Corporate training for humans

To engage employees, make training matter

General Mills wanted corporate training on emissions standards. We wanted people to actually pay attention to it. Instead of rote questions and answers, we pushed the team to rethink what training would look like if it were really going to make a difference.

While we needed to create a digital solution for practical purposes, we wanted that solution to go way beyond the normal paradigm of corporate training. In other words, no more “modules.”

But in order to create a result that would really be effective, we needed to build on expertise from within the organization. To get the most out of the sustainability team’s vast knowledge, we collaborated in a weeklong sprint, brainstorming, prototyping, and testing the best ways to communicate, activate, and change the thinking of the whole organization.

In the end, we created an interactive game that moved its players through the supply chain from farm to end consumer, and asked them to make decisions along the way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The key element of this game was the fact that no question was immediately straightforward. Sometimes the obvious answer was wrong. Sometimes the right answer seemed far too simple. And, in all cases, the questions forced players to rethink parts of their business they’d never before considered.

I wrote all the content for the game, as well as helping develop the concept with the client. We weren’t able to collect metrics, but by all accounts, the employees responded positively, calling it “way better than our usual training,.”