Springfield Home Care Resolves Communication & Engagement Challenges with Thrive.App
Here's how Springfield Home Care used their Thrive employee app, ‘My Springfield, to solve their communication problems, engage with their workforce, and support their colleagues during challenging times.
Springfield Home Care is a division of Springfield Healthcare Group. Springfield Healthcare Group is a family-owned and run business providing exceptional care in luxury surroundings across Yorkshire. With over 425 beds across five care homes in York, Leeds and Ilkley Springfield Healthcare Group offer specialist care services across the region. They also offer a range of care services to people in their own homes from six regional offices covering Yorkshire, Humberside and the North East.
The Challenge - Poor Communication, Low Morale & Unclear, Inconsistent Messages
With dispersed, deskless teams the Springfield Home Care needed a way to improve their ability to share information and communicate. They needed to enhance communications from leaders to employees and from employees to leaders. They also wanted a more consistent and clear approach to sharing important information with all team members.
“Our teams didn’t know enough about who we were as a business as a whole or what goals the group was trying to achieve. Employee engagement and morale was low and the comms team were receiving feedback from employees that they felt communication was poor and they were receiving unclear messages.”
The group needed a platform which would hold all of their important information, policies, documentation and resources in one place, where every employee could access with ease.
It was also clear that they needed a way to recognise colleagues for all of their hard work as well as providing clear support and advice for each other in terms of mental and physical well-being.
“We needed to improve on our ability to communicate up - down / down - up and engage peer support and recognition which was visible to all. It was also important for us to share good news stories and say thanks to our colleagues for their hard work.”
The Solution - An Easy-to-Use App for Improving Employee Communications
The group researched the market to find and invest in the best solution to help with their employee communication needs, as well as opening up channels for feedback.
A colleague had previously worked with the team at Thrive.App, prior to joining Springfield Home Care, and had shared her positive experiences and results from implementing the Thrive employee app. As this was a new way of communicating it was important that the employee engagement partner was supportive, and the platform was easy to implement and use.
A Realistic & Positive Approach...
“We were looking for a partner who was open and transparent about what they could offer and what we needed to do to ensure success. We needed a realistic and supportive approach to introducing the new solution and way of working. We also needed a partner that was innovative and listened to our feedback. We saw this with Thrive.App through the support and communication from the beginning, the team’s style and approach was really impressive.”
The Outcome - Increased Employee Engagement, Decreased Costs & Improved Retention
The deployment of the Thrive employee app has enabled all employees to receive key messages, policies and information in a consistent and timely way. The group now has a centralised platform where all information is stored and shared: in the past this information would have been posted to colleagues’ addresses, and so the reduction in postage costs has been significant to the group.
The overall employee retention has also improved. Colleagues are making use of the recognition feature to thank each other publicly, using the app. There’s also a better sense of community with social, personalised aspects within the app – photo walls, employees sharing their stories and celebrating success.
Feedback from Employees
“After the launch of the app, our team have given very positive feedback and we have had some comments saying how innovative and refreshing it is to have the employee app.”
“We don’t need to travel to and from offices to access information or policies and share documents, these are all within the app for people to access when needed. We have noticed a great increase in activity from employees sharing information with each other, supporting their colleagues and also acknowledging and thanking them for their hard work. It’s great to see the app helping to lift spirits, especially during these challenging times with Covid-19. We are using more features like @mentions and push notifications to draw our colleagues’ attention to important information and the new Acknowledgements feature is helping us to organise internal employee well-being events and courses as well. The app has really increased employee engagement across Springfield Home Care."
If your organisation is similar to Springfield Home Care and you're looking for ways to connect and engage with your dispersed teams, talk with a member of our team today.
Not ready to talk and want to learn more? Download our helpful eGuide - Increasing Employee Engagement in Healthcare