An Post, Ireland’s postal service enhance communications with their dispersed workforce

An Post is the national postal service provider of Ireland, offering a wide range of services that include traditional mail delivery, logistics, financial services, and retail. It is a state-owned company founded in 1984 and operates under the An Post Group umbrella. An Post handles over one million parcels daily. It offers both domestic and international parcel delivery services and is one of the Ireland’s largest employers with over 10,000 employees. 

With employees spread across various locations, ensuring effective communication was essential to maintain operational efficiency and a sense of unity among team members.

The Challenge – Lack of Communication with a Primarily Deskless Workforce

An Post faced the challenge of keeping its dispersed workforce informed and engaged. More than 60% of An Post’s workforce are “out on the road.” Reaching this workforce with consistent information and providing immediate updates was a challenge. 

Based on previous employee satisfaction surveys, the company recognised that “lack of communication” was perceived as an issue and that it required some attention. At that time communication of key messages was via the management channel with the inherent risk of filtering and interpretation and therefore lack of consistency. Printed newsletters were circulated, but often important news stories missed print deadlines. 

So, an additional channel of communication was needed to deliver up-to-the-minute news to the entire workforce. An Post researched the market and investigated intranet and extranet solutions. They also thought about giving email access to the entire workforce. 3,300 employees had access to email, but the rest of the workforce didn’t.

A severe adverse weather event in 2018 accelerated the need to find a solution to the problem. The company needed to inform all staff of the nationwide ‘Orange Alert’ weather warning but had to rely on management to pass on this message.

A solution needed to be found so that employees could receive instant urgent messages and one that could be implemented quickly and easily.

Marian Joyce, Internal Communications Manager: “We needed something that was easy to access and use!”

Finding a Simple, Effective Solution that Reaches Everyone at the Same Time

After consideration, An Post decided to invest in a mobile employee app for all of the workforce, especially those “hard to reach” employees with no access to email. They needed a communications channel that would get information out immediately, to everyone, at the same time. The channel also had to be exceptionally easy to download and use.

An Post partnered with Thrive.App to launch a dedicated employee app. The Thrive.App platform provided An Post with a user-friendly solution that connected their employees across different sites. This solution delivered essential updates, corporate news, and operational communications directly to the mobile devices of employees, ensuring that no one was left out of the loop.

An Post approached Thrive.App through a recommendation from an Thrive.App client, and a small joint project team was formed. After only a few short weeks the app was launched in April 2018. 

The An Post app ‘Post People’ provides clear focus on news: whether that be group news, company news or  departmental. It also focuses on recognition of individual employee achievements. Internal vacancies are published and announced with push notification alerts so that everybody has the chance to be informed.

The CEO delivers messages straight to the entire workforce via video messages and news updates.

Since the launch of the Post People app by Thrive.App in 2018, An Post have been updating their employee app with content, important safety updates, recognising employees for their hard work and ensuring their workforce is connected, informed and empowered to carry out their roles effectively.

The implementation of Thrive.App helped An Post significantly improve its internal communication and employee engagement. With a seamless flow of information across all levels of the company, An Post has created a more connected, informed, and engaged workforce. Employees now feel more involved in the company’s operations and are empowered with the right tools to perform their roles effectively.

If your organisation is similar to An Post and you want to improve your internal communications, talk with a member of our team today to learn more about the Thrive employee app. 

We're working with many organisations across the UK, Ireland and beyond, to improve both daily operations and communications, as well as employee retention. Book a discovery call today.