How 5 companies are succeeding with their Jostle intranet

I think every business has this one universal trait…

They love hearing from happy customers.

That’s definitely true at Jostle. When we discover that a customer is achieving great things with their intranet, or that they have an interesting use-case, the story gets shared and celebrated around our office.

Then we realized: why not share these stories with the rest of the world while we’re at it? We’re so proud of our customers and what they’re doing to transform their organizations and improve employee experience.

Here are five of our excellent customers who are doing unique, interesting, and successful things with their Jostle intranet.

1. Heyday

Heyday is a Facial Shop, offering customized skincare with five locations on Manhattan, and their newest shop in Los Angeles. Here’s what Maxwell Bennett, Operations Manager, had to say:

Q: What business challenges are you solving with your intranet?

A: Heyday is using Jostle to improve communication, shift swap, manage the spread of information, and enable employees to get to know each other on a more personal level.

Q: Do you have a special use case for any of Jostle's features?

A: We use the Classifieds section for people posting for coverage or shift swaps. We use the More section for links to our payroll website, and access to other important sites for our business.

Heyday’s shift swapping on their Jostle intranet

Q: What are the positive changes, related to your intranet, that you've seen within your company?

A: People are much more likely to reach out to someone they haven't met in person for a shift swap. And since we have a few Heyday locations across Manhattan, someone who’s picking up a shift in a shop they haven't worked at before can go into the Teams section to get to know the people they will be working with.

In brief: Jostle is helping Heyday with both the “hard stuff” (the logistics around shift swapping) and the “soft stuff” (employees getting to know each other better and deepening the connections between locations).

2. Armstrong Watson

Armstrong Watson is an accounting and finance firm with over 400 employees spread across 14 different UK offices. Here’s what their CEO, Paul Dickson, had to say:

Q: What business challenges are you solving with your intranet?

A: Keeping the team engaged and connected is our biggest internal challenge. Our employee surveys regularly raised communication as one of our biggest issues.

Then, in 2016, we changed our internal structure, which created virtual teams. For many people this meant that the person leading the team no longer sat in the same office as them.

As an accountancy practice we need to continuously inform the team of changes to regulations and our own internal processes; sending these updates by email means that if you weren't part of the team when the change happened you aren't informed.

Q: How is Jostle helping you to overcome those challenges year over year?

A: Once the management team had seen how easy it was to add articles, we were able to convince them to commit to posting at least one article a quarter. Now in fact barely a month goes by without each of them posting some news!

Now we have a growing bank of knowledge articles that can be easily searched by anyone and you no longer needed to be part of the team when the change happened. This year, we decided to make everyone in the firm a news reporter on our intranet to encourage greater participation.

Armstrong Watson’s bank of NEWS Articles

Q: Tell us about internal communication on your intranet.

A: Getting leadership to buy in at the beginning of the rollout was essential to our success—leading by example is the key to adoption! Once I started posting both news articles and shout-outs, the rest of the team followed.

We did an education piece to reinforce the message that Jostle was the place to spread information and discouraged the use of email for this purpose.

Q: What are the positive changes, related to your intranet, that you've seen within your company?

A: The firm as a whole has a better understanding of what’s going on and what direction we want to go in.

Partly this is because Jostle centralizes all this information into a single place and makes it easy to consume but also partly because the management team have increased the volume of their communications. Now they have a simple channel to use.

In brief: Armstrong Watson has been able to improve communication despite the changing structure and locations of the organization. By centralizing the information through an easy-to-use platform, their knowledge base is growing and everyone can find the information they need.

3. Plexxus

Plexxus is a shared services organization in healthcare with over 600 employees spread out across multiple locations. Here’s what Jacqueline Waters, Communications Assistant, had to say:

Q: What business challenges are you solving with your intranet?

A: Last year, as our organization integrated with another Shared Service Organization (COHPA) we leveraged Jostle to onboard over 75 employees.

Q: How did Jostle help you to overcome those challenges?

A: Jostle was the perfect way to introduce our organization to our new colleagues. We were able to showcase everything from the department-specific documentation kept in our LIBRARY, to all of our exciting updates housed in the NEWS feed.

Most importantly, we were able to share the names and faces of the people who were about to become colleagues. For us it was important to create that inclusive connection from Day One, for both existing employees, and those who were just joining us.

Q: Do you have a special use case for any of Jostle's features?

A: We use Jostle in a variety of ways, but have seen the biggest impact in the following ways:

• We created an interactive PDF hosted on Jostle with links to important files, and information all hosted on Jostle. In doing so we were able to shave hours off of our original on-boarding process, and are looking to leverage Jostle product videos to reduce that time even further.
• We used Jostle to help with the integration of another organization into ours: migrating shared documents, uploading employee contact information and photos, and creating a space where our new colleagues would feel welcome and a part of the team. It provided a great way to meet people through our in-person and interactive training sessions.

Q: What are the positive changes, related to your intranet, that you've seen within your company?

A: The ability to log in from anywhere, both on mobile and on browser, has been instrumental to helping our employees feel like they’re always connected to our business, and to each other.

Putting a name to a face is so helpful, especially when you're new to an organization, and without a doubt, overwhelmed.

In brief: Plexxus has made the most of Jostle during (what can be) a challenging business situation. They used it to successfully onboard 75 new employees with both efficiency and warmth. Now only was Jostle the vehicle for educating new employees, it also welcomed them into the Plexxus culture.

4. Coweta-Fayette EMC

Coweta-Fayette EMC is a US-based electric provider with 220 employees working from offices and in the field. They launched Jostle in 2017. Here’s what VP of Communications and PR, Chellie Phillips, had to say about finding and rolling out the platform:

Q: What business challenges were you facing?

A: Based on cross department conversations, everyone from supervisors to front line employees felt that information wasn't funneling throughout the cooperative from department to department.

There was a feeling that some supervisors "hoarded information" and only shared with certain employees. There was also a divide identified between personnel who worked in the corporate headquarters and district offices as well as those who were in the field most of the day.

Q: What was your solution?

A: The CEO and VP level leadership made a commitment to change the perception that information wasn’t being shared or that only limited people had access to what was happening in the cooperative.

A committee involving Human Resources, IT, and Communications was formed to evaluate tools that would allow better communication between all departments and office locations. The committee found and recommended the Jostle platform.

Coweta-Fayette EMC's Jostle intranet, known internally as "The Grid"

Q: Tell us about your launch.

A: We decided to name our Jostle interface "The Grid". It was rolled out during a lunch and learn event hosted by the Member Services and Communications Departments entitled “Game Changers.”

The day featured a look into the future of the electric industry, as well as our internal communication.

We created wallet cards with information on how to use and download the app, which were provided to everyone. Along with a live demo on the big screen showing a desktop experience with the app, employees were also given screenshots and information on how the mobile experience would work.

Once the presentation was complete, each employee had an email invitation waiting in their inbox to join The Grid by the time they arrived back at their desk. That way we were encouraging sign up while it was still fresh on everyone’s mind.

Q: Tell us about post-launch activities to keep enthusiasm and engagement high.

A: We used the feature in the Jostle app that allows an email to be sent to every user account when new information is posted. That drives people to the app, increasing their use and familiarity with what's on there.

We regularly run contests to engage the users, using gift cards as incentives. For example, we've had drawings for restaurant cards. Employees who posted a shout-out one week were all put into a drawing for the card.

We also completed a successful holiday contest where employees were asked to post a favorite tradition or holiday memory. Over 70 photos were shared during that time by 43 different employees. We’re setting up information stations in several areas, where people can use touchscreen monitors to access Jostle and other company information.

Q: How has the usership progressed since your launch?

A: The week after rollout we had about 50% of the employees signed up. As of November 2017, we climbed to 73%. In March 2018, we were at 82% usage.

It’s been a steady climb and we’re excited to see it progressing so quickly, and we hope to continue to grow participation through our communication activities.

In brief: Coweta-Fayette EMC accepted the communication challenges they faced and have diligently worked to overcome them. With a well-planned launch and active efforts to improve communication, they’ve seen participation and communication rise steadily with Jostle.

5. Pure

Pure is a UK-based recruiting company based out of five sites in Eastern England. Here’s what Gill Buchanan, Founding Director, had to say about their Jostle journey:

Q: What business challenges are you solving with your intranet?

A: Jostle was introduced in 2014. Primarily as a result of feedback in our annual employee culture and engagement survey, which highlighted that communication at Pure was not as good as it had been.

Staff felt that some sites were informed of company changes and new staff ahead of others. Our communications channels had been primarily via weekly office meetings, quarterly staff meetings, and emails.

Q: How is Jostle helping you to overcome those challenges year over year?

A: Jostle is integral to all elements of our company culture. It’s featured in Day One of our induction. It’s in our “Pure book” which is given to every new starter and is the go-to place for all company updates.

The People section in Jostle is widely used to help people get to know each other and feel part of our company. Also, Shout-Outs and News also enable us to reinforce our six core values of teamwork, quality, innovation, reward, support, and delivering the best results.

Q: Tell us about your activities to keep engagement high.

A: Our marketing team, learning and development team, leadership team, and brand ambassadors meet regularly to discuss Jostle usage and how we can continue to enhance engagement.

We also have an internal Jostle team which meets on a quarterly basis to look at engagement metrics, ways to continue engagement, and ideas for improvements.

Also, news articles are posted regularly by our leadership team including a monthly company update by our CEO.

Q: Which Jostle features do you use a lot, and do you have a special use case for them?

A: We have several initiatives to ensure continued engagement:

• We encourage our teams to recognize other team members across the company with shout-outs for support they’ve received. This highlights good practices and fun photos of what’s happening across our teams and sites.
• Our learning and development team use Jostle within the induction process and have created quizzes to ensure new starters find the answers within Jostle.
• Our Marketing team uses the Discussions view to gain insight into how our teams approach different recruitment tips. This information has been used in social media posts and company newsletters.
• We've also recently introduced a 'virtual suggestion box' which is proving a great success in implementing ideas and gaining feedback.
• Our Events section has helped us in ensuring we aren't over-committing to events across the company which supports a more balanced program of events.
• The Library is used for induction for new starters and they complete their profile for the People section on Day 1 at Pure.
• We have used Polls to gain insight into company-wide thoughts on a range of topics including: dress code, should partners be invited to the Christmas party, etc. This encourages everyone to input their thoughts.

Q: What are the positive changes, related to your intranet, that you've seen within your company?

A: Jostle underpins our employee engagement strategy. It has increased sharing of good ideas, greater and consistent awareness of company updates, recognizing good work and fun activities in each office, and celebrating success.

In brief: Pure is making the most of Jostle’s features to engage employees from their very first day with the company. They’re very intentional with their approach, meeting regularly to ensure they’re still on the right track with their communication process and to plan for the future.

Conclusion

Our customers continue to impress and delight us with their experiences. Their dedication to building outstanding workplaces is noteworthy, and we’re so happy to be a part of it. If you’re a Jostle customer, or simply an existing or aspiring intranet user, we hope you’ve found this useful.

Interested in what all the hype is about?