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Our client is one of Australia’s largest entertainment and hospitality venues with over 8,500 staff. Their vision is to be Australia’s leading resort company.

 

Client

Withheld

Industry

Entertainment & Hospitality

Organisation Size

8,000

Country

Australia

Services

Microsoft Teams, Power Automate, SharePoint Online, Viva Connections, Yammer

Context

Like so many businesses, the pandemic presented significant and extreme challenges for our client. Challenges such as on-again, off-again operations, the need to quickly pivot to meet new regulations, closing properties at short notice, and safely reopening for guests placed additional pressure on the systems used to distribute critical information to staff.

With legacy systems approaching end-of-life and exciting new features being added to the M365 stack, they took this opportunity to re-evaluate their digital employee experience and technology landscape.

Engage Squared was delighted to assist in the launch of Yammer, as well as designing a new Modern SharePoint Online intranet whilst utilising the mobile experience through Viva Connections.

The challenge

Previously over 8,500 frontline staff accessed news, insights, and operational information through a custom-built mobile app. However, with the pandemic putting pressure on operating costs, the app was expensive to operate, limited in its ability to enable two-way communication and had poor integrations with third party systems.

Alongside these challenges, our client’s SharePoint 2010 intranet was also approaching end-of-life.

With an existing investment in Microsoft 365 already in place, there was an opportunity to leverage this and launch a new seamless digital experience that was designed for their predominantly frontline workforce.

Against the backdrop of operational challenges presented by the pandemic, what started as a mostly technology-led project, quickly became mission-critical for broader business operations. With tight deadlines looming, it was important the solution was designed to remove technical hurdles, met business needs and ensured the business was prepared for the upcoming change.

“We’re taking full advantage of our strategic investment in Microsoft, which is helping us to design new experiences without the need for heavy customisation.”
Web Master

The solution

With 70% of the workforce being frontline, human centered design was key to ensuring widespread uptake of the new experience.

The first step in our journey was to run a series of discovery workshops to understand business needs and challenges. Through this discovery phase, we identified several challenges through employee feedback that was crucial to be considered from a technical, UI and design perspective when creating their new digital employee experience.

The results included:

  • Time wasted due to information stored in different systems, making it difficult to know who to speak to or where to get help
  • Rostered staff did not have access to dedicated computers and access to shared devices was limited
  • There was poor Wi-Fi coverage in some areas
  • Staff were time-poor and would typically spend only short amounts of time on a device. The need for quick and mobile-friendly access to important information, such as pre-shift briefings and general company updates was critical

With their challenges understood and employee frustrations clear, our approach was to deliver a series of connected solutions through M365 to modernise their systems and transform their overall digital employee experience.

This included:

  • Re-designing their SharePoint 2010 intranet on SharePoint Online
  • Building a new mobile app to their frontline, leveraging Viva Connections
  • Developing an Enterprise Social Network strategy and launching Yammer
“First and foremost, the solution had to be easy, seamless, and mobile-friendly to cater to the varying levels of work and role complexity– which is no small feat to pull off – but Viva Connections managed to meet our needs. ”
Chief Information Officer

The result

Reduced operational costs

By decommissioning the legacy mobile app, our client no-longer has a highly customised or bespoke platform that is costly to operate or support. Our client has reported operating costs have significantly reduced, with an estimated $65k of savings reported between November 2021 through to June 2022 alone.

Improved usability and access for all staff

  • The move to SharePoint Online has been well received by the frontline workforce with an immediate positive impact being felt. Over 3000 additional users accessed their new intranet in the first full month of its release with a total number of 24,023 visits in total. Whilst page views remained consistent at 366k within this period, users have found the site easier to navigate and information quicker to find.
  • For the first time ever, team members are now able to access everything they need through the mobile app with a single sign-in. This has improved efficiency as employees can access information whilst on the go.
  • With our client’s previous intranet only available on desktop, having a mobile app is changing the way employees access information. 69% of visits now come from mobile which is overwhelmingly the device of choice.

Saved time in administrative overhead

  • Previously, the internal communications team would spend multiple days monitoring, administering, and moderating the Facebook Group. Switching to Yammer has removed the need for this. By launching Yammer, the time to source, curate and distribute org-wide news updates has been reduced from 22 hours per week to just 1.5 hours.
  • Within the first 30 days, Yammer had half a million interactions with 5k people joining the Sydney Community alone.

Opened lines of communication

Critical information can now be distributed and “boosted” to a ‘Top News’ card on the dashboard, which has provided the communications team with the confidence that the right audience is being reached.

“Partnering with Engage Squared to help us deliver the solution was paramount and I don’t think we would have gotten to where we are today without their guidance. They showed us what’s possible, and how far we could push our investment to design a solution that’s 100% ‘out-of-the-box’”
Chief Information Officer

If you’re keen to understand how our solutions can help improve the connection of your frontline workforce, please get in touch now or chat to our Digital Workplace and Employee Experience Practice Lead, Rachel Harnott. We have proven experience, and we love to talk all things employee experience.

 

 

Ready to transform the way you engage with your frontline? Speak to one of our Viva specialists. 

Read more about the technology used in this case study

Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a collaboration app built for hybrid work so you and your team stay informed, organised, and connected — all in one place. It includes functions such as chat, channels and teams, calendars, apps, and the ability to conduct calls and meetings, while seamlessly integrating with existing M365 tools.
Power Automate
Microsoft Power Automate is a service that helps you streamline tasks by creating automated workflows between apps and services to synchronise files, get notifications, collect data, and more. It uses low-code, drag-and-drop tools and hundreds of pre-built connectors that automate repetitive, mundane tasks with ease.
SharePoint
Microsoft SharePoint Online is a cloud-based services that empowers organisations to build websites, as well as securely store, access, manage and share information. It provides a rich collaboration environment where people inside and outside your organisation can work together, co-authoring documents on any device.
Viva Connections
Viva Connections is a customisable app in Microsoft Teams that provides a destination where employees can explore news, join conversations, and connect with others across the organisation in the apps and devices they use daily. Viva Connections is included in Microsoft 365 plans with SharePoint Online.