Written by Amanda McCabe, Eli Lilly and Company, ELI Volunteer
Through the Connecting Hearts at Home program, a group from Eli Lilly’s Customer Experience Organization recently partnered with Early Learning Indiana. Through this program, Lilly departments are paired with various United Way agencies, in which they form long term, meaningful relationships to work collectively in helping the United Way agency pursue its mission and improve outcomes for the people that they serve.
In this case, the Lilly team partnered with a core team at Early Learning Indiana to scope, develop and implement a qualitative needs assessment with Early Learning Indiana to better understand the needs of their teaching staff, so that they are better equipped to engage, educate and support their teachers moving forward.
The Lilly team conducted 20 interviews with staff members of different experience levels at five Day Early Learning Centers. Educators were very responsive and engaged in these interviews, making it a great learning experience for all involved.
Interviews focused on four main areas:
- Most rewarding and satisfying aspects of their roles
- Biggest frustrations and pain points
- In their eyes, what does good recognition look and feel like?
- For less experienced teachers, what have been some of the toughest parts of their transition thus far?
The Lilly core team consolidated and presented the assessment learnings to the ELI core team and center directors. They are currently working on implementing some changes to training and recognition practices as a result of the assessments.
Feedback from both the Lilly and ELI teams on the partnership and the project has been overwhelmingly positive. The Lilly team found it to be a fun and rewarding opportunity to use their daily work skills in a different environment in such a way that it serves ELI and its teachers, while the Lilly group’s results fueled valuable discussions among ELI center directors and administration staff and provided important insight into the needs of their staff.
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