Overcoming challenges to focus on the Other. An Organizational Design project on why WeCare

Culture Design and
Contextual Research

With Fidelidade

Challenge

Create a transversal definition for WeCare, enhancing the best of Fidelidade Group’s culture and people and making it actionable and tangible for everyone.

Outcome

Organizational cultural diagnosis to define the role of WeCare inside the Fidelidade Group. Cultural transformation plus activation of a roadmap and communication plan to back it up.

Client
Fidelidade
Service
Culture Design, Contextual Research
Location
Portugal
Duration
5 months
fields
Strategy, Research, Organizational Culture
team
Rita Pureza,

Marta Baptista

,

Miguel Correia

,

Natalie Pacheco

,

Sofia Ayuso

,

Zé Pedro Abreu

context

This project was initially created to promote and enhance the values of Fidelidade Group in the daily lives of its people. However, in the context of a pandemic, a moment of paradigm shift worldwide, where our personal and professional lives got so entangled, it became evident that a culture focused on overcoming and caring for others was more needed than ever.

Fidelidade Group has this special way of being in society: WeCare — born from within the organization, initially from a business unit focused on serious accidents, giving a response that goes beyond what an insurer’s competencies and obligations are. This unit had already the guiding principles that were the inspiration to adapt this to the entire company. Furthermore, critical sense and ability to observe; anticipation of needs; humanization, and personalization. The challenge was to create a broader definition of this way of operating and make it transversal to every activity area and person within the Group.

our role

01

To clarify and resignify WeCare: to find a common and transversal definition of WeCare by understanding its meaning and positioning in Fidelidade Group’s culture.

02

To inspire and encourage the organization: to put WeCare into practice in a genuine, inspiring, and authentic way.

goal

Enhance the best of Fidelidade Group’s culture and people, and understand the role of WeCare within it. Create the conditions for WeCare to become actionable for everyone inside the organization.

RESEARCH AND FINDINGS

The research focused on the definition and resignification of WeCare in Fidelidade Group’s culture. However, in order to reach the defined goals, it was fundamental to get to know the organization better and profoundly — its history, legacy, and mainly the way it’s perceived nowadays by its people.

Get to know WeCare’s origin, how its concept has been evolving, how it’s perceived, and what is the vision for the future.

Promote a discussion about the different behaviors and the way WeCare is tangible and present on people’s daily basis.

We took part in workshops, department meetings, internal team interactions, and meetings with external partners. We observed these moments to understand internal dynamics, communication, and behavioral manifestations.

Co-creation sessions with 46 executives in total to get to know the way they see the presence of WeCare today and in the future.

Instead of a traditional survey, we designed a customized online platform, integrating proprietary digital tools to collect data and reach a broader audience. We measured and categorized attitudes and self-reported data that helped us with the new WeCare definition and identified opportunities and topics to resolve. The platform was reopened in a posterior co-creation phase with new digital interactions to validate WeCare practices and behaviors.

18

Employee interviews

2

Administration interviews

4

Focus groups

1474

Replies to digital tools

3

Workshops with executives

1000

Participations in the co-creation phase

Instead of a traditional survey, we designed a customized online platform, integrating proprietary digital tools to collect data and reach a broader audience.

RESULts

After an intense and hardworking research where we aimed to reach the highest number of employees from different departments and companies within the Group and the highest number of perspectives about the daily work and culture experience, we were able to find a transversal definition for WeCare.

  • WeCare begins with each individual's way of being and how they go beyond themselves to face the challenges.
  • It's about thinking and caring about others, whether they're coworkers, customers, service providers, or anybody else.
  • It's discovering new paths and questioning the obvious.
  • It's reinventing routines to go even further.
  • It's going beyond the search for answers and getting them within our reach of possibilities.
  • It's the commitment in each delivery.
  • It's seeing the person behind every story.
  • It's being the best version of ourselves every day.

Mindset, Processes, and Tools

To ensure that essence is embedded everywhere, it must be present in everyone’s mindset, internal processes, and every tool used. It is not enough that it is present in each dimension by itself; there has to be a continuous symbiosis between them because only when the three of them are aligned, they can work as an engine.

To activate the flow of this engine, three scopes needed to be worked on — mindset, processes, and tools. These were the base for the strategic plan and recommendations activated through a communication and action plan for the following years.

For guidance on decision making and the design of each recommendation and WeCare initiative, we set four guiding principles:

Empathy

People are at the center of all actions, initiatives, duties, and each individual is considered.

Engagement

Everyone needs to be involved in every designed project.

Symmetry

The positive impact of every initiative needs to be considered inside the Group and should be reflected externally to customers.

Consequence

Each initiative needs to anticipate mechanisms that will allow for the change in expectations that they committed to achieve.

Transformation rollout

To ensure that WeCare is well communicated, shared between the whole Fidelidade Group, and practiced to its full potential, we defined a roadmap with three main phases: (re)cognize, build and strengthen the presence of WeCare.

Ensure that everyone in the organization understands and values the new WeCare definition. Each employee knows and acts according to the established WeCare essence aligned with their responsibilities and roles.

Once the definition of WeCare is understood by all, it’s time to generate greater awareness to question and critically build an essence rooted in daily experiences and with more impact on the customer.

Enriching and strengthening WeCare at all levels by fostering behaviors and attitudes aligned with its essence so that WeCare enhances all relevant business components.

Throughout these three phases, all actions and initiatives designed took place both within and outside the Fidelidade Group to strengthen each other. WeCare is no longer exclusively internal — it’s a mindset felt across the whole Fidelidade universe, including external players. Investing in how WeCare is perceived inside the organization leads to a positive impact on how it’s perceived outside and vice versa.

Culture is not a race because there’s no finish line. Therefore, each roadmap’s phase was not defined based on time constraints but on milestones that are achieved according to the organization’s investment and commitment to the expected outcome of each stage.
Culture is a living organism sustained by its essence while growing with people over time and being fostered by business initiatives and strategies.

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