…cfactor in action.

The DeVry Commons

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The Business Need

DeVry Inc. is one of the largest private sector education companies in the world. With over 17,000 employees in locations throughout the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, DeVry has expanded and transformed in part through acquisitions.
Some challenges they were experiencing were:
  • Many new employees were not familiar with, and thus did not feel connected to, the DeVry brand.
  • Operationally, they had very manual processes which were inconsistent across brands and locations.
  • There was a general lack of awareness of the many benefits available for all DeVry employees.
  • Their technology platform didn’t support growth plans/realities (i.e. legacy systems, disparate, different business processes, inefficiencies).

Key Objectives

1.     Provide a unified environment for all DeVry employees – a common destination point regardless of business unit, location, geography or technology systems – that would engage the entire enterprise and enable employees to connect and foster relationships with others outside of their primary location.
2.     Successfully unify disparate systems.
3.     With the achievement of strong engagement levels, drive significant productivity gains through the automation of Human Resource work process.

The Solution

In order to address their needs, DeVry and cfactor® partnered to create The DeVry Commons – a common place for employees to connect, get to know each other and the organization, share ideas and complete day-to-day work activities. Some of the solution highlights include:
  • Unified social workforce environment for all DeVry employees – deployed complete with deep integrations so employee demographic and employment data is aggregated.
  • Personal profiles.
  • DeVry Connections – Full corporate social networking functionality
  • Thanks A Million – Peer endorsements functionality.
  • Branded graphical corporate portal environment with personalized affiliate branding for college/division portal areas.
  • Full communication capabilities and resources that support DeVry's employee relations/benefits initiatives (i.e. Live Well, healthy lifestyle communities, work-life balance groups, benefits information, etc.).
  • Wide range of automated business processes spanning: Onboarding, Compensation, Human Resources Management, Communications, Employee Health, and more.

The Bottom Line

The DeVry Commons has delivered on its mission of unifying people, processes and systems as well as enabling process efficiencies which have resulted in cost savings. In the first 3 months after launch, 42 communities had been requested. Of the established communities, there was a reported average community engagement score of 10; considered 'good engagement' as per the engagement health index. Its Relative Activity remains healthy as indicated by the following metrics:
“We’ve made one place for everything... a place where everyone could come together, meet each other, get information... and partner with people who have best practices that work in a different part of the company who you would not necessarily get to know.”
Deb Maher, Director, HRIS & Benefits