Standard Operating Procedures, use videos to highlight service behaviours and for both parties to score performance. This information was recorded on the app. 

Videos – We created a series of videos that highlighted important points within the guest journey bringing to life the service behaviours, product hallmarks and service signatures present at that stage for colleagues. These videos were used as part of the game but also as standalone learning aids. Click here for an example 

Outcomes  

All of the material was piloted in 4 UK hotels. All of the pilot hotels had improvements in Service on Heartbeat and Social Reviews. The highest increase in Heartbeat score was over 7 percentage points as compared to the same period the previous year. What was especially pleasing was that one hotel that was already receiving a very high score (90.00) achieved a 1 point digit increase in Heartbeat. 

The feedback from staff was very positive.  They found the learning fun and very easy to engage.  They particularly liked the practical aspects of the learning (e.g. creating Moments of Delight).  General Managers and Assistant General Managers also provided great feedback, stating that the assets were really easy to use, came with clear instructions and made the whole learning experience very easy to manage.     

Enhancing Customer Experience – A Case Study for Z Hotel  

Introduction 

Z Hotel is a boutique brand offering well-designed compact rooms in exceptional central locations.  Currently, they have 11 central London locations as well as Bath, Liverpool and Glasgow.  Z Hotels opened its first hotel in 2011.  We began working with Z Hotels in 2017.   

We were commissioned to design and deliver a customer experience programme for colleagues across all the hotels.  

The Challenge  

Z Hotels had great locations and a unique proposition for visitors staying 1 or 2 nights.  The leaders of Z Hotels wanted to achieve a number of things from the training: 

• A deeper understanding of the Z Hotel guest personas  
• Greater understanding and ownership of the customer experience  
• Supporting colleagues to deliver wow moments  

What we did 

Z Hotel really wanted to use the Enhancing Customer Experience learning map.  They loved the concept of combining playfulness and the power of conversation.  We worked with a group of leaders and General Managers to customise the content.  We then facilitated a 2-day train the trainers programme for the Learning and Development team and a group of General Managers. 

Outcome  

The programme was rolled out across all the Z Hotel.   The feedback from leadership was that Enhancing Customer Experience was the top learning programme that they had rolled out.  The feedback was that colleagues had a greater understanding of the customers and how they could tailor a customer experience to different customer personas.    

C&A has an amazing history, but few staff knew about it. C&A’s Senior Management Team wanted to encourage new starters to start their career with excitement, enthusiasm and an appreciation of the company’s rich history.

The brief was to find a way of making recruits fall in love with the company culture through the creation of a stimulating, immersive induction experience.

Alongside this we replaced traditional training manuals with scrapbooks for each new starter to keep with them throughout their entire career at C&A, inspiring them to document their personal journey.

The programme was piloted with a cross-section of staff, and shortly afterwards C&A rolled out their induction programme in their Brussels and Dusseldorf headquarters to new and existing staff. Staff who had worked for C&A told us “Knowing this earlier would have made a big difference to how we felt about the organisation”.

Diane Ramirez, the Head of HR, told us that AKD “hit the ball out of the park”.

Get in touch to find out how we can help you reboot your induction process.

One Game is the ECB’s strategic objective to make cricket a more inclusive sport. The strategy includes targeting specific groups to encourage more participation. These include women, people with disabilities and people with South Asian origins.

ECB recognised to effectively execute their strategy they needed a workforce who was more confident and competent in matters of equality, diversity and inclusion. They had tried traditional classroom methods but hadn’t seen any changes in attitudes or behaviours. Therefore they wanted a more engaging and interactive learning solution. The ECB were referred to us by England Athletics who use Equally Yours in their induction programme.

What We Did?

We created Equally Yours because we recognised that equality and diversity a subjects that people can be fearful of or reluctant to engage in. Our mantra is “People learn more when they are having fun” and this is key to the design of Equally Yours.

We worked with the ECB to customise both the content and design of Equally Yours. The content was customised to reflect the organisation’s vision and values and cricket.

The board was transformed into a cricket pitch with imagery reflecting the targeted protected characteristics. We facilitated workshops for 200 ECB staff and managers across England and Wales.

The Outcomes

Consistently the feedback from the workshops was that this was the best equalities and

diversity learning staff had experienced.

Feedback included:

• “It forced us to discuss matters that we normally skirt around or fudge”

• “I couldn’t believe how much fun you could have discussing diversity”

• “It forced me to look in the mirror”

• “The questions were tough and at times had to dig deep. It challenged me!!”

The organisation has reported a greater understanding of equality and diversity, more confidence when engaging with different communities and groups and staff who are willing to try different things and engage with different people.