Zur Hauptnavigation springen Zur Suche springen Zum Seiteninhalt springen Zum Footer springen

Digital Transformation at Welthungerhilfe

The Digital Transformation Office supports the organization and its employees as they move into a digital, innovative and agile future.

Grafik: Hellgrüner Hintergrund, darauf vier weiße Kreise: Mindset, Toolset, Skillset, Orgset
The Digital Transformation Office assists employees to understand, manage and shape change in the organization. The four interrelated dimensions of change – skillset, mindset, toolset, and orgset – are considered in equal measure to enable a holistic transformation. © Welthungerhilfe
Anja Sailer Digital Transformation Office

Digital and cultural change have an important place in society today. At Welthungerhilfe (WHH), we don't just want to adapt to this change, we want to actively shape it and leverage it to achieve our goal of Zero Hunger. For this reason, we have set up the Digital Transformation Office, which supports the organization and its employees on the path to a digital, innovative, and agile future. Digital tools and solutions have a reciprocal effect on the development of culture. Therefore, we have taken a holistic approach to their introduction.

We envision Welthungerhilfe as an agile and inspiring organization that makes maximum use of digitalization and innovation across all areas.

– from the current Welthungerhilfe strategy

What we do:

We provide WHH employees with digital tools that enable them to work more quickly and efficiently. Genuine digital transformation, however, is only possible in combination with cultural change. Therefore, in addition to introducing a digital infrastructure, we also assist employees to understand, manage and shape the change in the organization.

Overview of the work areas of Welthungerhilfe's Digital Transformation Office. © Welthungerhilfe
1 / 9
We provide our emplovees with tools and software that enable them to work more efficiently, faster and in a more customer-friendly manner. © Welthungerhilfe
2 / 9
We support our employees to build and expand their agile and digital skills through training, exchange formats, and workshops. © Welthungerhilfe
3 / 9
We promote a digital and agile mindset among all Welthungerhilfe employees. Through leadership training, we foster an agile, "ambidextrous" leadership style, and an atmosphere of psychological safety - always incorporating our six core values in our actions. © Welthungerhilfe
4 / 9
We rely on agile principles and frameworks to foster iterative, transparent, and collaborative exchange across hierarchies, units, and countries. © Welthungerhilfe
5 / 9
We promote data-driven work processes and analytics and invest in data security and data protection. © Welthungerhilfe
6 / 9
We focus on developing innovative digital products with a particular emphasis on local stakeholders and communities. © Welthungerhilfe
7 / 9
We started to introduce a flexible office structure and have provided the necessary frameworks for flexible and remote working, including IT equipment, virtual collaboration tools and communication platforms. © Welthungerhilfe
8 / 9
We believe that digital transformation requires organizational, cultural changes characterized by respect, transparency, courage, curiosity, accountability and commitment. © Welthungerhilfe
9 / 9

Driving cultural change within Welthungerhilfe.

The digital transformation requires an internal cultural change characterized by respect, transparency, courage, curiosity, accountability, and commitment. The prerequisite for a digital future is understanding the cultural changes that will come with it, and how we can actively shape this transformation. These two examples provide an insight into how we are driving cultural change within Welthungerhilfe:

The Digital Transformation Journey: the digitization process for all employees

To assist WHH to become an "agile and inspiring organization," the Digital Transformation Office has launched the Digital Transformation Journey. This journey is designed to help Welthungerhilfe employees work together to experience, and shape change within the organization. The focus is not only on the use of digital tools, but also on the mindset and employees’ ways of working. The journey begins with a management training session, through which topics such as agile ways of working, psychological safety, or ambidextrous leadership are explained and discussed. The next step is to roll out the Digital Transformation Journey throughout the organization via e-learning covering agile and cultural topics. Building on this theoretical foundation, we also offer additional platforms for in-depth exchange and collaboration:

New ways of working, new office structures

Developments such as working from home, remote working, and an increased use of digital collaboration tools have changed the way we work and communicate. Since an important characteristic of an agile organization is to rethink and challenge existing concepts, we asked ourselves the question: Given the changing work environment, is there a work structure that fits better with the shifting needs and requirements of our employees and the organization?

In search of a sustainable and collaborative solution, WHH decided to try out a new flexible office structure. Three teams volunteered to participate in the so-called "FlexDesk pilot project". In these teams, all employees – including the respective team leaders – relinquished their personal office and joined the pilot project. In the newly appointed FlexDesk area, some changes were made to facilitate flexible working:

In this new system, tables are re-assigned every day. This not only helps to save space, energy, and costs, but also facilitates more exchange between the different units.

To help employees adapt to these new ways of working, the Digital Transformation Office also offers training on various online collaboration tools and regularly gathers feedback from pilot participants to improve collaboration in the new office structure.

New digital innovations and projects:

At the same time, the Digital Transformation Office is focusing on developing new digital projects that will make WHH’s work more effective and efficient. For example, a standardized digital tool will simplify the management of WHH motor vehicles. We also want to implement data-based work processes as part of an internal project.

We are working on many other projects in addition to those mentioned above, such as digital incoming invoice processing, human resources software for our country offices, data-based personalized marketing tools, digital personnel file management, and digital travel management software.

Central fleet management

Currently, the management of WHH’s motor vehicles is decentralized across our 36 project countries. With the new tool, we aim to get a global overview of the fleet data to reduce costs, make the fleet more sustainable and increase the safety of our employees.

Data-based work processes

As part of the internal "Making Sense of Data" project, we have created a systematic framework that enables data-driven management decisions.

Our focus is on:

Our use of artificial intelligence

We see new technologies as an opportunity to achieve our goals more efficiently and effectively. At the same time, the use of generative AI tools carries risks of error, bias, and misuse that can lead to harm to both individuals and WHH as a whole. 

Our guide, "AI at Welthungerhilfe: Value based guidance for Generative AI," is intended to provide instructions on how we can use these tools responsibly and minimize the associated risks.

  • The URL has been copied to the clipboard

Related content