Case Jollas Institute: a gamified debrief of the workplace community survey

This customer story tells how Jollas Institute successfully piloted Topaasia's "from personnel survey to personnel conversation" service, in which the results of a workplace community survey are processed and turned into concrete action together through discussion in a Topaasia game session. Interviewed is Henrik Ikonen, who works at Jollas Institute as Head of Digital Learning Solutions.

Jollas helps S Group develop

Jollas Institute supports S Group's development initiatives, produces competence development services across all employee levels of S Group and strives to find the best possible learning solutions for different needs. Henrik Ikonen says that Jollas has used various gamified solutions for years, and Topaasia seemed like an interesting novelty for the further processing of the results of the annual workplace community surveys, so that through discussion they could yield concrete development targets. S Group conducts an annual workplace community survey, answered by around 40,000 employees. Henrik explains S Group's workplace community survey: "The results of the workplace community survey are processed together with the personnel, and the aim is to find development targets for the work group together, so that things run even better. It is an annual event, and Jollas strongly supports different customers in debriefing the workplace community survey, that is, processing it. Topaasia had been on our minds for quite a while, and now the opportunity came to try whether it could offer a new, interesting angle through playing cards and small-group play."

Piloting Topaasia at Jollas: a gamified debrief of the workplace community survey

Henrik tells how Jollas had tried Topaasia before, but without a concrete use case, which made experimenting difficult. Debriefing the workplace community survey proved to be an excellent situation for a proper pilot of the game with the entire Jollas staff. "We got to run a concrete pilot and try Topaasia in practice. We do a workplace community survey in the same way as the rest of S Group, that is, once a year. We decided to try how the debrief of that survey's results would work with the help of Topaasia. In December we played with the Jollas crew in small groups and processed the results of our workplace community survey. The experience was quite inspiring and successful, as the feedback also showed. The Jollas people really liked this way of processing the results of the workplace community survey," Henrik says.

From personnel survey to personnel conversation - the project

What?

A sprint-like project in which the results of a personnel survey are further processed and debriefed into development actions through gamified discussion

How?

A Topaasia game deck is created based on the personnel survey or workplace community survey

A few people are trained as Topaasia game leaders

The game is played with the personnel, that is, discussions are held in small groups with the help of the game. The games produce concrete development actions and a better shared understanding

An in-depth content analysis is compiled from the games to support management

Book a demo

Custom game content based on the workplace community survey results

The "from personnel survey to personnel conversation" pilot began with the creation of a custom game deck based on the results of Jollas's workplace community surveys. Henrik explains how creating their own Topaasia deck went: "Beforehand I wondered what kind of undertaking this would be. It helped us that our workplace community survey is very structured and has a clear framework, so creating the game deck with Topaasia's assistance was extremely easy and painless. It took us about an hour to have a 30-card deck ready. And it worked incredibly well for the need we had for the pilot. It was a painless and pleasant experience." Henrik adds that creating the game deck was simple and makes it easy to create new custom decks: "I liked that making our own game deck was technically extremely simple. It doesn't require computer-genius skills to manage it. Of course, how easy it is to create the game's content surely depends a lot on the topic, but in this context the content was easy to create. Making our own decks was such an easy process that I believe we will continue making decks in the future." Screenshot 2023-1-16 at 12.58.00

Excellent discussion through play

After the custom game deck was created, five game leaders were trained, and under their guidance the game was played among the Jollas staff in December 2022 at a shared game event. "Our pilot group had about 30 people, that is, the Jollas staff, divided into five groups of five. We had reserved two hours for the whole event, of which an hour and a half was reserved for playing Topaasia. The game event itself went well. Of course, we game leaders were a little nervous beforehand about how it would go, even though we had received training for it. But it went well in every respect," Henrik says, and continues on how the games were run: "We had scheduled precisely for our game leaders how much time is spent on each phase of the game. But even though we had thought it through and scheduled it in advance, the experience was that the cards generated an incredible amount of discussion, and the discussion was so good that we didn't always have the heart to cut it off. The cards worked as a good basis for discussion that moves things forward. The game leaders commented that towards the end, time ran a little short. So the lesson is: if it is possible to reserve time, reserve it generously rather than trying to squeeze it tight, because discussion flows well."

The discussions surface development targets essential to the work community

After the game sessions, a vote was held among all the development actions raised in the games to pick two that will receive special attention in the coming year. Henrik explains how Jollas Institute makes use of the development targets that emerged from processing the workplace community survey results over the coming year: "We had five groups, each of which found one development target for further improving our work community. 'Surprisingly', all five development targets were different. However, we didn't want to take on too many development targets for one year, so we voted on the results of the Topaasia games for the TOP 2 development targets and worked out actions for the coming year for those two jointly chosen targets. We return to the chosen development targets throughout the year in Jollas meetings held about every six weeks. In them we spend a small amount of time on how the development targets are doing and whether they have moved forward. We also harness our bot assistant to ask our personnel certain questions throughout the year: what each person has done to advance them and how we have developed as Jollas." Screenshot 2023-1-16 at 13.17.58

A summarising and in-depth analysis of the game sessions

From the Topaasia dashboard, game leaders can pull summaries of large numbers of games. The "from personnel survey to personnel conversation" pilot also includes an in-depth analysis of the game sessions. Was the analysis useful, Henrik? "It was good and useful. Even the very first content page of the report was extremely good, with a summary of the games: it really sparked ideas. From it you could recognise things we need to push forward, and the report pulled together well the games and our preliminary thoughts on the things we need to develop. We will certainly return to it with the management team."

Would you recommend the "from personnel survey to personnel conversation" pilot?

"Absolutely. You have to be able to try tools like this yourself to see whether they are useful for your own work. This pilot actually had two purposes. First, we wanted to pilot the tool and the method, that is, whether it works for this type of activity. The second purpose was the benefit itself, that is, we got our workplace community survey debriefed and decided on concrete development targets. And yes, working with Topaasia is easy, straightforward and effortless in the sense that the service is flexible and the customer's needs have been listened to. This is a very pleasant collaboration, so thank you for that," Henrik sums up. —-- Thank you Henrik and Jollas! Henrik Ikonen Jollas Institute