The Story Behind Landor’s Global Solution Connecting Employees to Culture
Landor is a global brand consulting firm with more than 1,200 employees across 22 countries. They are part of the WPP group.
Landor's Success Metrics:
70% engagement
New hire engagement rate
4.5 rating out of 5
Average rating for new hire onboarding experience
40 hours saved p.w.
Or the equivalent of a full headcount saved by automating onboarding with Enboarder
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The Challenge: Scaling Onboarding Across the Globe
Nearly 100 years ago, Landor’s visionary founders – Walter Landor and Rodney Fitch – pioneered modern brand consultancy and retail design. This rich history is still deeply embedded in Landor’s culture. It also presents a challenge: How can Landor build and sustain a global employee experience that’s inherently connected with its external brand?
With 30 design studios around the world, consistency and scalability becomes more important than ever. That’s where Amy Robinson, Landor's global people project lead, comes in. She tells us, “My role is to focus on where our people team can add value and enhance the products we offer to the business. Culture, DEI, learning and development, and onboarding are all key focus areas over the next 12 months.”
Landor didn’t have a global onboarding solution for new starters. Each studio was inducting employees into the company in a slightly different way. For example, new hires in London, the company’s largest studio, would have their own process for issuing contracts, collecting paperwork, and planning their first week. Other studios in smaller markets would give new starters a different experience.
When it came to preboarding, Landor had a process in place, but it lacked human connection. “It was quite transactional,” recalls Amy. “We would speak to new hires before they joined, but those conversations would be more focused on task-based activities like signing contracts or completing new starter forms."
The team needed a global solution that would better connect incoming employees to Landor's culture and colleagues and give them all the information they need to prepare for their first day and beyond.
💬 “We wanted to enhance communication and engagement and for onboarding to be more about building relationships, to help make new starters feel a part of the Landor family before they even joined” says Amy.
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The Solution: Connecting New Hires to the Information and People They Need to Be Successful
At first Amy looked at using an onboarding module in Landor's existing recruiting software, but its branding and engagement capabilities were limited. “We’re a brand and design agency, so the look and feel of the onboarding journey is very important,” explains Amy. “Our previous solution didn’t allow us to send branded content such as videos, personalized messages, links out to our website, or other pieces of information. Enboarder definitely had that edge above what we had in place.”
The team signed with Enboarder to build a global onboarding workflow that guides new hires and managers through preboarding, day one, and beyond through an on-brand, visual experience. “Now we just launch our new hires, from any of our studios across the globe, into the workflow and let Enboarder do all the hard work for us,” says Amy. “We can sit back knowing everyone’s getting a consistent experience that is also uniquely Landor.”
What does that experience look like? Early on, managers are sent a guide on how to deliver a great onboarding experience. “It sets really clear expectations as to what managers are responsible for and what they need to do to prepare for their new hire,” says Amy. It also guides and supports managers who may not have had someone join their team previously."
As soon as the offer is signed, Enboarder automatically nudges managers to send their new hires a personalized welcome message or video. "Sometimes a new hire may not have spoken to their direct manager since the start of the recruitment process, so it's a great way of enabling them to connect before their first day and break the ice,” says Amy.
Every Landor new hire is also assigned a buddy, a friendly face they can go to with questions, other than their line manager. Through Enboarder managers can assign their new starter a buddy and those buddies are automatically sent notifications that walk them through what their role entails, how often they should meet, and sample discussion topics. So even before day one, new hires start to build those connections they can lean on as they become more entrenched in their role.
Each of the modules in the new onboarding workflow lays a foundation for a different point of connection. So in addition to receiving standard forms during preboarding, new hires get bite-sized nuggets of information about Landor's culture, teams, and values. They even get details on the voluntary, employee-led DEI and sustainability groups, "Building to Belong" and "The Good Squad."
💬 There are other small, but important details everyone frets about when starting a new job, such as dress code and who sits on the leadership team. “All those questions they would want to ask are answered in the new workflow before they even have to ask them. It’s about setting their minds at ease,” says Amy.
Seeing the success of the onboarding workflow, Amy is now exploring how she can build more engagement with Landor’s mentorship program and wider learning and development programs using Enboarder. We can’t wait to see where that goes!
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The Results: Time Saved and Soaring Engagement Rates
The top two results of working with Enboarder? Time saved and increased engagement across the board.
By automating the entire onboarding process with Enboarder, Landor is saving a massive amount of time -- the equivalent of a full-time salary. Amy tells us: "If we were to try and deliver the same experience manually, it would be a huge amount of administration."
💬 There’s also the burden Enboarder has lifted off the shoulders of managers. “Now they get these notifications and reminders and it’s just so easy. They can just type a quick message in the box, click send, and it’s done. It’s been really beneficial for our managers and saves them time and effort all while enhancing the new joiner experience,” says Amy.
New hires feel ready and excited for day one, rating their onboarding experience a 4.5 out of 5 on average, with one employee saying, "The preboarding experience is very thorough and communication is great."
The time Landor has spent investing in the employee experience will pay dividends down the road. “If employees have a bad preboarding experience,” says Amy, “they walk through the door on their first day with some doubts in their mind. Once those seeds have been planted, it’s hard to recover … I think we underestimate the importance and power these early touch points have."