How it feels to be recognized as a Great Place To Work

Great Place to Work is the global authority on workplace culture, employee experience, and the leadership behaviors proven to deliver market-leading revenue, employee retention and increased innovation. To be certified as a "Great Place to Work," organizations must pass a rigorous process that uses validated employee feedback gathered with Great Place to Work's data driven "For All" methodology.

Each year, @Great Place to Work® recognizes the Best Workplaces in around the world. In 2020, Worldline has been recognized by Great Place to Work® in Argentina, Austria, Chile, China, France, Poland and Sweden. The “Best Place To Work” prestigious award is based entirely on what current employees say about their experience working at the company. 

Our teams in China and Poland celebrating their Great Place to Work® recognition 
 

This recognition takes ongoing dedication to the employee experience and this is why we have asked seven dear HR colleagues to share their thoughts about it with us:

• Léa Brassart, member of the Wellbeing, Learning & HR Development team, France
• Tina Berger, HR Business Partner, Austria
• Cui Yue, Marketing specialist, China
• Michaela Wistrand, HR Business Partner, Sweden
• Joanna Ladzińska-Nowak, HR Business Partner, Poland
• Mariela Codicetti, HR Country Head Argentina and Chile, Argentina.
• Marisol Solar, HR Business Partner, Chile

Following 2020 Great Place To Work ® (GPTW), you have been certified or recognized "Best place to work" in your country by GPTW, in your opinion what were your key assets?

Léa Brassart: The individual and collective resilience of each member of the organization has enabled Worldline to adapt to the Covid-19 crisis. This has been proven by the GPTW certification and the ranking to the Best Work Places in France that we have obtained despite the very complicated context of 2020. Worldline has also been able to communicate effectively with employees to stay in contact with all of them and has been able to protect everyone during this pandemic.

Tina Berger: We have worked together with our employees to improve after the 2019 GPTW survey, we brainstormed ideas and implemented an action plan. Because of that we have been able to improve our results significantly in all areas. In my opinion, our key assets were open communication, our friendly and fair culture and how we support our employees in doing their job.

Cui Yue: I believe that there are four initiatives which really made a difference:

1. Expert community: we can grow quickly in a dedicated career path by local’s supports.
2. Fairness and Trust: we can get fair opportunity at work. We feel trusted by leaders who helps us realising our full potential.
3. Work-Life balance: Worldline does not encourage overtime work. We are willing to finish work during business hours efficiently.
4. Activities: Such as teambuilding, to increase teamwork and enhance cohesion

Michaela Wistrand: First, I think it started when the Swedish Senior management team went for an external leadership training, to really become one team with the same goal. During this training, we really had to know each other on a deep level, brainstormed about our common mission, and learned what it really means to be a united team. With that as a starting point, it became much easier to agree and work on our action plans and improvement projects. We decided on an action plan involving everyone in the senior management team that all members supported. I think that was very important to us, to have each other’s back when sometimes facing our employees’ dissatisfaction in the survey.

The next step, and the most important to receive satisfied and engaged employees is trust. Trust is not merely a soft social virtue. Rather, trust is a pragmatic actionable asset you can create. You need to practise trust; you need to give trust to get trust. To show our employees we care for them and trust them we started to work a lot more on our communication and transparency. We did that by explaining as much as we could about what was going on. By being open about our own challenges and how we tried to deal with everything, we could slowly bring down the wall that employees felt was put between the management team and them. Our employees want to be heard and they want to know and see for themselves that we are not only listening to them, but also taking their words seriously, and doing something about it. We implemented lunch meetings with all line managers every second week to improve the communication link to the employees. We also improved our monthly town halls to always have HR visible at the meetings, to bring up HR topics needed at that time.

Joanna Ladzińska-Nowak: I let myself quote employees who shared their feedback in GPTW survey. Our key assets are: ‘the people, who value the cooperation, have great knowledge and skills, are kind to each other, give their best”, “people make this place unusual and great”. I cannot agree more. Unique atmosphere, mutual respect and support are the key factors which contributed to our success. It’s especially important for a fast-growing company like ours, where knowledge-sharing and openness play a crucial role.

Mariela Codicetti & Marisol Solar: 2020 was an absolutely different year for all of us, and it was important for us to take care of our employees, giving them information on the Covid-19 situation across the company, the measures implemented or to be implemented, the business situation and the next steps.

On the one hand, we implemented different communications channels (monthly town halls, HR and managers calls, emails, etc.), to keep trust and reduce employee anxiety and keep building a stronger workplace culture. On the other hand, we worked together with managers analysing how the pandemic was affecting our organisation’s operations, and put different elements in place to protect our employees while meeting our customers’ expectations in terms of service quality levels.

Finally, although the context was very different, we tried to carry out most of the wellbeing initiatives for the employees implemented in previous years (virtual Children’ Day celebration, Wellbeing@Worldline Week, virtual celebrations, and recognitions, etc.).

Why the GPTW survey is useful for you?

Léa Brassart: The main advantage of the GPTW survey is to have direct feedback from all employees at the same time and every year. The results of this survey enable to identify the items perceived as positive and the grey areas within the company to adapt our action plans accordingly.

Moreover, comparing the results year per year enables to verify the impact of implemented actions on everyone’s daily life.

Tina Berger: It is a possibility for Worldline to receive honest feedback about our working environment and culture. It helps us improving as an employer of choice as well as attract new talents.

Cui Yue: We can truly express our opinion which Worldline thinks are valuable, then take actions accordingly.

Michaela Wistrand: It is a good way of taking the pulse of our employees. The more satisfied they are to more likely we will be able to keep them within the organization. If they are not satisfied, we will receive an indication of what we need to work with and improve to be able to keep them, as well as get more productive and efficient work done. Happy employees do a good job and they usually do not mind going that extra mile to create good results. Unhappy employees are usually not as efficient, they will do their job, but not always more than that.

Joanna Ladzińska-Nowak: GPTW survey is crucial for understanding where we go as a company, what are our strengths and weaknesses. The survey shows the results of our actions, it’s the voice of employees who give the feedback on them. It also helps us in attracting new talents who want to work for the best, top employer, highly recognized by its own employees.

Mariela Codicetti & Marisol Solar: GPTW survey is useful for us as a company, to see how employees perceive what Worldline is doing for their wellness and development, paying attention to our employee experience, overall during the pandemic in keeping them all up to date and safe.

The survey also allows us to show our intention of listening to employees and take care of them, it also demonstrates that we are committed to their wellbeing and that we will take actions on the results.

What local practices are you the proudest of?

Léa Brassart: The Empowerment Week aims to highlight the internal support existing within Worldline to help each employee to grow and to develop their soft skills on a daily basis.

All the programs (Manager Program, Mentoring by Worldline, InnovaTeam, Digital Skills, Change Enablement, MEH, etc.) and communities (Experts, SRE, etc.) referents work hard together to organise this week for every French employees. Conferences, webinars, and workshops are organised in a friendly atmosphere.

Tina Berger: Our Buddy programme and the Young Talents Initiative, which we both launched in the last year.

Michaela Wistrand: I am most proud of that we have been able to improve our scores so much in only a year.

“This is a psychologically and emotionally healthy place to work” went from 63 % to 83 % and “Management is approachable, easy to talk with” went from 67% to 82%. While “When people change jobs or work units, they are made to feel right at home” went from to 66 to 85%.

I think the reason for this increase relies on our communication, but also implementing a “work environment committee”, an HR confluence page (like an intranet) where we share all HR related information to managers and employees.

Like trainings and support within recruitment, processes, work environment laws, etc. But HR works really close to the managers to coach them to support their teams.

We have also had a social committee that plans events for our employees.

Joanna Ladzińska-Nowak: I’m very proud of how well our referral program works and how many employees are recommending their colleagues to work in Worldline Poland. In addition, I really find the atmosphere of knowledge-sharing, cross trainings, and cooperation unique and admirable.

Mariela Codicetti & Marisol Solar: As organization, we could quickly adapt to the new pandemic context and the new homeworking way, providing all employees with the needed tools for their work, and the managers and employees reinforcing their relationships, based on the trust relationship already built, we are very proud of this!

We are also proud of having implemented monthly town halls with the CEO where all the news were presented; and different communications channels also (via HR, managers, emails, etc.) to keep employees all up to date and safe.

Following the pandemic, what new initiative did you launch in your country?

Léa Brassart: We organised mindfulness meditation workshops during the pandemic. This practice has been well appreciated since it allowed everyone to relax and to meet and share on a topic that was not related to business. We implemented this practice on the long-term basis as a meditation time slot is now planned every Thursday for every French employee who want to join.

Tina Berger: In Austria we launched a bi-weekly update with our local Management to ensure direct communication and bring our employees closer together while they were working from hom. We launched a Buddy Programme as well to ensure new colleagues joining Worldline felt welcome from their first day. Additionally, it helps to integrate them socially and give them a good environment for their onboarding. 

Cui Yue: As in the rest of the company, we have facilitated Home working. Also, we have launched various online activities such as Annual party lucky draw and online Seasons greetings. Finally, we strived to express sympathy to colleagues in epidemic areas to reduce concerns about stress and pay extra attention to their mental health.

Joanna Ladzińska-Nowak: The pandemic is still going on, but we are happy we were able to introduce the remote working model very quickly and efficiently. In addition, we maintained flexibility and apart from a short period of time, our office remained open and safe for those who preferred working from it. We put a lot of focus on safety, sanitizers, and information campaign. We didn’t want to lose the bond with employees that’s why we kept organizing webinars/ workshops, competitions, which aim was to have fun, learn and integrate.

Mariela Codicetti & Marisol Solar: Although the pandemic is not over in our region, we would like to keep the flexible way of working, taking advantage of technology to improve wellbeing as well as being able to deliver great service to our clients every day.