Overview
The post-pandemic environment has led most companies to rethink their workplace strategies–mainly by requiring their employees to return to the office–with varying levels of success. One of these companies is Veepee, which had been fully-remote for almost 2 years and recently transitioned to a hybrid work model, inviting their employees to return to the office.
In 2022, Veepee chose Café as their Workplace Engagement Platform. With Café, Veepee created a workplace policy based on socialization and flexibility, enticing employees to return to offices that offer them a more fulfilling experience. One year after the roll-out of their new policy through Café, Veepee Chief Technology Officer, Julien Mangeard, looks back on the adoption of their workplace engagement platform that increased their office attendance without a strict mandate, doubled the number of events organized, and provided invaluable, real-time data along the way.
The choice of Café was made in a context of return to office and positive reinforcement. Using Café has enabled us to improve employee engagement by offering more visibility and social moments.
Challenges
- Return to office strategy: increase office attendance without mandates
- Increase social connectivity: improve employee engagement through interest based and in-person social connectivity
- Track, control and improve: take data-driven decision when it comes to Workplace strategy
VeepeeTech’s workforce is distributed across 6 countries, and most teams are spread across multiple offices (>80%). After nearly two years of remote work, adopting the right return to office strategy was a challenge in the following 3 key areas:
- Over the past few months, many companies (like Amazon, Microsoft, and Credit Suisse) have pushed to bring employees back to the office. Almost every return-to-office mandate has been met with friction and defiance from employees who don’t want to lose the convenience and flexibility of remote work. VeepeeTech understood that simply forcing employees back to the office doesn’t work; employees need a reason to meet in person again.
- The trickiest question–but probably the most important one–when it comes to defining a return to office policy is, what can companies do to attract employees back to the office? Countless studies have shown the importance of social connectivity in the workplace and the impact it can have on employees' feelings of belonging. To adopt a successful return to office policy and an engaging workplace strategy, VeepeeTech had to make it social.
- Return to office policies are not simply about setting rules and providing employees with a tool. Most workplace strategies fail because of the lack of data and visibility, which prevents Workplace and HR leaders from tailoring the best employee experience for their companies. In order to be successful, VeepeeTech needed to be able to easilytrack, manage, and improve their new policy.
With more than 40 teams spread across several countries, VeepeeTech needed to provide employees with a reason to return to the office and managers with detailed analytics to allow them to craft the hybrid strategy that would best fit everyone. For each of the 3 challenges above, Café was deemed the best solution.
Solution
- An all-in-one platform to manage places, schedule, and events
- Offer more visibility and flexibility to employees and managers
- Access to real time data and advanced space, social and users analytics
- Fully customizable and integrated solution to craft the strategy that fits everyone
Within the last 3 years, the workplace industry has seen a plethora of solutions emerge with the aim of solving different challenges regarding workplace management, such as desk booking softwares, event management platforms, and employee intranets, but none of these tools solve for all of the challenges that hybrid companies face when it comes to workplace engagement.
By switching from a desk-booking tool to Café, VeepeeTech has brought its workplace experience to another level: spaces, events, and analytics are now managed in one place. Seamless integration with Slack, G Suite and the VeepeeTech HRIS allows employees, managers and HR leaders to use Café from within their daily tools.
More importantly, with Café, VeepeeTech has made Hybrid social: hybrid work is not just about reserving a desk; it's about taking ownership of when it makes sense to commute to work based on who will be there and connecting with people in person. Café enables genuine connections that reduce silos and boost cross-collaboration.
How Veepee has used Café to craft a new Workplace policy:
- See who's where and book spaces directly within Slack
- Find the best day to come to the office and meet by comparing schedules
- Boost Social Connectivity by creating interest based events & communities
- Track and monitor remote policy compliance and office attendance
- Streamline internal knowledge with dedicated office and team pages (gathering floor plans, analytics, org chart and popular office days)
Having a Workplace Experience Platform enabled managers and administrators to:
- Defined department policy guidelines - through detailed dashboards
- Monitor and improve employee engagement with analytics around social connectivity (numbers of events, specific audience and attendees)
- Encourage cross collaboration through in-person random coffee chats
Results
- +30% office attendance rate without mandates
- +100% increase in events and social gatherings
- 85% adoption rate through Café Slack, Web and Mobile apps
- New global workplace policy, office and team guidelines driven by data
Over the past year, Café has made Hybrid work easier for VeepeeTech employees and managers, by offering the visibility and flexibility needed to improve workplace engagement. VeepeeTech had an 85% adoption rate within the first 3 months, which made it really easy for the company to make the most of the tool quickly. The number of events hosted by employees and managers doubled, and it became much easier for people to participate in activities and bond with their peers. Seamless integration with daily tools continues to provide employees with visibility on where, when, and how people are working and socializing.
The implementation of Café in Veepee's daily work has significantly improved the attractiveness of the office for employees and consequently increased global office attendance by 30%, without any mandates in place. In 2022, following a nearly two-year remote-work period, Veepee implemented a policy mandating two anchor days in the office per week. After a few months of utilizing this approach, they transitioned to a flexible policy, allowing employees to collaborate with their managers to select the two most suitable work days each week. Café was the perfect tool to manage and streamline location visibility within their new flexible policy.
Café enables users to book a space, create and attend events, connect through interests and much more, all from one place. For Veepeemanagers and Workplace leaders, using Café as their all-in-one workplace management platform was the most efficient way to craft a new strategy that would best fit everyone.
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- Team Vitality: Customize workplace experience with Café public API
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