The Campaign

The results of the survey led us directly to the idea. Employees told us they were proud of the country’s medical tradition and wanted to write the next chapter of China’s long list of medical innovations. With this in mind, we focused our approach on a uniquely Chinese concept that was deeply connected to medicine - a philosophy that states: “All diseases originate within people’s hearts and minds. So does the cure.” Our proposition “Innovation from the Heart” embodied this concept. But it wasn’t enough to simply tell people about it. We wanted them to live it by sharing ideas and stories that defined the heart of China R&D and celebrated its identity. These would be ideas and stories from the people, told by the people.

Execution

For the execution we shied away from the traditional top-down approach. Employees said they were already bombarded by executive communication. Instead, we invited them to shape their own experience and participate in a competition founded on our theme that the campaign had to come from the heart. We asked them to submit an innovative idea that would benefit all or part of the China R&D organization – aligned with the overall goal of providing better healthcare for society. We also called our employees to tell us a personal story about what motivated them at work, captured in a short film. The competition climaxed in an awards ceremony held in Beijing, attended by the entire China R&D team and global R&D leadership, while the winning submissions are now being promoted globally.

In 6 months, the campaign achieved the following: - 100 percent participation rate among Extended Leadership Team - Employee participation rate of over 50 percent - 22 team entries, 44 individual submissions - 3,000 accumulated page views and 700 unique visitors on campaign website We achieved perception change as evidenced through feedback from our target audience: “After working on the film with our team I realized how important it is to dive deeper into our motivations and think about why we are actually doing what we do every day.” – China R&D Employee “It brings us together. It brings every function together. So that I think I have better connection with the other teams and better understanding towards the organization.” – China R&D Employee “It doesn’t only bring the China team together, it creates a better synergy in the whole company.” – China R&D Employee.

The Situation

This employee engagement campaign put creativity front and center. “Innovation from the Heart” tapped into local pride with a uniquely Chinese concept that leveraged the philosophy that all diseases and cures originate within peoples’ hearts and minds. We then asked doctors and scientists to swap their lab coats for director’s chairs and produce short movies that captured what motivated them in their work. The results were stunning. 22 team entries, 44 individual submissions and a 50%+ participation rate. But what really stood out was a shift in employee perceptions from “frustrated”, “chaotic” and “desperate” to “excited”, “positive” and “hopeful”.

The Strategy

We wanted to engage all employees to make them feel part of the wider organization, while reasserting their local specificities. The campaign targeted all China R&D employees across 4 locations (Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an and Hong Kong), separated into 14 functions. All employee levels were included, with a special focus on the Extended Leadership Team, identified as a key driver for the future of the organization. To reach out to everyone, the campaign used a multi-media and multi-channel activation, reaching the employees through a dedicated campaign website, videos, digital documents, posters, social media (WeChat), live town halls and other collaterals. Our outreach plan was broken down by audience, targeting employees by functions, locations or whether they were entering as teams or individual, or both. Our approach also enabled us to identify office and team leaders to be on-the-ground advocates for the campaign.