Customers
Meath County Council's employee app empowers and connects 850 office-based and deskless teams
Industry
Local Authorities
Company Size
850 employees
Meath County Council is one of 31 local authorities in the Republic of Ireland with Headquarters in Navan, Co. Meath. With a staff headcount of over 850 employees, Meath County Council delivers a range of public services to a population of over 220,800. It is the objective of Meath County Council to drive the economic, social, cultural and environment improvement of the county and to enhance the quality of life of the people in Meath, making Meath even better.
Challenge
Council employees working away from a desk experienced lack of or delayed information
The Council has over 850 employees, working across multiple locations, in two main categories ‘indoor staff’ (office-based) and ‘outdoor staff’ (non-desk based). With a significant amount of employees having no regular access to work emails or a desktop, enhancing communication and promoting positive engagements with every employee was essential for the council.
Communications for those without email access relied on local engineers and team leaders printing email communications and posting these to noticeboards. This caused delays in getting information to the outdoor teams. A number of days would pass before information would reach everyone. There was an unequal distribution and quality of information between those who were office-based and those who were working in dispersed locations.
The council needed an efficient, easy-to-use solution to bring everyone together by sharing information with everyone, at the same time, in the same way, no matter their location or job role.
"From the beginning our main vision was to ensure the outdoor staff felt that they were the same as the indoor staff, because they are."
Sharon Shealy
Administrative Officer HR, Meath County Council
In 2018, in a bid to find an enhanced form of communication, the Council’s HR Department worked with employees, trade unions, and workplace partners and identified that a mobile employee communications app would be the optimal solution to connect with every team member, including outdoor staff.
The Council researched the market and chose Thrive based on their user-friendly solution that every employee could use as well as their expertise and ongoing support. After a successful pilot in 2019, the council launched their 'MCC Connect' employee app by Thrive. Meath County Council were one of the first Local Authorities in Ireland to create and deploy an employee app using the Thrive communication platform.
The Solution
Seven years later the council have continued to use their employee communications app by Thrive to enhance how they connect and engage with their entire workforce.
"One of the most important things we do is how we communicate with everybody. Our external communications is strong, but I feel that we have to focus equally on internal communications. How we advise our team of what's happening, of what we're doing, and why we're doing it. Through my over 20 years experience across three different Local Authorities there's a real challenge in making sure that the outdoor teams get the information at the same time, in the same quality, and in the same way as all our other staff. I don't see that there should be any difference in the way any member of our staff receives that information. Once I saw the Thrive communications platform and what it does, I was really excited. I was enthused to see how we can achieve immediacy in relation to pushing out communication with every team member."
Kieran Kehoe
Chief Executive, Meath County Council
Meath County Council's employee app has evolved since it's deployment and contains a widespread of information
- Weekly newsletters
- Video updates from the CEO
- Policies & procedures
- Wellbeing information
- Social events
- Competitions
- Health & safety information
- Career opportunities
- Staff Corner
- Learning & development
The Outcomes
Since the introduction of their MCC Connect employee app by Thrive, the council have seen multiple positive changes and are confident they'll continue to see more.
Paperless New Hire Onboarding Contributes to Sustainability Goals
Before their employee app by Thrive was deployed, a new employee was sent a printed Induction Pack which was time consuming, costly, and not entirely environmentally friendly. With the introduction of the employee app, the council has moved this paper-based onboarding process to a digital, trackable, dedicated space in their app.
"We've reduced our carbon footprint with our paperless process for new hires and staff inductions. Thrive Customer Support is excellent and very professional; they have been able to advise on how to get the best out of the product. During the implementation of the “MCC Connect” app, the Thrive team conducted an onsite visit, attended conference meetings, provided excellent app launch material, and deliver an efficient customer support line. It really shows that Thrive have a great track record in making employee apps work."
Sharon Shealy
Administrative Officer HR, Meath County Council
Relevant Training Sessions & Immediate Updates
The council organise regular training for both indoor and outdoor teams. It's key for HR to be able to arrange training and notify each employee directly. With the Thrive employee communication platform, the HR team are able to segment audiences for specific training sessions. This ensures the council are sending relevant information and notifications to a targeted group of people, rather than sending it to everyone.
"Targeting audiences and managing training sessions through our employee app has been really useful for us. Our outdoor staff can choose from a number of dates for a particular training course that works with their schedule as well as ours. Before the app, this information had to be sent to our outdoor teams by post. We had to plan things 3-4 weeks ahead and there was no room for last minute changes to plans. We now get responses back really quickly and can make quick changes if needed."
Liz Byrne
Staff Officer, Meath County Council
Boosted Success of Social Events
With the introduction of their employee app, the council are now seeing improved engagement and attendance of social events organised by the social club. Every team member receives information about these social events at the same time, via a push notification update in their mobile app, this means that every team member has equal access and opportunities to RVSP to events, which is especially important for some events that have limitations to the number of attendees.
"Years ago, before the app we had to use noticeboards around the buildings and in different area offices. But now we have instant communication and instant access to all our events and updates, it's a great improvement for us in the social club. If someone is on leave or out of the office for some reason they still get access to the event information. This means no one is left out. It's instant. Everybody can see it."
Claire Kavanagh
Assistant Staff Officer, Meath County Council
Want to learn more?
If your organisation is similar to Meath County Council and you're looking for ways to improve your membership communications and engagement, book a discovery call to tell us about your communication challenges and learn more about the features and benefits of an app from Thrive.
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