DHL Express: Certified International Specialist

Engaging and connecting 100,000 employees across 220 countries, in 42 languages, to deliver an unforgettable customer experience.

DHL Express’s strategy to develop a highly engaged and insanely customer-centric global Network was missing one crucial element – a connected set of employees who were equally committed to delivering this legendary DHL Express customer experience.

To cover the breadth of employees across their global business and ensure consistency in quality, we developed the ‘Certified International Specialist’ programme, a suite of employee engagement and customer experience solutions. 

The programme was rolled out across DHL Express, reaching 100,000 employees within 18 months. Since then, the curriculum has been expanded and ‘certified’ for all of the DPDHL Group divisions, reaching over 500,000 employees worldwide. 

The Challenge 

Working closely with DHL Express, we conducted in-depth Discovery activities across 5 different continents.

This research delivered exceptional insights, which enabled us to craft solutions to engage and connect with their global workforce of 100,000 employees operating in 220 countries and territories, and deliver way beyond what was expected. 

The Solution

We created a set of foundation and induction modules delivered through an immersive 1.5-day engagement event. 

For DHL Express leaders we developed the Certified International Manager Curriculum, an extensive leadership programme built around how to create and sustain an insanely customer centric culture – delivering industry leading results.

The Creative Theme 

The change has been embedded in many ways at DHL Express. The narrative and creative theme that was developed around ‘Certified’ has been part of the success of what has connected people across all corners of the globe. Whether I’m working in a hub or the CEO of DHL, what joins us all is the idea that we’re all Certified International Specialists.  

Notably, the face-to-face events were supported by a range of Coaching Apps for tablets and mobile devices, and self-navigated modules allowed employees to take the ongoing learning into their own hands.

Impressively, many of the senior DHL Express leaders have become lead facilitators for the programmes – embedding their own learning by teaching it. The whole programme has benefitted from a ground-breaking communications campaign that most organisations would only develop for their customers.

The Results