How Impellam Group is using Workplace to connect their people across countries and brands
We caught up with Melinda Rogers, Global Head of Digital, to see how using Workplace is increasing productivity and knowledge sharing at Impellam Group.
Employee survey results gave Impellam Group's management team a mandate to find a better way to connect international colleagues. Here's why they chose Workplace.
Impellam Group comprises of 18 specialist staffing and managed service brands operating across the UK, North America, Europe, and APAC.
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Communication challenges
That comes with challenges. Internal communication hurdles, disjointed structures, information silos, and difficulties sharing and disseminating information.
“Impellam employees told us they needed a platform to connect them with their international colleagues across all brands and functions, as well as with our senior leadership teams,” says Melinda.
This insight into employee needs became part of the Impellam roadmap. “Connecting our people through a platform that facilitated straightforward information sharing and collaboration was a top strategic priority of ours. So we deployed Workplace in April 2018.”
The launch
Clarity was key. “The digital project team was very clear from the start that improving internal communication and cross-brand collaboration was a big part of our CEO’s pledge to the business,” says Melinda.
And this helped Melinda and the team deliver against an ambitious project timeline. “From the business case being signed off to the launch date we had exactly three months,” she explains.
How is WP helping change the way people work at Impellam?
Using Workplace to connect people
Using Workplace is helping to break down silos across the entire business. This is leading to a greater cohesion across all 18 Impellam brands and better individual understanding of the group's vision, mission, and strategic objectives.
“Previously, people worked for their brands first and then for Impellam Group as a distant second,” says Melinda. “Now people have a much better understanding of the integral role their brand plays within Impellam Group.”
“Workplace gives people a better understanding of the integral role their brand plays in the group”
Using Workplace to share information
Workplace has made the dissemination of information a lot easier. “The way we communicate has certainly changed and will continue to change thanks to Workplace,” says Melinda.
“It's also opened up channels of conversation,” she adds, “by making it easy to find international colleagues and message them directly using Workplace Chat rather than writing a long email.”
“Workplace makes it easy to message colleagues using Workplace Chat rather than writing a long email.”
Using Workplace to build an open culture
And it wasn't just communication that became more transparent. Using Workplace groups made feedback, comments, and opinions more visible and more actionable across the brands and business functions.
“We'd had a culture of not wanting to share comments and feedback,” Melinda explains. “We had to really encourage that in an open space before the Workplace rollout.”
“Workplace has enabled and driven the start of a culture shift across Impellam Group.”
“But now people can pose questions on Workplace get instant help and insight. The Workplace technology has enabled and driven the start of a culture shift across Impellam Group.”
How have the ways you use Workplace evolved over time?
“People are learning through practical experience that Workplace is an efficient collaboration and communication tool," Melinda says. “We’re seeing them set up a lot of project groups across Workplace.”
And using the platform is fundamentally changing how people work in these groups and beyond. “I love the fact that Workplace is so democratic; it allows for a more bottom-up approach to doing business. It's reducing the number of emails we send. It makes all kinds of information sharing easier. And it makes everything in our business a lot more streamlined.”
What has Workplace enabled you to do that you couldn’t do before?
Amongst many things, using Workplace is helping Impellam close in on strategic objectives. “A key part of our digital strategy is to love our candidates,” Melinda explains.
“Workplace supports this by allowing us to set-up an open group to gather feedback from various brand consultants on how we can treat our candidates better. That would have previously been a really difficult thing to do.”
What's next for Workplace?
It's all about integrations. “Ultimately, I’d like all our systems to be integrated into one place – on Workplace,” confirms Melinda.
“I’d like all our systems to be integrated into one place – on Workplace.”
“My overarching digital strategy is to make the whole business more efficient by reducing the number of systems people have to log in to.”
And that ambition extends to using Workplace to reduce the reliance on the most ubiquitous work tools of all. “I’d like us to remove the need for email and make everything available in one centralized place.”
With huge thanks to Melinda Rogers, Impellam Group.
In partnership with Workplace Partner Azuronaut.
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