Hive Learning and Atlas Copco’s Vacuum Technique Business Area roll out a glocalized inclusion programme while appreciating local nuances

“We wanted to use a modern learning solution that would facilitate that peer to peer learning and also drive a sense of connectedness across our community…we decided to partner with Hive Learning because it was important for us to recognise that there were differing views and perspectives on DEI across our workforce.”
 Sue Rabbett-Brown  VP People & Culture, Vacuum Technique Business Area, Atlas Copco

Overview

Atlas Copco is a Swedish multinational industrial company that was founded in 1873. They manufacture industrial tools and equipment. They have 43,000 employees and customers in more than 180 countries. Their Vacuum Technique Business Area collaborates with customers to turn industry ideas into leading edge technology. 

As a global organisation, increasing knowledge and creating a consistent understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion across a large, globally dispersed workforce was critical to business success.

Goals of the program:

• Empower and hold their employees accountable in coming up with new and different solutions to D&I challenges. 
• Achieve more cross collaboration and communication across countries, divisions and job-level to enable employees to embrace diverse perspectives and create a sense of belonging and psychological safety.
• Overcome the challenge around the difficulty of measuring behaviour change at scale to create the most effective and data-driven Inclusion programme. 

Started with a 6-month Inclusion Works programme for their global HR teams

We started by connecting their global HR teams and internal D&I champions over a six-month period. It was important for the team to get buy-in from these champions and key stakeholders to ensure they gained a solid DEI understanding allowing us to trial and test before rolling the program out more broadly across the organisation. 

As this group was very diverse in geography, culture, roles and seniority, it allowed us to learn about how different demographics of employees learn.  The content selection was carefully chosen to appeal to this diverse group to ensure it was relevant for everyone and culturally suitable.

As with all of our learning programmes, we aim to accommodate the busy schedules of employees and utilise engagement strategies to engage a wide range of roles and learning styles. We curated practical bitesize resources of information to drive daily actions, all which requires less than 20 minutes per week of learning time. 

Regional programme for Atlas Copco’s Vacuum Technique employees in Japan

It was this initial programme that provided insights and learnings on adapting and localising DEI content for different audiences, that allowed for future programmes such as a regional programme for all of the Vacuum Technique’s employees in Japan.

Results:

• 80% active users in just the first month 
• 40% participants commenting and sharing new ideas to D&I challenges 
• 92% of participants rated the content as good or very good 
• 80% of participants now know what inclusion looks like at work and how they contribute to it 
• 88% of participants now know how to include colleagues who are different to themselves 

Hive Learning’s team worked closely with Atlas Copco to understand their learners and how best to create and maintain high engagement. Because of Hive Learning’s ability to measure impact, Atlas Copco gained deep insights into their culture, which helped them further develop their long-term strategy for upskilling the business in inclusion.