Danfoss Academy

Danfoss Academy

Danfoss Academy is an app that contributes to Danfoss Digital Employee Experience by driving engagement through knowledge sharing, giving recognition among employees and receiving badges and points that later on can exchange for benefits. 

Danfoss Academy is an app that contributes to Danfoss Digital Employee Experience by driving engagement through knowledge sharing, giving recognition among employees and receiving badges and points that later on can exchange for benefits. 

Platforms

Mobile

Tools

Figjam, Figma, Optimal Workshop, NVivo, Microsoft Forms, IBM SPSS

Timeline

October 2019- June 2020

THE CHALLENGE

Improving Danfoss Digital Employee experience

In 2019, Danfoss was going through a Digitalization Journey. Several employees were very disengaged and even frustrated with the Company’s digital changes and implementations. There were different levels of users, from novices to experts, also related to digital natives and migrant natives, but there was no clear and open communication or even awareness of this different expertise.

Danfoss wanted a solution focused on Employees and their Digital Experience; however, they were unsure about their real needs.

I was part of this ambitious project to inform Danfoss with solid data about Employees Digital Experience, while at the same time, I discovered an opportunity to design a solution that could scale and be used in all of Danfoss’s offices.

THE CHALLENGE

Improving Danfoss Digital Employee Experience

In 2019, Danfoss was going through a Digitalization Journey. Several employees were very disengaged and even frustrated with the Company’s digital changes and implementations. There were different levels of users, from novices to experts, also related to digital natives and migrant natives, but there was no clear and open communication or even awareness of this different expertise.

Danfoss wanted a solution focused on Employees and their Digital Experience; however, they were unsure about their real needs.

I was part of this ambitious project to inform Danfoss with solid data about Employees Digital Experience, while at the same time, I discovered an opportunity to design a solution that could scale and be used in all of Danfoss’s offices.

Our users

As by 2024, Millennials and Gen Z generations will represent the 70% of Danfoss employees we needed to design something focused on these group of users.

OUR USERS

As by 2024, Millennials and Gen Z generations will represent the 70% of Danfoss employees we needed to design something focused on these group of users.

My Role

I was in a team of two. My teammate and I worked on this seven-month project, both working in the entire research and design of Danfoss Academy. This was done in collaboration with the Digitalization department in Danfoss, with whom we had weekly meetings and handed the research results and later the design off to.

MY ROLE

I was in a team of two. My teammate and I worked on this seven-month project, both working in the entire research and design of Danfoss Academy. This was done in collaboration with the Digitalization department in Danfoss, with whom we had weekly meetings and handed the research results and later the design off to.

HIGH LEVEL GOALS

Designing for an engaging digital experience in 7 months

Our first goal in the project was to understand how were employees experiencing the digital tools to later understand how is their approach for learning and training in these regards. Once discovered this through in-depth qualitative and quantitative research, the project took a clearer design path and added crucial goals into the project. These goals were: 

  1. Contribute to employee’s development.
    • Design for a knowledge sharing environment.
    • Understand learning preferences.
  1. Give users more control over their digital learning and knowledge sharing.
  2. Design a solution that can be implemented globally.

HIGH LEVEL GOALS

Designing for an engaging digital experience in 7 months

Our first goal in the project was to understand how were employees experiencing the digital tools to later understand how is their approach for learning and training in these regards. Once discovered this through in-depth qualitative and quantitative research, the project took a clearer design path and added crucial goals into the project. These goals were: 

  1. Contribute to employee’s development.
    • Design for a knowledge sharing environment.
    • Understand learning preferences.
  1. Give users more control over their digital learning and knowledge sharing.
  2. Design a solution that can be implemented globally.

THE KICKOFF

Approaching our users

At the outset of the project we didn’t have a clear mission or specific goals for Danfoss Digital Employee Experience. Without pre- existing insights or data, I design a broad research plan to have a full overview of Danfoss Employees. This was very helpful, for driving our design path and technology in use. 

Resources for User Research were at hand. I conducted a attitudinal research using qualitative and quantitative methods. I interviewed several employees from non- managerial and managerial positions, did a couple of Focus Groups and used surveys.

THE KICKOFF

Approaching our users

At the outset of the project we didn’t have a clear mission or specific goals for Danfoss Digital Employee Experience. Without pre- existing insights or data, I design a broad research plan to have a full overview of Danfoss Employees. This was very helpful, for driving our design path and technology in use. 

Resources for User Research were at hand. I conducted a attitudinal research using qualitative and quantitative methods. I interviewed several employees from non- managerial and managerial positions, did a couple of Focus Groups and used surveys.

Early Insights from the field

We interviewed 8 employees from Danfoss Head Quarters in Sønderborg, Danmark and conducted a focus group. Our goals were to understand the challenges employees face when learning to use digital tools, the workarounds they employed, and what can be motivating factors. 

Learning

Employees try to learn with tutorials sometimes, but there are some practices that can’t be learned by generic tutorials. 

Knowledge

Sharing

For super users sharing tips and tricks can be time consuming and repetitive.

Incentives

Most employees would like to receive other incentives (not only money) for learning and training.

Standarization

Most employees would complain about mutiple formats and channels used by the offices from other countries. 

EARLY Insights from the field

We interviewed 8 employees from Danfoss Head Quarters in Sønderborg, Danmark and conducted a focus group. Our goals were to understand the challenges employees face when learning to use digital tools, the workarounds they employed, and what can be motivating factors. 

Learning

Employees try to learn with tutorials sometimes, but there are some practices that can’t be learned by generic tutorials. 

Knowledge

Sharing

For super users sharing tips and tricks can be time consuming and repetitive.

Incentives

Most employees would like to receive other incentives (not only money) for learning and training.

Standarization

Most employees would complain about mutiple formats and channels used by the offices from other countries. 

TOWARDS A CLEARER PATH

Focusing on a more global perspective

I was surprised by the issues we found. We detected some annoyances in Danfoss main offices, although it opened up the scop to offices outside Denmark. We hypothesised that offices around the world could face major problems.

Curiosity revealed an opportunity to perfect the employee experience for Danfoss employees around the world.

 
 

If users from the main offices with information right at hand and more opportunities for trainings were having trouble with keeping up with the tools and engagement, how bad was the digital employee experience in more disconnected or faraway offices with more challenging technological and environmental contexts? Curiosity revealed an opportunity to perfect the employee experience. This was the beginnings of more clear and aligned path to meet users needs. 

TOWARDS A CLEARER PATH

Focusing on a more global perspective

I was surprised by the issues we found. We detected some annoyances in Danfoss main offices, although it opened up the scop to offices outside Denmark. We hypothesised that offices around the world could face major problems.

Curiosity revealed an opportunity to perfect the employee experience for Danfoss employees around the world.

 
 

If users from the main offices with information right at hand and more opportunities for trainings were having trouble with keeping up with the tools and engagement, how bad was the digital employee experience in more disconnected or faraway offices with more challenging technological and environmental contexts? Curiosity revealed an opportunity to perfect the employee experience. This was the beginnings of more clear and aligned path to meet users needs. 

Broadening our understanding

Getting deeper insights


I decided to consider users from other countries in our research. In an early stage we considered some interviews which provided us with relevant findings.

Broadening our understanding

GETTING DEEPER INSIGHTS


I decided to consider users from other countries in our research. In an early stage we considered some interviews which provided us with relevant findings.

Employees were not engaged at all with learning to use new tools, and the feeling of disconnection between offices was common.

After several iterations and with a almost finalized deisgn, I presented the app to Danfoss Digitalization Department. Later on Danfoss invited Hoang and me to present the project more formally at their HQ in Sønderborg, Denmark.

53%

of employees prefer to take tailored trainings digitally. 32% prefer 50/50 (digital and face- to- face) 15 % face to face.

46%

Employees mentioned that creating a digital community where they can share tips & tricks and connect with other offices can be motivating.

56%

employees would feel more motivated of learning to use digital tools and sharing knowledge if there are rewards different from money, e.g. benefits (a day off, a week working from another office, etc).

REFRAMING THE PROBLEM 

Generic trainings, feeling alone in a lifelong learning journey and lack of communication as main cause of disengagement and dissatisfaction trainings

Employees Digital Engagement and Satisfaction was… complicated.  Most of the employees feel the company offers boring and generic trainings that do not adapt 100% to users needs and everything is out there lost in the intranet.  They also feel everyone is coping with this on their own and sometimes they could save time by sharing knowledge with others.  Not to mention offices around the world, which feel completely disconnected from the main offices, and a bit confused with the information regarding the tools. All these lead to frustration, sometimes double work and wast of time.

How might we help Danfoss employees around the world form a community for knowledge sharing and feel motivated towards the digital tools while improving engagement and productivity?

This begged the question, how might we help Danfoss employees around the world form a community for knowledge sharing and feel motivated towards the digital tools? Our proposal was Danfoss Academy, an app which aims to connect employees from around the world and share the coolest tips and tricks to improve engagement and satisfaction, while at the same time fostering employee’s productivity.

REFRAMING THE PROBLEM 

GENERIC TRAININGS, FEELING ALONE IN A LIFELONG LEARNING JOURNEY and lack of communication AS MAIN CAUSE OF DISENGAGEMENT AND DISSATISFACTION

Employees Digital Engagement and Satisfaction was… complicated.  Most of the employees feel the company offers boring and generic trainings that do not adapt 100% to users needs and everything is out there lost in the intranet.  They also feel everyone is coping with this on their own and sometimes they could save time by sharing knowledge with others.  Not to mention offices around the world, which feel completely disconnected from the main offices, and a bit confused with the information regarding the tools. All these lead to frustration, sometimes double work and wast of time.

How might we help Danfoss employees around the world form a community for knowledge sharing and feel motivated towards the digital tools while improving engagement and productivity?

This begged the question, how might we help Danfoss employees around the world form a community for knowledge sharing and feel motivated towards the digital tools? Our proposal was Danfoss Academy, an app which aims to connect employees from around the world and share the coolest tips and tricks to improve engagement and satisfaction, while at the same time fostering employee’s productivity.

Considering the employee experience equation

                      Culture 

                    Technology

               Physical Environment

I was curious about finding about the following:
  • How do you design for employees … globally?
  • What context need to be considered?
  • What’s drives Employees Digital Engagement for learning/ training?

Uncovering employees ideal digital experience

To make this app global, I thought about not starting with a Denmark – centric design, instead degrading it for what could be considered as the other challenging offices, we needed to start from smaller and more disconnected offices to enable experiences for people in different contexts.

I conducted virtual interviews and a focus group with employees from different countries (Germany, USA, Mexico, Czech Republic, and others) to understand their context. 

All interviews and focus groups were transcribed and coded in NVivo, which allowed us to organize and analyze the tons of qualitative information collected by themes and patterns.  We also surveyed a representative sample of Danfoss Employees around the world to measure in a major scale employees learning/ training preferences and needs and analyzed the data using IBM SPSS.  

                                                   Transcription 

       Codes in NVivo

                            Using Spss

Key highlights

UNDERSTANDING OUR USERS BETTER

The more research I did throughout the project, we started to realise that there were users who were more likely to benefit from the service than others. To create more context and insight for these users, I decided to create an ‘extra layer’ on top of their existing personas using empathy maps.

Working Back and forth

After lots of coding and nodes, we detected four main characteristics that best described our users current feelings towards digital trainings. I reversed the polarity of the current feeling and asked how might we…

  1. Better motivate users to share knowledge?
  2. Make employees learning material more engaging and not generic?
  3. Make employees have a sense of orientation in relation to others?
  4. Design to make users feel connected to others and not in a solo lifelong learning journey?

Introducing Danfoss Academy

Danfoss Academy Based on Knowledge Sharing

Employees creating content regarding tips & tricks of the software they use daily was an idea born by questioning employees’ training preferences and pain points in their training. Although webinars and other interactive materials are at hand, Danfoss Employees needed more local knowledge that can only be transmitted by forming a community.

Rather than boring generic training that does not even adapt 100% to employees’ needs and practices, even if they call a –you name it- software specialist, the app suggests employees share ideas, find outs, tips, and tricks. It is also important that they experience a sense of community where they help each other to avoid any frustration.

This required a lot of ideation for gamifing these situations. The challenge was to not fall into another stressful tool to use, and also people not perceiving this app related to KPI’s.

 

HOW WE GOT THERE

improving digital employee experience

In order to inform my design strategy it was important to understand the different factors that motivate users in a learning context and what may influence their digital experience. I followed a simple framework to reframe what needed to be gamified.

What

                                  is being gamified?

  Why

       is it being gamified?

Who

     are the users?

How

  is it being gamified?

defining Danfoss Academy architecture

I designed the flow based on many different scenarios and ways in which users would interact with the app and the specific tasks they would want to accomplish. I also worked on identifying the happy paths and removed possible roadblocks or dead ends. 

TO Simple Sketches

To hi-fi wireframes

A platform to share knowledge and receive feedback and points, that can later on employees can exchange for benefits.

LET'S COLLECT BADGES & POINTS

A platform to share knowledge and receive feedback and points, that can later on employees can exchange for benefits.

Show Appreciation

Users can give appreciation to other colleagues. There are different categories: Team Spirit, Leadership, Problem Solving, and Proactivity. They can also see the badges and medals they have received.

INFORMATION RIGHT AT HAND

Users can read the Company’s related news, share posts and events for training.

FIND THE RIGHT PERSON EASY

There is also a chat, so that based on badges and leaderboard, colleagues can contact directly to employees that are best on the diverse tools.

Want to keep updated? Sign-in to the event

Users can reserve a space in events of their interest for learning some tips and tricks.

Key highlights

Understanding our users better

The more research I did throughout the project, we started to realise that there were users who were more likely to benefit from the service than others. To create more context and insight for these users, I decided to create an ‘extra layer’ on top of their existing personas using empathy maps.

Working Back and Forth

After lots of coding and nodes, we detected four main characteristics that best described our users current feelings towards digital trainings. I reversed the polarity of the current feeling and asked how might we…

  1. Better motivate users to share knowledge?
  2. Make employees learning material more engaging and not generic?
  3. Make employees have a sense of orientation in relation to others?
  4. Design to make users feel connected to others and not in a solo lifelong learning journey?

Danfoss Academy Based on Knowledge Sharing

Employees creating content regarding tips & tricks of the software they use daily was an idea born by questioning employees’ training preferences and pain points in their training. Although webinars and other interactive materials are at hand, Danfoss Employees needed more local knowledge that can only be transmitted by forming a community.

Rather than boring generic training that does not even adapt 100% to employees’ needs and practices, even if they call a –you name it- software specialist, the app suggests employees share ideas, find outs, tips, and tricks. It is also important that they experience a sense of community where they help each other to avoid any frustration.

This required a lot of ideation for gamifing these situations. The challenge was to not fall into another stressful tool to use, and also people not perceiving this app related to KPI’s.

 

From defining Danfoss Academy architecture

I designed the flow based on many different scenarios and ways in which users would interact with the app and the specific tasks they would want to accomplish. I also worked on identifying the happy paths and removed possible roadblocks or dead ends. 

The Launch

PRESENTING DANFOSS ACADEMY TO STAKEHOLDERS

After several iterations and with a almost finalized deisgn, I presented the app to Danfoss Digitalization Department. Later on Danfoss invited Hoang and me to present the project more formally at their HQ in Sønderborg, Denmark.

General Overview

THE IMPACT

Danfoss Academy seemed to be well accepted by the potential users.  In general, secondary users (non gen z or millennials) perceived it as another tool to overwhelm them, and were not so excited or curious about it. I believe this to be something that could change over time, as they find relevant content they can use when they are in trouble. 

THE GOOD

Prototypes were shared with great confidence and received excellent feedback.
Excellent collaboration with stakeholders, engineering team, & design to create an end- result I am proud of.

THE NOT SO GOOD

No final build. Danfoss was interested in Danfoss Academy concept, there was still a lot more to do. However, two weeks before a planning meeting with Danfoss Digitalization Department, the company acquired and merged with Eaton. No complains, Congratulations to Danfoss! Although the incorporation of 13,000 employees into the fleet, demanded all the Digitalization department time and resources.

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY

Considering accessibility, in 2019 I was not so conscious about it, but looking back at the designs made me realize there were small, easy changes that would have made a big impact.

“Paola and Hoang delivered a user-centric and amazing design based on solid research, data, and a critical eye. Even though their team was very small, they did a great job. Paola was very collaborative and had great inputs during our meetings”.

Carsten M. Heinricksen 
PM Digitalization Department, Danfoss
HQ Office, Sønderborg, Denmark

Paola Núñez Bonilla