Wunderman Thompson unites nearly 20,000 professionals in 90 markets globally, around one shared vision: To inspire growth for ambitious brands. Similarly, the organization’s vision for employees is: To inspire growth for ambitious people. Wunderman Thompson does this by applying the same branding expertise they use with their clients to help employees better know, grow, and project an authentic personal brand (APB). Developing a strong APB will increase the value employees bring to their work at Wunderman Thompson and help them grow in their careers. Wunderman Thompson wanted to offer a global tool, the THRIVE application, to help employees facilitate personal development and career growth through building their personal brand.
“At Wunderman Thompson, feedback is not just a buzzword – it’s the cornerstone of our career development philosophy as well as the core of our organization’s culture. It enables employees to truly embody WT’s Behaviors – In It Together, Creative Bravery, Positivity, and Listening – while helping them better know, grow, and project their authentic personal brands. That’s why it’s so important we have an efficient, easy-to-use system in place enabling employees to collect, understand, and reflect on feedback. It will help our employees grow in their careers, and the organization will benefit from improved employee engagement and retention.”
Vidhi Thakker, Global Sr. Manager, Talent & Org. Development, Wunderman Thompson
Wunderman Thompson would need the THRIVE app to include a streamlined process for capturing and consolidating feedback at every level of the company. That’s when Valorem Reply joined the conversation. The Microsoft consultancy’s team of digital workplace experts designed and implemented a new Microsoft Teams application to help employees capture their personal brand through self-reflection, feedback, and goal setting. The THRIVE app has since been rolled out to about 11,000 employees, making it easier to collect and track feedback and collaborate on career development conversations – in one centralized, accessible location.
Formalizing and digitizing feedback processes to enhance employee experiences
How do you excite and motivate employees to share feedback? Wunderman Thompson not only wanted a digital employee feedback system – they wanted a solution that was simple, easy to manage, engaging, and most importantly, available in the flow of work. Most Wunderman Thompson employees were not participating in any kind of feedback initiative, largely because there was no formal process in place for requesting, recording, and following up on employee input. There was no formalized process for employee career development conversations and performance goals, constructive criticism, or innovative ideas. Other kinds of critical insights were often buried in email correspondence and Word documents saved to desktops or on personal OneDrive accounts. Valorem Reply was chosen as a Microsoft 365 systems integrator to develop a new system that consolidates feedback and digitizes performance reviews using Microsoft Teams and Power Apps. The goal was to create an intuitive tool that employees could easily adopt, which works seamlessly with their existing productivity tools.
Accelerating employee engagement and driving adoption across the company
Valorem Reply had in the past built another performance tool for WPP, a Wunderman Thompson sister company. Wunderman Thompson had witnessed the effectiveness of a custom Power App that was accessible from inside Microsoft Teams. Impressed by the possibilities of the integrated solution, Wunderman Thompson asked Valorem Reply to help them create a scalable solution to enable employees to manage their personal brand through an effective feedback process.
Wunderman Thompson’s primary objectives were to offer career development and coaching based on employee performance and behavior-based feedback. This would mean simplifying the steps it would take to request, submit, and track feedback from colleagues and standardizing the process and timing of career conversations with managers. The THRIVE application was designed to accommodate these needs, and Microsoft Teams was identified as the ideal platform integration given how often Wunderman Thompson’s employees used the hub for collaboration purposes. After successfully deploying the custom app in January 2022, Wunderman Thompson successfully eliminated their former paper-based review process once and for all.
Employees are now empowered to jot down goals and nominate peers for year-end reviews without ever leaving their Microsoft Teams interface. The user experience is simple and easy to intuit – peers have full visibility into feedback requests and can effortlessly submit reviews while also checking the status of pending requests sent to other colleagues. The THRIVE app improves the feedback process by making it easy to nominate and remove reviewers, and it allows managers to access employees’ professional goals and collaborate on development plans. All feedback-related tasks are managed within Microsoft Teams, which securely stores all forms and data in one place, facilitating continuous data reporting and analysis.
Continuously improving the feedback process from inside Microsoft Teams
The THRIVE app on Microsoft Teams has become a widely used tool for all Wunderman Thompson employees. But the project doesn’t end there. Over the course of four phases, THRIVE has undergone many iterations of UI/UX to best suit the needs and preferences of end users. After some early user testing, Valorem Reply implemented a reporting dashboard that local and regional HR offices are now utilizing every day to track and manage the number of employees actively engaging with THRIVE. This helps HR personnel understand how the tool is being used and identify areas for improvement to increase employee participation. Valorem Reply continues to make iterative updates to the solution that has helped Wunderman Thompson boost adoption, resulting in thousands of daily active users.
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“We’ve seen an 85%+ increase in engagement with the THRIVE App since upgrades to the UI/UX based on consultation with Reply. * Reply is not just a technical partner, but a true thought partner invested in helping WT and our employees derive the maximum value out of the solution we’ve designed and built together.”
Vidhi Thakker, Global Sr. Manager, Talent & Org. Development, Wunderman Thompson
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