An SAE at MSLGROUP (NY) who works in its Employee Practice, Karen Sullivan has achieved success that would make any SVP envious—and 2015 has been her year.
Sullivan converted a small staff-education program, "Be the Customer," which had started in PayPal's product organization, into an innovative effort that achieved success, rallying 14,000 PayPal employees around the world.
By bringing together PayPal's HR, Learning and Development, Product and Communications teams, Sullivan packaged multiple initiatives into a massive, company-wide integrated effort that not only built employees' understanding of the company's products, but drove them to use and improve what the company offered its customers.
On a quarterly basis, to drive product innovation she created fresh programming that highlighted new products and offerings for PayPal employees to learn about, use and improve. Back-to-school season became a hook to encourage understanding and use of PayPal's consumer credit products and the importance of its working capital solutions for small businesses.
In terms of engaging PayPal employees, she helped quadruple PayPal payment volume in company cafeterias to 66% from 13%. Employees identified 300 product bugs and suggested 75% more ideas for product improvements than previously. The program allowed the company to resolve 60 pain points identified by sellers. And, it triggered participation of 8,600 employees in the merchant referral program, creating 369,000 leads and 114 new merchants who generated $6 million in payment volume.