Fortune 100 tech company builds a culture of learning with TED@Work

A multinational tech organization has faced several challenges and opportunities – from a gradual return to the office and a desire to connect face-to-face, to growing requests for wellness programs to address burnout and the stress of the pandemic. Plus, with various organizational changes taking place, the opportunity to impact employee experience and engagement became evident.

Beginning to create a culture of learning

The organization’s marketing team partnered with TED@Work in 2019 to execute a pilot program they coined the TED Power Hour. The initial purpose was to build leadership skills across the organization’s marketing community. It was an immediate hit, with an NPS of 74 across 40+ sessions around the world.

However, just as they began the work on their second pilot, COVID brought the world to a standstill. This included their pilot – but as they began to return to the office in 2022, the client knew TED@Work's program could help revitalize their teams and communities.

Building a connected community

When 2022 began, the client organization had completed an engagement survey that identified key areas of focus for their employee experience and engagement team. Beyond the fatigue brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the client organization was experiencing major organizational changes, increasingly distributed teams, industry-wide burnout and declining employee engagement. They recognized that, to thrive as an organization, they needed to act quickly and effectively.

From the survey, they could tell trust – or the lack thereof – was an important factor. And TED@Work offers an off-the-shelf solution in the How to Build (and Rebuild) Trust Meeting-in-a-Box. So, in Q2, they ran over 25 TED Power Hours, leveraging the Meetings-in-a-Box framework, to reach close to a thousand of their global marketers. The results, again, were significant: “We saw an NPS of 73.7, and 82% of participants surveyed said they were 'Very Likely' to apply their learnings within the next 90 days,” according to the client.

“We saw an NPS of 73.7, and 82% of participants surveyed said they were 'Very Likely' to apply their learnings within the next 90 days."

Implementing a new skills framework

Following the enormous success of the Q2 TED Power Hour, they decided this was a program worth continuing. In early Q3, skills and career growth was a hot topic for their organization. A new skills framework had just been finalized, identifying the core skills needed for every marketer’s success. As this was shared out, they were asked to organize a “Skills Fest” for the marketing organization – a day dedicated towards developing those core skills.

The challenge they faced was how to rally a global team – some virtual, and some in-person – around an inspiring and engaging day of learning. They embraced a mix of internal subject matter experts and vendor content, which included TED@Work. Ultimately, they chose a TED Power Hour about collaboration, built around Margaret Heffernan’s talk, Forget the pecking order at work.

“Even months later, we hear marketers referencing Heffernan’s ‘superchickens’ concept and the role it plays in collaboration,” the client recalled. “Overall, the topic truly resonated with our global marketing community.”

“Even months later, we hear marketers referencing Heffernan’s ‘superchickens’ concept and the role it plays in collaboration. Overall, the topic truly resonated with our global marketing community.”

When they surveyed their marketers afterward, the TED Power Hour session had come out on top with an 88.1% satisfaction rate, and several glowing reviews in the survey verbatims.

Launching a '52 weeks of wellness' initiative

Their partnership with TED@Work has given them access to a variety of TED Talks, speakers and training and resources to leverage with their team. Beyond the TED Power Hours, they have leveraged speakers and TED content to promote an internal 52 Weeks of Wellness initiative, and public speaking training (among other TED content) for their Emerging Thought Leaders program.

In fact, the Storytelling on Stage instructor-led session – led by TED Director of Speaker Coaching, Briar Goldberg – received an astounding 100 NPS among their Thought Leaders cohort, demonstrating just how deeply resonating it was with their audience.

Why the TED@Work program works

“For our team, our partnership with TED@Work is not just about their extensive library of content, but the fact that they give us the tools, resources, and support to leverage that content to craft solutions that fulfill our organization’s needs," said the client.

"Our partnership with TED@Work is not just about their extensive library of content, but the fact that they give us the tools, resources, and support to leverage that content to craft solutions that fulfill our organization’s needs."

With TED@Work’s Meeting-in-a-Box framework, Discuss Anywhere toolkit and the Idea Logs that come with every video, they have been able to plan and execute truly impactful programs for their marketing community.

After partnering with TED@Work, they have been able to reach and unite hundreds of marketers all over the world for a common purpose. More so, they have been able to do so in a way that is purposeful, that not only imparts knowledge to their team, but also motivates them to make changes in their lives and careers.