8 Ways a Thrive Employee App Can Turn a Disengaged Workforce into an Engaged Community

At Thrive, we know one of our most critical ingredients to our success is our clients’ feedback. So, we were delighted to get the opportunity recently to host an online Client Show & Tell session to see and hear firsthand how their apps were transforming their employee engagement and experience.

The session gave our clients the opportunity to share how they’ve been using their Thrive app to connect and communicate with their employees; to ask each other questions; and to inspire ideas in each other.

The result? An incredible wealth of inspirational ideas and tips on how to turn a dispersed and disengaged workforce into an engaged community – all with just one app. Whether you’re just starting on your app journey or are looking for new ways to use yours, here are some of the key takeaways to inspire you.

Thrive clients will already know the app comes with powerful Insights capabilities that lets Admins see what content is successfully engaged with and what’s not, which can be a great help when planning communications. This enables you to plan and deliver more of what works and keep content relevant and consistent.

But did you know you can create and push out employee engagement surveys for even more valuable feedback? For one Thrive client, using the app this way replaced their previous survey emails – emails which, at best, would reach only 15% of their 4,500-strong workforce, often ending up unnoticed in recipients’ junk folders. Instead, with the app they were able to send out the survey with a dedicated link specific to each user, while push notifications ensured each employee saw the link on their mobile device and had the opportunity to take part.

So now with your Insights you know what content doesn’t work for you or your employees, and you can give them more of the good stuff. But while giving your employees the content they want is more likely to help you achieve your engagement goals, don’t be afraid to get creative and try new things. Think outside the box, like a Thrive client did for their app launch – launching the app with a competition, they sent out pizza kit boxes to all employees and inspired engagement by inviting them to make their own pizza and share a picture on their new app photowall. It was a real “pizza work” for the team but a hugely successful campaign!

If you’re keen but cautious about trying something new, competitions are a great way to get employees on board. This was also the case for two other Thrivin’ clients. Similar to the previous example, one client used a competition to launch their app, inviting employees to share pictures of their pets – something that was better received than they expected. After all, who doesn’t love sharing pictures of their beloved pets? It created a fun narrative for the app and helped to boost the app uptake from the start. For another client, competitions have become a regular feature in their strategy, with a calendar of engagement opportunities throughout the year to help regularly bring together their 11,000 employees – creating a sense of connection and involvement, even when dispersed across 300 locations.

At Thrive, we’ve loved watching all the unique and original ways clients have adapted their app to their needs. Throughout the Show & Tell session, we noticed a common theme between everyone there – beyond the standard features such as Latest News or the photowall, each of their apps included interesting, quirky, and unusual functions.

For one client, this involved using the Planner feature on their app to offer overtime shifts to their employees. This gave each of their dispersed depots the capability to create an overtime shift as an event and invite employees to accept or decline. Adopting this feature into their app meant all employees had the same opportunity to apply for and get their desired overtime shifts, replacing the manual, first-come first serve process that previously meant employees often missed out on those opportunities.

A top tip for proven app success – get your employees involved and enable them to be part of the app experience. Not only is their feedback invaluable for creating a successful internal comms strategy; by inviting them to actively be part of the strategy, you’re more likely to see positive results in terms of regular app usage and engagement. Employees will feel more connected, and this can break down barriers and silos across your organisation for a stronger, more united workforce.

One particularly Thrivin’ client has found this to be the case with their app. They have been the first of our clients to utilise the UCG feature to create an innovative “Bright Sparks” section, where employees are invited to post ideas for improving or growing the business. All ideas and suggestions are brought to a regular People & Culture team meeting, reviewed, and then allocated a timeframe for implementing. The employees then receive feedback on their ideas, creating a cycle of continued communication from the start that shows they are being heard and – more importantly – they’re being listened to. The client confirmed on the Show & Tell session that a lot of the ideas submitted had made a huge different to the company, some of which were health and safety issues they weren’t initially aware of.

For another client, one with over 35 nationalities making up their workforce, diversity and inclusion is paramount. To celebrate their diverse teams, the client uses their app to acknowledge the ‘national days’ across the globe and invite their employees to participate in their chosen national day’s celebrations. This has been widely embraced by the workforce, with many employees both excited and proud to share insights with the team into their culture and heritage, such as fun facts and traditional dances or songs.

An employee comms app can do more than just employee comms – it can give employees access to everything they need for their role and day-to-day working life. In addition to important updates and latest news, it’s also the ideal space for storing and sharing key documents, like company handbooks, policies, or personal or confidential files, to name a few.

Digitising company documents makes them more accessible to those who need them when they need them. For one Thrive client, it came as a surprise to see some of their more engaged-with content included their wellbeing and benefits policies: 

Other clients noted the app was introduced as part of their new starters’ onboarding and inductions, enabling new employees to feel like part of the team from day one. This includes sending them the information they need as part of their onboarding pack, such as the app log-in details. During the induction, they would then walk the new employees through the process and support them in setting up the app and dealing with any issues.

Corporate comms should certainly have its place in every internal communications strategy. However, if your goals are more focused around engagement, experience and wellbeing, then your strategy should go beyond that. By incorporating this into your app, not only can you improve your culture and foster connection between your employees, but you can also create a community.

For each of our Show & Tell clients, this sense of community was evident on their apps. They found employees were engaging more with stories about their colleagues than they were with corporate updates, and good news stories, such as celebrations, achievements, getting married and birthdays, were inspiring conversation and connection between employees.

A healthcare client, whose app was particularly on wellbeing due to the stressful and challenging nature of the sector, felt it was “heartwarming” to see their employees sharing photos, stories, anniversaries, and more recognition towards each other.

One feature we noticed “popped up” with almost every client on the session – push notifications. Though it might be a small and simple feature to the eye, push notifications can make a huge difference in your app’s success.

Don’t take our word for it – all our Show & Tell clients attributed their app success at least in part to push notifications. The stats speak for themselves – for one client, their employees’ app usage is one of the highest across all our clients, averaging 70-75% monthly usage! How did they do this? In their own words – “consistency and push notifications.”

Last but certainly not least – getting buy-in from your Senior Management Teams can make all the difference. When CEOs, leaders and senior managers are on board, their endorsement ensures your app is aligned with broader organisational goals and it gives your app a strategic purpose. Which in turn helps to guide your internal communications. It also indicates that the app is a priority for the organisation, giving it more weight and, in turn, helping to improve app uptake and usage among employees.

For one client, their CEO’s commitment to improving the employee experience means they have been able to dedicate more budget and effort to their app, culture and events. A notable example was a recent Family Day organised by the company at a local amusement park for over 640 of their employees, by way of a thank you from the CEO to employees for all their hard work!

For many of those with a more restrictive budget, don’t panic! An internal communications strategy doesn’t need a big budget to be a success - you just need buy-in. Once you have it, you’re good to go!

The sky is the limit for our Thrivin’ clients. If you want to learn more about any of the tips and features covered above, get in touch with your Client Success Manager today at support@thrive.app.