Syngenta – Work Better Wednesdays
Six months into working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, employees at Syngenta were feeling drained by the seemingly endless number of online meetings and calls.
The Workplace Technologies team in the IT department at Syngenta, one of world’s largest agriculture companies, stepped in to help its 28,000 employees learn to work asynchronously, and reduce the time spent in meetings or replying to emails.
Trouble was, many had never heard of the word “asynchronous”, or if they did, they didn’t know what it meant to work that way. These aren’t tech people – they’re scientists, they’re innovating crop protections, they’re finding solutions to vegetable seeds, they’re farmers getting food to tables around the world. And they’re spread across the globe, speaking scores of different languages.
It was a challenge the IT department had to address – how to you phrase asynchronous work in a way anyone can immediately understand? Armed with the goal of reducing meetings, the IT department came up with the idea of running an online session called “Should you have a meeting?”
Melinda Schaller, Intranet & Content Management Product Lead, Workplace Technologies, Syngenta.
“Our goal was to get them out of that endless stream of back-to-back meetings and help them get on top of their overflowing inboxes,” said Melinda Schaller, Syngenta’s Intranet & Content Management Product Lead, Workplace Technologies.
“These were the main pain points we were hearing from many colleagues when it comes to the challenges of working from home.”
The “Should you have a meeting?” session was a huge hit and people wanted more tips, which led to an all-day session about working more productively using digital tools, primarily the Microsoft 365 suite of tools.
“IT was a team that was used to saying; ‘Here’s a tool, here’s how you install it, now go use it,” Melinda said.
“But when the pandemic struck, we flipped that on its head and put our focus on showing people not just the technicality of these tools, but how they can work with them to actually boost their productivity and save time, which would then have the knock-on effect of allowing them to also look after their wellbeing.
“We put a focus on beginner sessions to cover off the basics, tips and tricks and key features of many of our tools. People couldn’t believe this hadn’t been done before – you are kind of expected to just know Office tools when you start in the workplace, but no one checks that you do!”
Syngenta’s leaders were impressed with the response to the sessions and, naturally, asked for more. The IT team came up with the idea of a weekly program called Work Better Wednesdays.
The sessions were aimed at boosting productivity and building efficiencies using digital tools, and they continue today.
“We showed colleagues how they (digital tools) are going to save you time, they’re going to make you more efficient and we appealed to that more emotional side of people by highlighting how they could use the tools to schedule and manage their time better so that they can actually switch off at the end of the day,” Melinda said.
“The pandemic had this side effect on people that saw many colleagues feeling like, because they had all the tools and resources to be online all day everyday, that they somehow should. We held sessions to show certain features across a range of tools that allow you to take more ownership of your time while also communicating that to others.
“We showed them how to block time to focus on work so you can leave at the end of the day having done some of the work they committed to doing in all those meetings. We showed basic things like setting your hours and days off in your Outlook calendar, advising on how to write an Outlook signature for an out of office that explains you won’t be checking your email every second of every day.
“These are the kinds of messages that really started to resonate with people because the ‘always on’ bubble was bursting and people were really feeling the pressure. It seems simple, but people needed not only the know-how, but the permission.”
In 2021, Syngenta ran 93 sessions with almost 23,000 sign ups, reaching 67 countries. Sessions included navigating the basics of Microsoft Teams, how to use SharePoint to collaborate on files and how to use Microsoft Forms and OneDrive. They offered beginner trainings with a focus on demonstrating the tools, all the way to more advanced trainings. In 2021, the focus of the sessions shifted from simply using the tools, to using them to support your wellbeing, and that of your team.
Two interactive sessions were run live every Wednesday in the morning and afternoon to cover every time zone, and they were recorded for anyone to watch later.
“This is where we started to introduce some of those concepts around asynchronous collaboration by leveraging the tools that are available,” Melinda said.
“The first job was letting them know what tools are there and how to use them and then the asynchronous started to flow out of that almost naturally as it was the obvious next step in answering ‘there must be a better way of working that doesn’t mean I’m in back-to-back meetings all day everyday’. It is a theme that we still have to this day and I feel it’s now something people understand a lot better – but there is still work to do.”
Feedback from Syngenta employees about Work Better Wednesdays sessions.
Collaboration champions
It’s no coincidence a department from Syngenta topped the rankings for Asynchronous Collaborator in SWOOP Analytics’ 2022 M365 benchmarking analysis of 3,773 departments across 18 organisations.
The Asynchronous Collaborator measure in SWOOP shows how good you are at collaborating in Microsoft Teams channels and Yammer (asynchronous) compared with collaborating in Teams meetings/calls (synchronous).
Syngenta departments also dominated the top rankings for File Sharer, which shows how good you are at working with files on SharePoint (shared by default) compared with OneDrive (private by default), and Camera Confidence, which shows how good you are at turning on a camera during Teams meetings/calls.
The organisation also had multiple departments ranking in the top 10 for Community Contributor, which shows how good you are at balancing participation in Yammer communities with working in Teams, and the No.1 department for Screen Sharer, which shows how good you are at sharing a screen during Team meetings/calls.
While Syngenta had so many high ranking departments across SWOOP’s Seven Collaboration Habits, it didn’t top the combined rankings in SWOOP’s benchmarking when all seven habits were taken into account. This could be explained by the fact some of the 40,000+ employees across all branches of Syngenta Group and its subsidiaries have only limited access to M365. For example, seasonal workers have access only to Outlook and employees in China can’t access the entire M365 suite.
For anyone embarking on the digital collaboration journey, especially towards working asynchronously, Melinda notes it took about 18 months for change to really been seen across the organisation and she was thrilled to see the data from SWOOP confirmed the effectiveness of the effort.
“It took us half of 2020 and all of 2021 to get the concept through and the way we did it was to highlight that there’s a tool set there that means you don’t have to be on a call all the time – and then, here’s how to use it,” she said.
Melinda generously shared, in-depth, how Syngenta is addressing some of the Seven Collaboration Habits identified by SWOOP.
Email Liberated - Shows how good you are at collaborating in Teams channels and Yammer compared with sending emails.
Many of the themes for Work Better Wednesdays, especially in 2021 and 2022, have been around wellbeing and using M365 tools to work smarter, not harder. SWOOP’s benchmarking analysis found the constant interruptions from email and Microsoft Teams chat is significant. Syngenta encouraged employees to block out time where email was effectively blocked to avoid interruption to the flow of work.
“There are lots of tips we gave people and we had to work closely with HR on a some of these things to make sure that people felt like they were empowered to implement what we were actually suggesting,” Melinda said.
“Things like putting an out of office on your email to say; ‘I’m only checking my emails between this hour and this hour, get me on chat or wait for my reply’.”
Melinda’s email signature.
Asynchronous Collaborator - Shows how good you are at collaborating in Microsoft Teams channels and Yammer (asynchronous) compared with collaborating in Teams meetings/calls (synchronous).
A year into the pandemic and in an ever-changing global landscape of being in and out of lockdowns, working in the office and then being sent back to working from home, many people were struggling with exhaustion and disruption.
Syngenta’s IT department worked with HR to ensure employees felt empowered to use the M365 tools to work asynchronously – to block time out to work uninterrupted and not always be available.
“We had HR come in and give some of the messages like; ‘You are allowed to look after your wellbeing’, because people just didn’t know that they had the freedom to own their own time,” Melinda said.
“From the IT side we could show them; ‘This is how you block out your calendar, this is how you set your working hours in your calendar, this is how you do out of offices, this is how you put a message in your Teams chat to say you’re offline’.
“All the technical aspects of it we could cover, but we needed HR to come in and say; ‘You’re allowed to do this. Your time is yours’. That was a huge cultural shift because we’d gone from being an organization where people felt like that had to be at a desk in an office from 9-5 and now suddenly people were picking their own hours - this was a huge change.
“All these things have really led to that asynchronous score.”
Community Contributor - Shows how good you are at balancing participation in Yammer communities with working in Teams.
Syngenta CEO Erik Fyrwald has a Yammer community called CEO Stories and News. Pre-COVID, he would use Yammer to update Syngenta staff on his travels – whom he met, what was discussed, plans for the future. Over the past few years, data from SWOOP Analytics shows the CEO Stories and News community is always one of Syngenta’s most engaging communities.
When COVID put an end to travel, instead of no longer posting his updates on Yammer, Erik updated his people on how he was dealing with the change.
Erik Fyrwald, CEO, Syngenta.
“For Erik I can imagine it would have been a big change to all of a sudden be alone,” Melinda said.
“He didn’t pretend to know everything and pretend everything is fine but he actually took people on his learning journey with him. For example, he shared how he initially didn’t like online meetings but learned how to do them effectively for business continuity and has found it great in terms of being able to stay connected to other he wouldn’t usually see.
“That honesty is what really resonates with people and that is a very much part of the culture here at Syngenta.”
Melinda believes this leadership from Erik, and other Syngenta leaders, acts like a permission to encourage everyone to go to Yammer to ask questions and share their stories.
“Things like being honest about if you don’t understand something, or you don’t get something or you need help - that’s really how we use Yammer,” Melinda said.
“We have a lot of help groups, no question is a silly question. I think he (Erik) really helps perpetuate that with the CEO Stories and News (formerly called CEO Chat).”
File Sharer - Shows how good you are at working with files on SharePoint (shared by default) compared with OneDrive (private by default).
The topic for many of the first Work Better Wednesdays sessions in 2020 were on SharePoint. To put it in context, Syngenta started using Microsoft Teams in some departments only a few months before everyone was forced to work from home. Of course, the pandemic forced a full and swift rollout of Teams. Prior to Teams being launched, files were stored in different areas and working from home meant people often could no longer access those files. Many people had no idea files could be stored and edited on SharePoint, and they didn’t know about permissions or document libraries. SharePoint file sharing sessions continue to be some of the most popular at Syngenta.
The IT team do step-by-step sessions and simultaneously open a test environment during each session for everyone to practice.
“When people were struggling to access their files at the start of the pandemic, we all of a sudden had to urge people to work differently with files. Many people were used to on-premise shared drives and storing files on their desktop. Very quickly we had to change the ways of working for many people and it was an uphill battle at first. Once they realised the benefits (co-authoring, online anywhere anytime any device access) we had them hooked,” Melinda said.
“We still run sessions on this topic and explore the features around storing files on SharePoint.”
Melinda was thrilled to have the data from SWOOP confirm the messaging around SharePoint has been heard and Syngenta staff are now successfully file sharing on M365.
Camera Confident - Shows how good you are at turning on a camera during Teams meetings/calls and Screen Sharer - Shows how good you are at sharing a screen during Teams meetings/calls.
With offices in 90 countries, Syngenta’s primary video tool is Zoom. This was a decision made at the start of the pandemic when Microsoft Teams was yet to be rolled out to all 28,000 employees and before Teams was as reliable as today for uninterrupted calls.
More recently though, people are using Teams for calls, Melinda said, especially for one-on-one calls and often screens are shared on these calls for quick fixes, especially when they are IT help calls.
“If people are using Teams to call people, it usually is a one-on-one situation where you need to quickly check in on somebody, or we use it a lot in IT to do a screen session to help people through an issue they might be experiencing,” Melinda said.
“The use case for Teams for us when it comes to calling is that more casual interaction and that lends itself better to having camera on, whereas Zoom is great for webinars and larger scale meetings.”
Learn how Syngenta’s leaders became some of the world’s best at engaging staff in our Yammer case study.
