Concentrix leadership boosts pilot adoption of Breakthru on Microsoft Teams by 48x

Navigating complexity by simplifying well-being into daily habits

Concentrix’s goal was to seamlessly integrate well-being into workday habits across the entire organization by using tools that enhance resilience and prevent burnout among top performers.

"In the past, one size fits all or overly complex solutions have not met our needs due to the scale of our operations. Our aim was to enhance ease of access and offer impactful solutions that effectively address the challenges of awareness and access to well-being resources," said Bahar Ozkan, Sr. Director, Global Wellbeing, Concentrix.

The company needed a solution that was simple to use and universally accessible. Concentrix’s aim was to enhance ease of access and offer impactful solutions addressing awareness and access to well-being resources.

Additional goals included supporting teams to collaborate effectively, enhancing their energy, and shifting their mood and mindset during challenges requiring significant cognitive effort.

“We were looking for ease of use and accessible services,” Ozkan said. “Given our organization's expansive footprint in over 70 countries, encompassing diverse cultural nuances, languages, and varied expectations of personal well-being, we sought solutions that are simple to use and universally accessible. When your goal is to seamlessly integrate well-being into the workday across your entire organization and provide tools that enhance resilience and prevent burnout among your top performers, you need solutions that are swift, effective, and can evolve into a shared habit and routine – much like a refreshing cup of coffee during the day.”

Breakthru on Teams offers a simple way to create daily well-being habits

As a company focused on customer experience, customer research was second nature to Concentrix. Ozkan and her team were curious about how employees could fit breaks into their day and what might be challenging about taking a break.

Concentrix identified Breakthru as a powerful tool for breaking down organizational silos, fostering team connection, and enhancing engagement among employees through the familiar Microsoft Teams interface. Breakthru presented an opportunity to advance Concentrix’s well-being mission through a simple and intuitive interface that was rewarding to share with colleagues.

There was a sharp focus on two key concerns that Breakthru and Microsoft Teams solved for the pilot program at Concentrix: ease and accessibility. Breakthru’s Microsoft 365-certified digital health platform engaged users during the flow of their workday via Teams, which helped to grow participation from 53 planned pilot users to nearly 3,000 users worldwide by the end of the eight-week pilot.

Additional goals included supporting teams to collaborate effectively, enhancing their energy, and shifting their mood and mindset during days when their jobs required significant cognitive effort.

Ozkan said, "There's a fine line between loving your job, being effective, and pouring every part of your soul into it. But when does that cross into burnout?"

Microbreaks energize team mood and dynamics, catch on organically

Breakthru delivers movement and breathing microbreaks to reset the mind, mood, and metabolism for workers in all kinds of jobs. Breakthru’s two-minute microbreaks offer a workday reset and a critical reminder to take time out to reset and restore in order to operate at peak potential. 

“Teams was a key catalyst to this collaboration. Organic adoption of Breakthru at Concentrix, where employees were discovering within the Teams Store, led to conversations with their well-being team,” Breakthru Founder Melissa Painter said. “It also led to leaders there becoming curious about Breakthru on their own. It's exactly that kind of discoverability within Teams that has been such a powerful driver of Breakthru’s growth and so critical to our success.”

The ease of transacting through a private offer via Azure Marketplace against Concentrix’s Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) was a part of the success of this engagement. With the specific timeline requirements for delivering the pilot, transacting through Azure Marketplace simplified and accelerated procurement, enabling Concentrix to get the pilot up and running swiftly.

Leadership advocacy helps fuel well-being transformation

Concentrix’s goal was to seamlessly integrate microbreaks into their day-to-day operations through Breakthru, not to add tasks. Concentrix advanced its well-being mission by aligning efforts across communications, marketing, operations, and innovation teams to ensure positive behavior change.

“When everyone aligns their thinking, well-being flourishes across the company. Success lies in harmonizing multidisciplinary efforts, targeting well-being needs, and transforming ideas into actionable solutions," Ozkan said.

Leadership involvement was crucial from the onset to effectively model Breakthru. Leaders balance strategic decision making, team dynamics, and continuous performance expectations, creating a high cognitive and emotional load. 

“They’re senior directors and directors who are leading massive teams, and if they're exhausted, their teams see it, they feel it. They hear it. It's in their voice, it's their face,” said Lori Haddock, Group Vice President, Concentrix.

Ozkan believes this is one reason leadership adoption was so high.

“If leadership believes in it, when they talk about it, then the rest is assured. People are really using it," Ozkan said.

During the pilot, Concentrix delved into questions such as: How were employees incorporating breaks into their daily routines? What challenges did they face when trying to take a break? And what encouraged individuals to embrace the idea? 

"Leading organizations who continue to differentiate themselves from their competition understand the value of micro-renewal, reset, and recovery, and experience significant ROI,” Painter said.

The pilot began with two user groups in one country and involved leaders across the organization advocating for microbreaks, twice a day, to model break-taking for their teams and each other. The company also gathered data to track progress.

Organic adoption beyond the pilot to 48x users in 49 countries

An important part of the Breakthru experience is the invitation itself. Employees send Breakthrus to each other as a thank you and a reminder to take care of themselves and each other.

“It’s effective for the individual. It’s five times that when it’s a team, because now you’re all in a different frame of mind and you’re all coming back fresh,” Haddock said.

Because Breakthru is team-driven and also adopted organically, gifting the app showed support and encouraged microbreaks and breathing breaks. Break-taking increased over time. As people learned the tool, they took the appropriate type of break when they needed it during the flow of their workday.

After the initial eight-week pilot, Concentrix discovered surprising results. Use of Breakthru’s share function led to organic usage beyond the initial 53 pilot users, resulting in 2,790 users, an increase of 48 times the initial user pool. Usage spread from the starting country to 49 countries. This growth was driven by majority participation and utilization by Concentrix leadership and executives sending Breakthru gifts to their teams and colleagues. By the end of the pilot, user retention had grown to 85 percent of the thousands of participants, exceeding expectations.

“No matter where we position well-being within the organization, whether it's through healthy behaviors in operations, leadership initiatives, or advancements in IT and technology – we acknowledge it as a fundamental pillar for success. Well-being enhances the human experience, boosts retention, and shapes our culture, acting as a true catalyst,” said Ozkan.