How ArrowXL turned around their engagement with employees using reward and benefits
When it comes to a remote workforce, engagement can be a bit of a minefield. With some staff on the road, some in an office, and some working at home, it can really pose the question as to how you can make it all work to make sure that everyone is always included – but this is absolutely possible, and ArrowXL are now a shining example of just that.
For ArrowXL, most employees are based in four large hubs whilst others are spread across fourteen smaller locations across the country. With geographical challenges like this in a business where your employees are truly at the heart of what you do, it is not just a hurdle you need to overcome, but it is essential that engagement is the lifeblood of your organisation.
Here’s how they made a real and impactful difference to their people.
Explore the issues – and dig deep
When it comes to any engagement strategy, you first must identify areas for improvement. This means going on a deep fact-finding mission is a must – and that can sometimes involve taking a real, honest look at where you are and who you really want to be as an organisation in the future.
ArrowXL decided that there were three key aspects of their engagement strategy that really needed work: how they communicated and engaged with every colleague; the range of benefits they offered; and the recognition experience. They also found on their journey that they needed to include the right balance of technological and in-person engagement, so that colleagues felt valued and were able to fully be a part of and contribute to company culture – wherever they were.
Use technology to your advantage
ArrowXL recognised that mobile phone technology is now a necessity for most people in their everyday lives, and that apps are used for shopping, banking, traveling, and for getting news and information, so why shouldn’t they be used in the workplace too?
They chose to invest in and develop a bespoke colleague engagement app which was named ‘The Hub.’ The personalised portal and mobile app provided access to company news and announcements, employee benefits, recognition and reward programmes, and a range of forms and material that everyone found useful. The Hub was originally set up just for employee benefits, but since its foundation it has really pushed the boundaries. In addition to benefits, The Hub now hosts ArrowXL’s company values, news bulletins, newsletters, core benefits and employee wellbeing solutions, meaning it has become a hub for all employee services and not just staff benefits.
Employees have live company news in their hands 24/7 and messaging can be targeted to groups, individual roles and locations across the business. The app also offers colleagues the opportunity to save money and access unique offers online, and has been used to launch programmes to support recognition across the company.
Just by doing this and using new technology for good, ArrowXL has managed to better connect and engage with 1,200 people across 18 locations in an accessible and familiar way.
Helen Williams, communications and engagement at the company, said: “When we first launched The Hub, we could not have imagined the success we would see in just four months.”
The communications, travel, entertainment and everyday discounts pages on their specialist app have the most traffic and they average 1,615 logins per month, across 660 employees.
It shows us that it is not just the development of technology that is fast paced, but the impact and results it has in terms of engagement figures are too.
Talk to your people
Where possible, face-to-face communication is always the golden ticket. In the first month of setting up the new tech, ArrowXL made sure that every colleague was offered a one-to-one, face-to-face session with our experts to help them register onto the app and download it onto their own device. This method really worked, and they now have over 59% of colleagues with The Hub on their own device, and the rest are still able to access it via the web.
Through research, taking on a new technology, and talking to their people in person, ArrowXL have provided greater transparency across the company and this two-way communication is making great strides in helping to build trust with colleagues and increase collaboration. The foundation they have built not only makes key elements like recognition easier but also means that overall, now, the remote, on-the-road and non-desk-based employees, feel engaged and supported, allowing their flexible workforce to flourish for the future.
ArrowXL’s people – the beating heart of their organisation – are now all operating to the same rhythm, and that can only be a great thing.
This article is provided by Personal Group.
Personal Group is sponsoring REBA’s Innovation Day 2019. Join us on 28 November in central London to future-proof your reward and benefits strategy.
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