The Mondelēz Talent Story – gamifying the CRM implementation process to enhance user adoption

About Mondelēz International:
Mondelēz International, is a whole new company reimagined back in 2012 with a key focus in mind – to become a Snacking Leader by sharing the world’s favourite brands (such as Oreo, BelVita, Cadbury, Toblerone, Natural Confectionary Company candy and Trident gum to name but a few) and to empower people to snack right. Great people, great snacks and great brands. That’s who we are.

OUR PROBLEM:

Bringing a CRM into a large global organisation such as Mondelēz is a complex challenge. Whilst not unique, implementing large scale tech and getting a large and diverse TA team to utilise this from day one requires dedicated focus and strategy.

It was extremely important that our entire team were on board with the CRM implementation journey for it to be successful. It was also worth noting that this was more than just a new technology we were introducing but also a behavioural move to shift away from the traditional “post-&-pray” methodology to a more proactive recruiting process.

Our aims were to use the CRM for proactive outreach and day-to-day candidate engagement as well as job campaigns, Talent pooling and content marketing. Ultimately the CRM would sit alongside and complement our ATS and tools like LinkedIn Recruiter etc.

OUR INITIATIVE:

With all of this change management and potential transformation in mind, we set off to formally “ignite” our CRM usage with some clear goals on what we wanted to achieve in terms of adoption, usage and ROI.

We heard from many other global organisations that they had struggled and/or failed in their implementations with engagement and adoption beyond launch. So we were extremely conscious that this cannot just be a “tick-box” exercise to launch and then move on to the next project, leaving our recruiters to work out how and where they could embed this into their day to day roles in a meaningful and useful way.

We knew training had to play a part in this but how do we keep it interesting? We decided to tap into the innate competitive nature of recruiters through gamification, and our initiative – a reality TV-inspired incentive competition called “Mondelēz Got Talent!” – was born!

OUR PROCESS:

Getting our senior leaders on board with this competition idea was a relatively straightforward process. We pitched it our monthly TA Leadership Forum and it was resoundingly well-received with little persuasion on our end – all recruiters love a bit of healthy competition after all!

On a more serious note, the scale of the implementation was also something we hadn’t encountered before so everyone realised that a different and innovative approach (such as a competition) would be needed in order to achieve the adoption results we were seeking (to justify our investment).

Our CRM launch and the lead up to the competition was split into four main parts with some phased approaches:

Part 1

Pre-Launch where we were setting the “stage” for our global implementation with lots of communications, emails and yammer teasers, as well as information sessions and online preview training.

All these served to build excitement for what was coming, demonstrating the potential CRM use cases and benefits.

Part 2

Featuring our core training roll out – we called this our “Ignite Avature Program” – aptly named after the CRM we had selected.

This comprised of small group (training squads), modular interactive sessions led by selected CRM SuperUsers around the regions. The squads worked through a six-week training program with weekly demo and interactive sessions focusing on a core CRM functionality each time.

The squads each had team names and even designed their own team logos! #squadgoals 😊

Part 3

Once the training squads were up and running, this is when the “Mondelēz’s Got Talent!” incentive competition launched.

Loosely based on a reality TV show inspired by the same name, it featured a variety of points scoring possibilities and categories for the teams all focusing on activities and behaviours that we wanted the recruiters to action in the system.

The categories and points scoring all fed into a weekly leaderboard to generate healthy competitive spirit across the regions and training squads over a three-month period. The conclusion of the competition and the winners were announced on a global townhall where awards, prizes and certificates were distributed to the TA “Rockstars” in our teams.

The Competition categories were as follows:

• “Open Auditions” – Total prospects (candidates) created in the system (AIM: to get activity levels up and starting to use).
• “Finals Bootcamp” – Total prospects progressed in the workflow to contacted/keep warm (AIM: to encourage Talent pooling and pipelining).
• “Judges Auditions” – Total prospects progressed to interview stage (conversion).
• “Live Finals” – Total prospects moved to a live role in our ATS (conversion).
• And of course, *GOLDEN BUZZER!!* which was for prospects HIRED from the CRM as first source.

Overall it was a resounding success (initial results detailed in next section) – activity levels were high; the competition was fierce and we kick-started the usage behaviours that we wanted to see and achieve with the system.

Part 4 and beyond

We are still in this phase where we continue to embed and measure, and to test and learn. This is constantly evolving.

OUR RESULTS:

Overall it was a great success and the competition proved so popular with the Recruiters that we are launching another similar incentive again in 2020 to continue the momentum!

Here is a snapshot of the results from the three-month competition:

• “Open Auditions” – Total prospects created: 5,857
• “Finals Bootcamp” – Total prospects progressed to contacted/keep warm: 2,000
• “Judges Auditions” – Total prospects progressed to interview: 652
• “Live Finals” – Total prospects moved to ATS live role : 631
• *GOLDEN BUZZER!!* Total prospects HIRED: 104 Hires!!

Whilst our incentive comp had a double-function to help us measure results and engagement in the short run, we were also aware that we would need to ensure that plans were in place for long term.

So we created a set of KPIs that everyone can build into goals. We also worked with the CRM vendor to set up custom Dashboards that reflected these measures in order to make reporting and review as simple as possible.

And our results continue to come in – over the course of 2019 we can attribute 384 hires to our CRM as primary source, estimating a cost avoidance (where we may have previously gone to agency) of approximately USD$5.7M.

OUR @#$% UPS:

Some of the key learnings for us were as follows:

• Ensure to include TA leaders as early adopters and get them involved in the training and launch to help drive the results in their teams – for us, this demonstrated how critical a focus that the CRM would be and impacted overall engagement positively.
• It is key to choose folks with energy as Superusers across your teams – they can better influence and motivate people to use the system.
• We need to continually assess the pulse of our recruiters – test ideas, assess the success and adjust the focus if needed. We had a large big bang approach at the start, but we soon learned that because the CRM has so much functionality and possibilities that the teams weren’t ready straight away to digest and use everything all at once. This needed a more in depth, modular approach, hands on, training led at local levels with something to reward the behaviour. This was where our training squads and “Mondelēz’s Got Talent” incentive competition became most effective.
• This is a completely different way of working for our recruiters, most of us had never used a CRM before. If you are in similar situation, expect lots of questions on “what is in it for me” and “how does this fit in with our other systems”.
• Prepare a strategy that will speak to this (something that makes sense in your organisational context) – for us, gamification and competition worked well when coupled with our Superuser network and small group training squad approach.

WRAP UP:

In conclusion, here are my “ingredients” for success:

• Understand your audience for training – consider what will and won’t work in different forums (virtual/live/eLearning etc. – always try to make training as interactive as possible with lots of live demos for real use case scenarios.A tip here is to make friends with your L&D department, keep up to date with the latest trends in learning and experiment a bit with what works best for your audience).
• Be innovative and stay agile. With no extra budget for the competition, we had to be creative with our reward system to encourage participation. We improvised with prizes consisting of extra annual leave days, gift certificates, and chocolates (of course) etc. and these worked a treat.
• Focus on the learner’s perspective – consider what do they really need to learn that will be most valuable. What will make their lives easier? What will inspire them to do better? These are your selling points! Use external resources but make sure that you are including your messages too – what is unique about your company, your own ways of working and ensure that you customise your messages to fit your purpose.
• Try to find a healthy balance between training and recruiter capacity levels – aim to curate a variety of resources and training interventions that are useful, applicable and easy to access on demand when required.
• Remember your Hiring Managers, HR and other stakeholders who may also benefit from the CRM. Include them in your implementation journey (comms/updates/training) where you can. Make them aware that this can be a resource to benefit all parties when used optimally and that their input and collaboration is also necessary for success.
• And finally, make sure that you are measuring your success and demonstrating the potential ROI that the CRM can bring. Include this in your KPIs/goals and reporting.

Be sure to sing out and be proud about any wins or successes!

If you would like to find out more, feel free to reach out:
Tracy Quinn
Global Talent Acquisition Leader
Mobile: +61 405 836 028
Email: tracy.quinn@mdlz.com

Do you have a Talent story to share? Drop us a note at info@atcevents.com.au with a brief summary and we’ll get back to you!