The challenge

Pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, Moderna is committed to delivering the greatest possible impact to people through mRNA medicines. To do so, it relies on everyone within the business to take personal responsibility for environmental health and safety.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Moderna has experienced exponential growth, elevating its status from a local research and developer to a global, industry leader. It’s existing EHS system, developed around local EHS processes, was not aligned with, or optimised to meet its enterprise needs. To ensure the safe and successful growth of the organisation, it required support in launching and embedding a new EHS management information system, Sphera.

Our solution

Step 1: Examine the change

We conducted a series of stakeholder interviews with site leaders and EHS colleagues from Moderna’s sites to understand the current culture and identify deployment and implementation challenges. Findings showed that Moderna was in a period of fast-paced, constant change. Sphera would need to stand out from other business communications to stir interest and engagement.

Step 2: Engage the business

We used our findings as a foundation for a Sphera narrative and big picture tool to engage site leaders in the benefits, the requirements and resources for success and their role in preparing the sites for Sphera.

Step 3: Enable the workforce

We created a suite of materials to support engagement during each phase of the implementation journey, including:

• Prelaunch/launch posters, print and intranet banners, and plasma animations to create awareness.
• An animation to tell the story of Sphera.
• Slide decks to set expectations and signpost training and support available.
• Team conversation toolkits to encourage conversations about Sphera, ‘what it means for me’, how it is used and how to derive the most benefit.

These were available for each site to select from to ensure maximum take-up and were deployed strategically to build anticipation.

Step 4: Embed the behaviours

To sustain the behavioural change, we developed a kit of behavioural nudge communication assets, including a collection of short animations and a hazard spotting activity, to focus on the specific behaviours needed to support the long-term success of Sphera. These placed specific emphasis on the recognition of hazards which could lead to potentially serious incidents and fatalities (pSIFs).

This will be followed up with a recognition program framework and good news stories to celebrate best practice examples, as well as a comprehensive eLearning to support training and understanding of the Sphera application.

The outcome

Sphera was launched in June 2023 at Moderna’s Norwood and Cambridge sites in anticipation of an eventual global roll-out.

Outcomes will be available in the coming months.