Automating support from the ground up

Honest Burgers started as a small restaurant in the south of London. It is now a group of more than 40 restaurants across the UK.

Using bots to enhance employee experience

When COVID-19 saw hospitality businesses across the globe going out of business, executives set out with a goal to save every frontline job by building a better version of Honest Burgers. To achieve this in an environment of rapid change and complex regulations, the organization needed to act quickly and bring people closer together while protecting employees. While Workplace was already an important component of internal communication for the organization, leaders had to design and build a strategy for the platform that addressed the challenges brought on by the pandemic.

Honest Burgers made full use of Workplace’s automation capabilities with the support of The Bot Platform, which allowed the organization to boost time efficiency and improve the employee experience. After building several custom bots, like their “collaborator bar” that ensures important announcements don’t get missed, and bots that revolutionized the organization’s HR and learning management systems, leaders then recognized an opportunity to use these practices in response to COVID. The ability to reach all employees and provide a completely personalized experience for each person meant Honest Burgers could provide relevant, real-time updates for everyone, solve problems as quickly as they came in and enrich the employee experience – regardless of location or role.

Hospitality
726
EMEA

“We don’t want any other tools for our frontline teams to use. We want to make sure that as a frontline person as a waiter or a chef at Honest, you do not need to log into any other systems, you can do everything you need to do to do your job amazingly on Workplace.”

Dub Lee
System Architect, Honest Burgers

Results

50+
custom bots built
92%
weekly active users
89%
monthly active frontline users

Thinking outside the box

With the goal of retaining the entire workforce, Honest Burgers created ‘Honest College’ on Workplace to deliver bite-sized training to everyone. Automated training sessions included a range of lessons, skill development and short quizzes to prepare employees for roles in different sectors of the business. This allowed the organization to automatically assign relevant content to employees based on their location, experience and current position, which led to 150 waiters upskilling to become chefs.

Enhancing employee experience

Leaders then acknowledged the importance of supporting employees during a difficult and tumultuous time. Using a bot, they reached out to all frontline staff asking them to share their personal circumstances and working preferences. This information was then used by Honest Burgers to allocate each person a set number of hours at a restaurant within a 30-minute walk or cycle of their home, meaning everyone could avoid public transport and crowded spaces during the peak of the pandemic. This personalized approach created an incredible sense of belonging among the new local teams that had been forged.

Finding creative solutions

Honest Burgers also revisited outsourced roles. With many regular contractors unable to fulfill their usual jobs, rather than looking for new third-party options, Honest Burgers launched Craft Exchange to capitalize on the skills of their existing workforce. Groups and Bots enabled maintenance tasks to be advertised and gave employees the opportunity to do these additional tasks for extra pay.

Staying connected with Workplace Live

For those that were unable to return to work immediately, leadership used Workplace Live to create a two-way dialogue with them and support employee wellbeing. Alongside work updates, Live sessions also included fun activities such as HIIT classes, radio shows, pub quizzes and even cooking classes. This gave every employee the opportunity to remain part of something meaningful, whether they were working or isolating.

Supporting employee wellbeing

This two-way communication also identified an increasing need for mental health support across every level of the organization. People Guardian, a mental health chatbot, was created to support staff members through challenges they faced at work or home. This was beneficial for those adjusting to a new role, anyone separated from family or in isolation.

What's Next

After seeing the platform’s success across the organization, Honest Burgers is now focused on integrating all communication, processes, and systems into Workplace. The goal is to ensure everyone can find everything they need on Workplace. This will eliminate the need to remember multiple passwords, URLs or other software names, and will continually boost internal communication, messaging consistency and resource access.


Key Features

Workplace Chat

Make quick decisions with instant messaging and video calls.

Groups

Connect to the tools you’re already using.

Integrations

Connect to the tools you’re already using.

Live Video

The most authentic way to communicate with your team.

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