Workplace Transformation: Playbook & Digital Adoption
ACCA Case Study
The brief
To facilitate an engaged, empowered workforce who use digital tools to communicate, collaborate, and deliver regardless of their location.
Design and launch a playbook for ACCA’s new ways of working. The goal is to provide a single source of truth that consolidates all knowledge management and equips the teams to independently find answers and resources for the operation of ACCA’s blended ways of working.
Increase the adoption of M365, primarily Microsoft Teams, across the ACCA organisation to enable people to communicate, collaborate and deliver regardless of location through the creation of a M365 learning portal, an adoption community, automated support services, and learning sessions
Playbook
I created a comprehensive ways of working playbook as a single source of truth guide to help everyone in ACCA understand how to bring the ways of working to life and how the digital tools support them to communicate, collaborate and deliver regardless of location.
The playbook explains the blended (hybrid) approach for ACCA’s ways of working with the goal of continually evolving this as ACCA test and learn.
From communication charters, to individual team workflow documentation, the playbook includes chapters covering how to adopt a remote-first mindset and hybrid working, how to shift the bias towards asynchronous communication, how to reduce and ensure more effective meetings, how to improve wellbeing, and learning resources to make the most of the digital tools available.
I supplemented this with a series of learning forums created to support people with the transitions. I designed and hosted several sessions on remote working, wellbeing in tech, and Microsoft Teams/M365.
Playbook Feedback & Insights
“I love this — Instead of measuring how much stuff your team does, try measuring the impact your work has”
“A treasure trove of info and tips, and something that we can also use as the basis for interactive learning sessions in the future.”
“This is fantastic! The tone is excellent and I just love the idea of these new ways of working.”
“Really helpful piece of collateral. In a way, it is somewhere between an e-learning storyboard and a published e-learning.”
Microsoft 365 Adoption
It’s not what you know, it’s knowing where to look.
I wanted to create a place where people can go to learn about the M365 tools, utilising Microsoft’s own learning content, where possible, to ensure the training was always up to date. I worked with a colleague to deploy a SharePoint site template which I redesigned to host this and developed sections for learning videos, hints and tips, and ACCA stories for how people were using the tools. I also hosted a series of learning sessions tailored to help people understand how the tools can support the achievement of desired outcomes.
ACCA were starting as novices to M365. Microsoft Teams had just been deployed and people were not familiar with any of the features or functionality.
Within a couple of months I had developed an innovative M365 Learning Portal, featured by Microsoft, where I spoke at their conference about what I delivered — containing all Microsoft’s learning pathways, curated hints and tips, showcase stories, and bitesize learning library
I also worked with a colleague to create and deploy an adoption chatbot to support over 200 self service questions on how to use the tools and hosted a series of learning sessions on ways of working and tools.
The M365 learning portal averaged over 150 unique visitors per week, with an average of 7 mins per user.
Adoption Community
I wanted to create a community of adoption evangelists to help support and promote Microsoft Teams, and M365 apps across ACCA. I worked with each area of ACCA to help identify participants from across the organisation to form the community.
The skills I looked for were:
/ Passionate about improving our ways of working and digital collaboration
/ Good communication skills, and/or experience in support roles
/ Motivated by getting things done
/ Local influencers
The request I made of the community members was:
/ Participation in a public Microsoft Teams community team to support people with the transition to new tools
/ Identify recurring themes that can inform the evolution of the automated Q&As
/ Participation in monthly community calls
/ Amplify relevant content and new features locally
/ Partner with local teams to understand their prioritised outcomes and explore how the tools could support people achieve these
I shared our vision with the aim of achieving better workplace flexibility empowered through the adoption of our digital tools to enable our ways of working.
The community helped us evangelise and embrace the new tools and ways of working, promoting these locally and becoming SMEs.
The adoption community grew from being a private group of 25 members to a public community of over 175 members over 24 months. The community became largely self-serving in helping people with M365 non technical queries. I also utilised the community to run learning sessions and grow awareness of new features and how these could be used to support the work people do.
Outcome:
/ Public Community with over 175 Members
/ Three Channels: General, Hints & Tips, What’s New
/ Learning Sessions, M365 Support (non technical), Ways of Working tips
/ High levels of attendance and engagement
Overall Testimonials
Julie Hotchkiss — Executive Director of People & Transformation, ACCA
“ACCA had an ambition to develop a hybrid way of working as part of our ongoing cultural development journey to be a digitally enabled and agile organisation. A hybrid way of working would also allow us to harness our talent globally, engage with our people in a different way, use our offices more flexibly and provide our people with much more flexibility in terms of where and when they work. Gary understood the aims and was able to help ACCA position the technology to support our culture change. It was not technology for the sake of it; Gary was able to help us use the technology in the best way for the purpose of meeting ACCA’s objectives.
Very quickly, Gary became a trusted partner, working alongside all our people but especially those in our Culture & Engagement and People teams. He worked not only as a partner, delivering some of the change, but also as a trusted advisor to many. As a result, we moved the needle much faster than we otherwise would have and always felt we had an expert on hand.
The feedback from our people at this early stage in the development of a hybrid way of working is that they work more productively and have the tools they need. They also appreciate the flexibility and recognise that ACCA are focused on the wellbeing of our people and indeed how technology can help. Gary has played a key role in all aspects of that development.”
Nicola Parkes — Head of Market Execution, ACCA
“Gary’s work at ACCA to lead the adoption of Microsoft 365 and Teams and to develop the strategy and content for future ways of working was effective and impactful — he led the work bottom up, creating buy-in through the development of an adoption community whilst also providing a strategic steer at leadership level. Gary quickly established himself as a go to person for people at all levels within the organisation.
His ability to quickly build rapport, establish credibility and add value is impressive. He has a calm and understated manner, he listens actively and delivers high quality content, guidance and analysis in response to business problems.
Gary is a pleasure to work with, he is exceptionally talented and a pioneer in the world of remote / hybrid working — he would add value to any organisation and I would not hesitate to recommend him.”
Amber Kirkbride — Change Management & Implementation Lead, ACCA
“Gary has been instrumental in changing how teams at ACCA work. Through a period of huge disruption and change his ability to inspire, advise and support practical changes has seen us completely shift our ways of working to become remote first. He was pivotal in the creation and rollout of our ways of working playbook which teams across the globe use as a reference point to improve meetings, productivity and better adopt the technology we’ve invested in.
A self-confessed champion of wellbeing, Gary seamlessly connects the dots and encourages use of the Microsoft 365 suite and other wellbeing apps to ensure that remote and digital first are not at the expense of work/life balance. Aware of the need to amplify this as part of the adoption of Microsoft 365, Gary created and led a team of adoption champions to carry key messages and practices across the organisation. From training sessions, to live demos, to async support (including a hints and tips chat bot and much more)….Gary’s sphere of influence grew quickly and easily.
He is without doubt, a trusted consultant at every level of ACCA.”
Final Outcome
Increased ACCA’s adoption scores significantly in every category of Microsoft’s Adoption Reporting, resulting in time saved and higher productivity (see details below)
- ACCA finished 2022 with a score of 77%, 40% higher than Microsoft’s benchmark score. This score increased year on year due to effective implementation of our adoption strategy.
- Collaboration — ACCA achieved a score of 86%, therefore providing an organisational saving of 4,174 days per year.
- Teamwork — 76% of ACCA’s 1400 employees were working effectively in shared workspaces, therefore providing a time saving of 9,221 days a year, thus providing opportunities to utilise the time saved for efficiency and productivity.
Other key achievements:
/ Enabled people to work from anywhere
/ Created ACCA’s first ever remote & hybrid work playbook to help everyone understand how to bring ACCA’s ways of working to life
/ Created an innovative M365 learning portal chosen to be showcased by Microsoft
/ Created and responsible for the ever growing, engaged adoption community
/ Through the enablement of M365 and adopting new ways of working, we positively impacted ACCA’s carbon footprint with an emissions reduction of 67% on commuting and a 44% reduction by transitioning in-person events to digital.
More detail on ACCA’s adoption scores and what these mean in terms of MS measurements.
Microsoft’s Adoption Score provides insights into your organisation’s digital transformation journey through its use of Microsoft 365 and the technology experiences that support it. Your organisation’s score reflects people and technology experience measurements and can be compared to benchmarks from organisations similar to yours.
The metrics show the overall adoption score, and the sub categories that inform this — collaboration, teamwork, communication.
ACCA finished 2022 with a score of 77%, 40% higher than Microsoft’s benchmark score. This score increased year on year due to effective implementation of our adoption strategy.
Collaboration — When people collaborate with online files, each person saves an average of 100 minutes, or almost 2 hours, per week. ACCA achieved a score of 86%, therefore providing an organisational saving of 4,174 days per year.
Teamwork — When employees collaborate in a shared workspace, they can save up to 4 hours a week. To determine the Teamwork score, we measure how members communicate and collaborate within these shared workspaces — such as Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 groups — and how regular the communication is. 76% of ACCA’s 1400 employees were working effectively in shared workspaces, therefore providing a time saving of 9,221 days a year, thus providing opportunities to utilise the time saved for efficiency and productivity.
Communication — Microsoft measures how frequently people use, chat, channels and community posts to communicate so you understand how people in your organisation find and share information. Research shows that using real-time communication tools creates a more unified organisation and builds employee morale, regardless of location.
