Client Case Studies

With offices throughout Australia and New Zealand, four-time Best Employer Award winner Randstad asked Life by Design® to deliver an employee engagement program to enhance their human capital management strategy. Recruitment company Randstad had us run a conference program and has licensed our web-based Employee Engagement platform meCentral.com for all their employees since 2006, helping their people fast track their success in work, life balance, career, cash flow management and goal setting.

CEO's View

Through our partnership with Life by Design, meCentral.com has been implemented and I am personally very excited about this new online initiative. It's a world first platform that helps fast-track success in one simple integrated system, so that you can improve your work life balance, have greater work fulfilment, be more in control of your finances and achieve your goals. meCentral will help you establish better clarity and a more inspiring future. If we can help you feel more fulfilled, balanced, inspired and in control - then we are all on our way to creating a much more sustainable and happier win-win culture together.
Debbie Loveridge, Chief Executive Officer

The Results

Since implementing its human capital management strategy, Best Employer Select Australasia (now Randstad) has seen a decline in staff attrition by 23%
Victoria Bethlehem, Director of Knowledge Management

Employee Comments

meCentral.com …. I am thoroughly impressed. I feel it is just what I need right now in my life and it is great to see a company placing such an importance in the wellbeing of a person. So many times throughout life we get so caught up in the day to day routine and sometimes don't even realise that we are stressed and so I feel that this concept and reminder to take time out and concentrate on "ourselves" is a great thing!
Lani Wharton, Randstad Asia Pacific

A really good tool to set goals and timelines and have regular emails sent to you to remind you about them.
Martine Chambellant

It's a great tool and helps you remain focused on all your goals. It's a good way to view your life as a whole, rather than work and life seperately.
Justin McMahon

It's a great way to keep you on track when achieving your goals. Also wonderful motivation to create your goals in the first place.
Kate Johnstone

Software giant SAP employs almost 500 people throughout Australia and NZ. Work life balance (one of the key engagement drivers) was an issue for their busy time poor people. They liked our self-leadership inside out approach so had implemented the following key phases:

1. Present at their national conference
2. Conduct a leadership program for their top executives and CEO
3. Conduct a piece of consulting work around employee engagement
4. Facilitate a series of programs throughout Australia and New Zealand
5. Set up meCentral.com for all their employees and their spouses (used since 2006)

The Results

The result was that we were able to help SAP transform their employee engagement to a point where staff turnover was reduced to the ideal sweet spot of between 5-10%

Excellent news - good to see it's working! You do make it easy!!
David Willis, SAP HR Manager

Employee Comments

meCentral.com’s cashflow template has been a wonderful help in my personal/financial life. My finances are looking like they may finally be understandable...thanks!

meCentral.com provides me with focus on me, and the important things in my life. We spend so much time planning for others - take the time to plan for you.

3 Mobile is an employee engagement rising star who are systematically committed to innovatively transforming their predominately Generation Y culture from the inside out using Life by Design’s self-driven engagement approach. They recently had us run over 25 full day programs throughout Australia to better engage their people.

meCentral.com was used very successfully pre and post program with around 85% of their total workforce using the system to better manage their work, life and personal finances since 2007.

The Results

Since working with 3, their engagement scores have gone up 13%, and amazing results considering Hewitt & Associates deem an excellent result being a 6-9% engagement score improvement.

CEO’s View

Practical and relevant. Life by Design did a great job of facilitating and leading the overall design.  Don't miss out…we are on to something special with this one.
Nigel Dews, CEO, 3 Mobile

Employee Comments

The most valuable personal 'kick in the pants' I have ever had.

Kylie Upton, Quality Manager, 3 Mobile Australia

Pfizer’s HR Director Steve Rowe clearly understood that self-leadership was the lynchpin in any intelligent employee engagement strategy and helps reverse the “you aren’t doing enough for me” attitude and ‘whinge entitlement’ culture. Pfizer realised that almost everyone wants more control over their lives. Self-leadership is the approach of putting individuals back in control by giving them the thinking, tools and personal responsibility to get clear on what they want in work, life and personal finances. Life by Design rolled out a series of one day self-leadership programs re-branded “Discovery programs” for Pfizer and to sustain the implementation so that the programs were not just one off events, but rather a kick-start to an on-going process, meCentral.com was utilised as a pre and post system for all participants.

The Results

Pfizer have used both Hewitt and Gallup employee engagement research over resent years, and according to Steve Rowe, HR Director:

Life by Design's self-driven approach to engagement has created a real positive buzz throughout our organisation that I am sure has increased individuals capability in taking control of their lives at a critical time of change for Pfizer.
Steve Rowe, HR Director

Employee Comments

It's good to get you thinking about yourself. There aren't many opportunities to do this in a busy lifestyle without losing track of your thoughts and moving onto your next problem. A good way to keep the focus in the right place.
Kristina Lamb

It made me stop and look at where I was going as against where I really want to go.
Barbara Rickards

A good tool to know where you are at both personally and professionally and where you'd like to be, in clear simple terms

Australia’s oldest bank had a problem. Their organisational employee opinion survey (EOS) showed that employees increasingly found work life balance to be an engagement issue. Life by Design initially worked with the Institutional Banking (IB) division to roll out a series of programs strategically integrated with a sustainable online solution for 1200 employees.

The Results

Following this initiative the IB division’s EOS scores showed a marked improvement in engagement while the rest of the organisation showed very little improvement. As a result, Life by Design was engaged as a ‘Preferred Supplier’ to provide programs and online solutions on an ongoing basis.

The Feedback

The key focus of the program was to help employees re-think their work and life priorities and plan for their immediate needs and the future... Feedback from these workshops has been extremely positive...  Life by Design’s series of strategies on how to improve work life balance were provided to employees weekly... We’ve got a number of people coming to us from our competitors that say we’re on the right road from a strategic business perspective and like the way we go about doing business. And that’s the work life balance and teamwork culture we’re trying to embed.
Chairman, Westpac Diversity Council

Medical specialists, Stryker, (Gallup Great Place to Work Winners, North America) had an engagement issue in Australia which was resulting in a high staff turnover costs. Realising that a more humanistic approach was necessary, Stryker approached Life by Design and undertook some of our recommended holistic employee engagement initiatives.

The concept of self-leadership was launched at Stryker’s national conference and followed by a leadership program for the CEO and senior executive team. The next step involved Life by Design running in-house workshops Australia-wide for their employees throughout Australia and New Zealand before meCentral.com was rolled out for their people and uniquely, also for their spouses. meCentra.com has been used since it was launched in 2006.

The Results

Stryker’s staff turnover reduced from 38% to 20% over an 18 month period, which saved the company around $3 million in lost productivity, recruiting and retraining costs.

Employee Comments

The most comprehensive follow up options I have encountered -
Great improvement tool !
Use meCentral to ensure you have fun
at work and enjoy life to the fullest
Do it – you’ll get back at least double, triple…
Will help us make Stryker a great place to work
Program is excellent – it reminds us of just how much control
we actually have over our lives