This week, we distill insights around Marsh University - an internal platform where Marsh’s ‘crowd’ of 26,000 employees can share their expertise and experience with one another. For more about Marsh U, visit: http://peopleslab.mslgroup.com/peoplesinsights/marsh-university-peoples-insights-volume-2-issue-32 100+ thinkers and planners within MSLGROUP share and discuss inspiring projects on reputation, employee engagement and citizenship on the MSLGROUP Insights Network. Every week, we pick up one project and do a deep dive into conversations around it -- on the MSLGROUP Insights Network itself but also on the broader social web -- to distill insights and foresights. We share these insights with you on our People’s Insights blog and compile the best insights from the network and the blog in the People’s Insights Quarterly Magazine, as a showcase of our capabilities. We have further synthesized the insights to provide foresights for business leaders and changemakers — in the ten-part People’s Insights annual report titled Now & Next: Ten Frontiers for the Future of Engagement, now available as a Kindle eBook. For more, see: http://peopleslab.mslgroup.com/future-of-engagement

1. Reputation | Employee Engagement | Citizenship
Marsh
University
People’s Insights: Volume 2, Issue 32

2. What is Marsh University?
Insurance brokerage
Marsh launched Marsh
University in 2010, to
combat low employee
engagement scores in
career development.
The program encourages
Marsh’s to share their
expertise and experience
over an internal blogging
and collaborative web
platform.
Source: informationweek.com

3. Challenge: Low engagement scores
[ Marsh ] got involved in the founding of
the university shortly after a 2009
colleague-engagement survey found that
career development at Marsh was "an
opportunity for improvement" that could
lead to increased engagement levels
among employees.
Michael O'Brien
Talent Management Columnist, HRE
Online
In an employee survey
conducted in 2009, Marsh
found that scores were
low and that career
development was an area
of concern for employees
– and also an opportunity
for talent teams.

4. “Everyone is a teacher”
Their solution: turn to cutting-edge social
technology to create a global community
where employees could tap into the
collective experience, networks and
resources of the firm. This was a bold
move in the traditionally conservative
insurance industry.
Kyle Lagunas
Talent Acquisition Analyst at Brandon Hall
Group
Expanding their employee
training programs was too
expensive. Instead, Marsh
decided to tap into the
expertise and skills of their
employees, and facilitate
knowledge share using a
social platform.
Built on this principle, that
“Everyone is a teacher,”
employees were asked “What would you teach?”

5. Affordable technology
Rather than building on an enterprise social
networking suite, Marsh partnered with a
startup, Red Rover, that helped cobble
together a solution including components
like WordPress blogging software, Box file
sharing, Kaltura for corporate video sharing,
and Red Rover's own software for
microblogging, member profiles and group
discussions.
David Carr
Editor, InformationWeek
To maintain cost and
reduce set up time, Marsh
decided not to build a
cutting edge platform from
scratch, but instead to use
simple tools platforms that
already existed.
A hidden benefit of this
approach – some
employees may already be
familiar or even well
versed with the tools.

6. Reliance on Insight
In the report
Introducing Social
Employee Engagement:
Shifting From Technology
To People, Dean Parker,
highlights the importance of
a relevant purpose for
engaging employees
online.
First consider specific
issues related to
stakeholders.
Then address them in a
creative way.
Introducing Social Employee Engagement: Shifting From Technology To People

7. Marsh U features
The platform offers three
key features:
1) employees can ask
questions and offer
answers on a Q&A
board
2) topic experts can share
their knowledge
through blogs
3) employees can share
content to discuss
using Spark, either with
the whole network, or
within interest-based
Groups

8. Sparking adoption
To spark adoption at the
launch of Marsh U, Marsh
pre-recruited 350
employees who would
share knowledge and
ambassadors who would
promote the program.
Marsh also set up a
support team to help
colleagues use the
platform, and the
Marsh U Certified Blogger
Program to train
employees on how to blog.
Published in: Connect 13: Engaging the Social Workforce ebook

9. Building a sharing culture
A common challenge for
talent professionals is
getting more people
active - How do you get
employees to overcome
their shyness and the fear
of ‘am I right ?’
SAS’s Becky Graebe
asks for silly things to
kickstart sharing.
Cheezburger's Ben Huh
believes the answer is in
better design.
Source: nngroup.com/articles/participation-inequality/

10. Link to Business case
The Marsh U team
monitors activity on the
platform and evaluates
performance against
employee engagement
scores.
Online sharing has
already contributed to
at least one new
business deal, and the
team is exploring other
potentials of the
platform.
Source: new-talent-times.softwareadvice.com

11. Endless applications
We’re a knowledge based organization,
so the next big idea is sitting in the mind
of one of our employees. The best thing
we can do as internal communications is
to provide the tools and platforms for
them to do that in a way that other
employees can jump in, commenting, and
help that idea to flourish.
Becky Graebe
Internal Communications Manager, SAS
Several businesses are
using internal social
networks, to connect
employees across
physical and culture
boundaries or to find the
next big idea.
The combination of
social media, technology
and the renewed focus
on treating employees as
customers and engaging
with them can have
endless applications.

12. Read People’s Lab insights & foresights
The People’s Lab team shares the insights and foresights from the
MSLGROUP Insights Network on the People’s Insights weekly blog , quarterly
magazine and annual report.
MSLGROUP
INSIGHTS NETWORK
PEOPLE’S INSIGHTS
WEEKLY BLOG
PEOPLE’S INSIGHTS
QUARTERLY MAGAZINE
100+ MSLGROUP planners
share and discuss inspiring
projects on reputation,
employee engagement and
citizenship.
We deep dive into
conversations around one
project to distill insights and
foresights.
Every quarter, we compile the
best insights from the network
and the blog into a magazine,
as a showcase of our
capabilities.
For more, visit http://peopleslab.mslgroup.com/peoplesinsights

13. People’s Lab: Crowdsourcing Insights &
Innovation
People’s Lab is MSLGROUP’s proprietary crowdsourcing platform and
approach that helps organizations tap into people’s insight for innovation,
storytelling and change.
For more, visit http://peopleslab.mslgroup.com/peoplesinsights

14. For People’s Lab solutions,
please contact:
pascal.beucler@mslgroup.com