Global organisations wanting to start a conversation with their people who are located across boundaries, with multiple languages and cultures, and a geographically diverse audience isn’t always easy! Especially when it is a conversation about something as personal as Resilience, Wellbeing and Mental Wellness.

Yet this is exactly what Mattel EMEA partnered with MRA to deliver. With a clear brief:

• Create a leader-led experience (not owned by HR)
• Use of translated digital assets for ease of understanding and increased engagement (not an assumption that English is everyone’s language of choice)
• Large scale conversations up to 200 people in each market (get everyone talking, not just a few)
• Create a common language for everyone to engage with (not just the senior leaders)
• Align with the broader EMEA ambitions as part of the People Strategy (not a stand-alone offer)

So that is exactly what we did!

Create a leader-led experience (not owned by HR)

By engaging with Leaders in their own Leadership Group first, creating energy and insight around themselves, and delivering a high impact experience that challenged them to ‘own’ future conversations with their people, the output was clear and evident. Each country leader owned their country’s Resilience, Wellbeing and Mental Wellness agenda. The HR function only played a supportive role in ensuring everyone attended and that resources were shared widely for the greatest possible coverage. Leaders felt compelled to engage and drive the agenda, and to review working practices to attend to outputs and insights from each session

Use of translated digital assets for ease of understanding and increased engagement (not an assumption that English is everyone’s language of choice)

For this globally diverse audience, the team at MRA partnered closely with each country to ensure that all relevant tools and presentations were translated appropriately; with live translation for some audiences. A digital asset was also created specifically for the roll-out to embed the diagnostic element of the learning experience and to create an ‘insights into action’ structured approach to action planning for each individual

Large scale conversations up to 200 people in each market (get everyone talking, not just a few)

Through the power of virtual conferencing, large scale group sessions up to 200 per group were rolled out ensuring that every one, at every level was able to actively participate and have a fair share of voice and contribution. Live polling allowed clear results to be shared widely during the sessions to get a greater understanding of the Resilience, Wellbeing and Mental Wellness strengths and challenges of the team, for them to be understood, and for leaders to witness the conversations around the results in real time

Create a common language for everyone to engage with (not just the senior leaders)

Language around sensitive subjects such as Resilience, Wellbeing and Mental Wellness is important, and organisations who create one consistent story line and language that everyone can connect with always show the greatest results in developing people in this space. The Mattel ambition was to do exactly this – create one language, regardless of hierarchy, culture or translation requirements, so that everyone had the same understanding of the concept

Align with the broader EMEA ambitions as part of the People Strategy (not a stand-alone offer)

Aligning strategic development programmes such as this with the broader HR People Strategy is critical so that if feels ‘part’ of the people offer, embedded in the culture and ways of working, and helping the organisation to meet its vision, goals and metrics. Partnering with the President for EMEA, the HRD for EMEA, the Talent Lead, and the local HRBP’s across the markets ensured the project landed at the right time, with the right levels of leadership from the very top, and therefore had the greatest opportunity to succeed and make the biggest difference possible

This is a story of success through true partnership at every level. And it’s what makes the team of Professional Executive Coaches at MRA standout in our industry. We’re always happy to share stories of client successes such as this, so please do reach out to hear more. And we’ll even introduce you to the clients who chose us to deliver for them – they always tell the best and most honest stories!