How do you transform a culture? Wärtsilä’s app WeLeap, developed in-house, is a Transformation Companion, designed to help employees learn and engage with the process at a time and place of their choosing.
Wärtsilä’s state of the art transformation app WeLeap was launched a year ago June 2018 to accelerate culture transformation through gamification and storytelling. The internal micro learning app is created by Wärtsilians for Wärtsilians and it allows the employees to get familiar with new tools, ways of working and methods at their own pace, anywhere, anytime.
“Wärtsilä has been innovating since 1834. Now, we are also transforming the way we transform ourselves, as we welcome WeLeap 2.0 – our Transformation Companion,” says Domenico Dargenio, Digital Transformation Director who launched the application a year ago as part of Leap, Wärtsilä’s Culture transformation initiative.
The biggest threat to business today is losing relevance and being unable to adapt to change. Today's business is about constant transformation. It's about being driven by purpose, embracing change and staying relevant. It is always better to embrace the change and leverage it to thrive together than let the transformation overwhelm us. The WeLeap app supports Wärtsilä employees on their transformation journey with relevant learnings on various topics that cover all aspects of transforming from the latest technologies like additive manufacturing to digital ways of working like service design with a real-life Wärtsilä example.
The app itself has gone through quite a transformation over the year as it has been further developed based on user feedback to feature more curated content that’s tailored to the needs of specific roles as well as to each Wärtsilian’s own interests.
WeLeap is a great example of how an idea rapidly evolves into a real solution with 4500 users. But the process of developing the WeLeap app has not always been smooth sailing. It's taken a lot of iteration, failures and rework to get to where we are today. Nevertheless, the innovative in-house development team behind WeLeap is proud of the app and happy about how it’s accelerating the transformation and building the One Wärtsilä story.
User Experience (UX) Designer Esteban Solis says that the new WeLeap Transformation Companion was made with Wärtsilians in the centre of the process. Design-thinking played a big role.
“We began this process interviewing people around Wärtsilä locations and understanding their perceptions, needs and wishes. We didn't only want to design features, but experiences for the different users of WeLeap.”
“We asked our users, what is most important to them and ensured the content creation is in cadence with both the transformation experience and the application development,” says Product owner Anna-Maria Rönnqvist.
“We hope our colleagues find the new experience engaging and that it will help them not only to transform but to enjoy the journey too,” Esteban envisions.
