“The MoodStories App ensures that our well-being at work stay on the agenda, every week.”

Could you introduce yourself?

My name is Maja Granborg, I am HR Director for the BNP Paribas Personal Finance in the Nordic since 2018, and my name is Nina Johansen, I am Nordic BNP Paribas Personal Finance’s Head of Communication, and I have been working within the Group for 15 years. In 2019 the two of us partnered up to launch a new initiative to make our company an even better place to work: MoodStories.

Could you explain what the MoodStories application is?

MoodStories is a tool to catch the mood of an organisation. After downloading the app on your mobile phone, you can easily rate your mood from 1 to 5 and share it anonymously.

In the App, real-time statistics are generated enabling you to monitor your own mood and to compare it with the mood of your team and the mood of the company.

In addition, reports are delivered to the teams to kick-start a dialogue on what is working well in the team and what can be improved.

It targets the full Nordic organization, and is available for all employees.

Why and when was it initiated?

The program was launched in September 2019, and the objective was and remains to make sure that our company is a great place to work!

We wanted, first, to empower employees by providing everyone with a tool to make their voice heard and to make the well-being of our company everybody’s business. In addition, the aim was also to empower managers by getting instant data-driven feedback and thereby enabling them to act in a timely manner and pay attention to the most important and urgent issues. Finally, it is important to encourage close relations between employees and managers and foster transparency, allowing us to talk openly about the factors, which make our company a great place to work, and identify the lines for improvements. 

After one year of being live what are the results?

The tool is still very much alive! We pushed for a setup which encourage transparency and dialogue.

Everyone is encouraged to rate their mood twice a week – you receive a notification on your mobile phone. Monthly mood reports at Nordic level are shared with the organization in the internal newsletter. Every two weeks, reports are delivered to team leaders whom are obliged to share the report with the team and address any potential struggles and/or celebrate successes.

In 2020 we conducted an internal evaluation of MoodStories, which only altered our setup diminutively. As we have not imposed firm rules for how to work with the App, it is managed differently across the teams which has fostered sharing of best practices between departments.

How has this initiative been welcomed by the employees?

Overall, it was very well perceived. The onboarding went smoothly, and even today one year and a half later, we have an adoption rate of 88%.

How would you summarize this great project in a few words?

With MoodStories we put employee’s well-being first and ensures that our work environment and well-being stay on the agenda, every week. It’s important to have this information regularly and you do not have to wait for the annual GPS or a one-to-one session with your manager.

During the past year with Covid-19 quarantine and a majority working from home, the tool has becoming even more relevant as the physical distance makes it more complicated to have a good sense of each other’s well-being.

What are the next steps? What would you wish for the future?

There is an ongoing dialogue with managers to assess whether and how MoodStories adds value to the teams.

On a more technical part, we are updating some of the fun factors to keep the attractiveness of the tool, for example, by using images of colleagues in the App, and then we consider launching a new internal evaluation in 2021.

Our wish for the future? Well, in terms of MoodStories we obviously strive towards nothing less than a 100% adoption rate!