Mölnlycke’s journey to inclusive engagement: From HR-driven to shared ownership

Mölnlycke, founded over 175 years ago, is a world-leading MedTech company specializing in solutions for wound care and surgical procedures. With more than 8,500 employees across manufacturing and commercial operations, the organisation operates in a complex global environment.

Mölnlycke has a clear purpose: to revolutionise care for people and planet. This is supported by an employee value proposition built around:

·       We own this together

·       We take care of each other

·       We know exactly why

These principles play a central role in how Mölnlycke approaches engagement, particularly the shift towards shared ownership across the organization.

From paper-based surveys to a modern solution

Before implementing Eletive in 2023, Mölnlycke relied on an annual, paper-based survey for production employees and a separate digital solution for office and field employees. This created operational challenges and long delays between feedback and action.

At the same time:

·       Results were not immediately available to leaders

·       Employees had no access to insights

·       Analysis capabilities were limited

·       Engagement was largely driven by HR

This led to a key challenge: actions were often based on outdated results.

Mölnlycke set out to rethink their approach to engagement—not just improving the survey, but creating a model where engagement is owned collectively.

This meant shifting:

·       From HR-led processes → to leader and team ownership

·       From delayed insights → to more immediate visibility

·       From limited access → to full transparency

·       From survey results → to ongoing dialogue and action

Chiara, Zanchetta, Global Talent & Development Director at Mölnlycke, highlights how engagement has shifted from being an HR-driven process to something owned across the organization, with employees now actively engaging with their own results and development.

Today we can really say that engagement surveys are not just an HR thing anymore.

In 2023, Mölnlycke implemented Eletive and introduced a new engagement model.

Today, the organisation runs two surveys per year, supported by a fully digital setup.

Key changes include:

·       Moving to fully digital surveys, including for production employees

·       Giving employees, leaders, and HR access to results

·       Enabling more immediate insights and quicker follow-up

·       Providing advanced filtering and analysis

·       Introducing open comments and chat functionality

 A key shift was giving employees access to their own data, supporting stronger ownership and self-leadership.

Empowering leaders and employees to act

Engagement is now embedded in everyday work.
Leaders communicate before and during surveys, follow up on results, facilitate teams discussions and co-create actions. HR supports, but no longer owns, the process.

Now, employees can access and reflect on their results, track engagement over time and contribute to discussions and actions.

This supports a shared model where teams actively work on engagement together.

Driving 94% participation through trust and involvement

Mölnlycke has reached a 94% participation rate by combining leadership commitment, transparency, and personal relevance.

Leaders actively encourage participation and connect surveys to real actions.

When employees see that leaders really genuinely want to hear their voice, they do respond and they show up.

Employees understand why the survey is conducted, how feedback will be used and what happens next. Senior leadership reinforces this through consistent communication.

Employees receive individual insights, including engagement trends and the ability to act on their own data. This shift, from an HR-driven tool to something employees use themselves, has strengthened both ownership and self-leadership.

We see that the personal insight supports our participation rates.

Employees see that feedback leads to real change, building trust and reinforcing engagement over time.

At Mölnlycke, participation is driven by making employees feel informed, involved, and valued. This is supported by clear communication, access to personal insights, and visible follow-up on feedback.

High participation rate happens when people feel informed, involved and valued.

By giving employees access to their own engagement data, Mölnlycke has shifted from a traditional HR tool to something employees actively use to understand and shape their own experience. This strengthens both ownership and self-leadership.

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Consistent follow-through from leaders is equally important. When feedback leads to visible action and teams are involved in the process, engagement becomes a shared effort across the organization.

When leaders champion the process and employees see that their voice leads to action, that is where engagement becomes a shared commitment. That is our secret behind the 94% participation rate.

Combining technology, AI, and human dialogue

Technology plays a key role in Mölnlycke’s approach by helping to:

·       Identify patterns and trends

·       Highlight areas needing attention

·       Guide leaders on where to focus

Leaders receive suggested improvement areas, reducing manual analysis and enabling faster, more focused action.

At the same time, technology alone is not enough.

“Technology might highlight that a team’s workload score has dropped, but it’s only the leader and the team that can uncover the why.”

Insights only become meaningful when they are discussed, understood, and acted on in context. This is where leadership and team dialogue play a critical role.

Technology gives us the right equipment, but engagement grows when people make use of it. And the real muscle comes from the conversation, the context and the leadership, which is the balance between these two meaningful drivers.

Insights are always followed by conversations to ensure actions are grounded in real context.

Mölnlycke focuses on fewer, more impactful actions rather than large action plans.

Teams identify key focus areas, prioritise what matters most and follow through consistently.

Over time, this builds the ability to identify challenges early, have open conversations and act quickly on feedback.

Strengthening the employee value proposition

Mölnlycke’s engagement approach aligns closely with its EVP, where shared ownership of engagement, transparent access to results, focus on well-being and inclusion, open dialog, clear connection to company purpose and continuous improvements are promoted.

This alignment reinforces consistency between what Mölnlycke says, and how it operates.

A culture where engagement belongs to everyone

Mölnlycke’s journey shows that transforming engagement is not just about tools—it’s about ownership.

By moving from an HR-driven process to a shared responsibility, the organization has created a more transparent, inclusive, and action-oriented way of working.

Engagement is no longer something that happens once a year. It’s continuously shaped by leaders and teams. Together.

Chiara emphasizes the importance of focusing on quality over quantity in action planning. Rather than creating extensive plans, Mölnlycke has seen stronger results by prioritizing fewer, more impactful actions, supported by AI to help identify where to focus.

What works well for us is to have fewer actions but make them impactful. And AI helps us identify the action points. This is where we can combine AI with the human part well.

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