In this Talent Tales episode, talent.imperative Founder Nicole Dessain had the honor to interview Stella Ioannidou, IT Workforce Management Supervisor at Eurobank.

Stella’s creative superpower is applying the concept of analogy. She often draws from another context to gain inspiration for the current problem she is trying to solve.

After having worked a decade in project management, Stella recognized that what set apart good projects was how people were engaged in the process. She started to include some coaching practices into project management. Stella then realized that it was even more important to engage people in a cultural context overall instead just on a project. That realization sparked her interest in learning more about how people perform, what makes them tick, and what skills they need to succeed.

Stella currently leads the charge in re-skilling the IT workforce at Eurobank.

Human-centered design was introduced at Eurobank about four years ago in the context of business analysis aimed at increasing customer centricity. It has expanded and is now also being applied to change management efforts at the bank, including the response plan for the COVID-19 crisis.

During the crisis, Stella has been involved in designing support measures for 600 IT employees. A first step was to get a sense for the challenges colleagues were facing in this environment.

Stella and her strategic partner Yannis Kanoutos, Eurobank’s Organizational Change Management Lead, applied ethnographic research methods and conducted interviews with employees and managers. In the first weeks of the crisis there was a strong need for more directive information that provided guidance during uncertainty. To address this initial need, Stella and Yannis designed an infographic and led three management workshops addressing the challenges expressed during their research. They treated this intervention as a prototype seeking feedback from participants along the way. The feedback was captured in the form of an empathy map. Stella and Yannis soon realized that the types of questions and emerging themes changed as time passed. Managers became less interested in tools and wanted to learn more about how to manage their teams remotely. So, they added another module to their manager workshop.

In the next phase, managers wanted to feel like they were part of a community and not alone in the challenges they faced. Currently, the team is preparing to facilitate a gradual return to work.

As a result of this human-centered approach, twenty sessions were created and delivered to all 70 IT supervisors and managers within a six-week time frame.

Want to learn more about Eurobank’s approach to creating a change management plan using human-centered design? Watch the entire interview on YouTube or listen to the Podcast.

Note: You might gain further inspiration for how to address the crisis in a human-centered way by checking out our COVID-19 Resource Hub.