Golf Town Ltd. is giving its workforce a little nudge to help get its communications across.
Last year, the retailer connected with Nudge Rewards Inc., introducing the technology company’s mobile platform to facilitate the way it communications with employees.
“They were talking about how to engage and communicate with employees, and we have multiple locations across Canada and we were really struggling with how to cascade information outside of traditional ways,” says Susan Gilpin, human resources director at Golf Town. The company typically communicates with staff through emails or posters, she adds, calling these methods “old-school in nature.”
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Golf Town already had Wi-Fi in its stores and a policy allowing staff to bring their own devices to work, both of which align with the company’s mobile-savvy workforce and Nudge Rewards’ online platform, says Gilpin.
But day-to-day information about the business wasn’t always filtering down to all employees. “They could just be on their mobile device and really consuming that information,” she says. The program began with bite-sized information that employees could consume, but has evolved to engage them in a two-way conversation, sharing best practices, culture and engagement.
It’s also used to disseminate information about the company’s benefits plan, employee assistance program, different campaigns and safety programs. As well, Golf Town is leveraging the program for employee training.
At a grassroots level, the company is interacting with its workforce, asking them what they think of the tool and asking about the culture of the company.
“We just started that, we’re trying to dabble in it and see how we do and what the response rate is,” says Gilpin. “Because it’s a little more abstract than ‘Here’s a promo’ or ‘Here’s your flyer for the week,’ ‘Make sure everything is set up.’ Those are the easy things to put through Nudge. Some of these other things we’re trying to figure out, and figure out what is the right conversation and what is the right vehicle.”
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In terms of results, Gilpin says the stores with highly engaged employees have better customer satisfaction results and less complaints, but she can’t draw a direct correlation just yet as the program is still very new.
For the small group of employees who don’t have a smartphone, all information is also relayed on the company’s intranet or printed out, adds Gilpin.