workplace by facebook - creating a more connected charity | digital trends seminar | 23 march 2017
TRANSCRIPT
Workplace by Facebook —
creating a more connected
charity
Sophie Bennett / @sophbennett1
David Hunt / @d_p_hunt
@LeonardCheshire
About Leonard Cheshire Disability
• Charity providing disability support
services and programmes across the UK
and internationally
• 200 locations in the UK, plus projects in
14 countries
• 6,500 staff — most not desk-based.
– two-thirds of staff don’t have email
addresses
Motivation
• Staff survey results: communication, openness and leadership need to be improved
• Workplace provides both desktop and mobile solution
• Familiarity: works like Facebook
• New chief executive supportive of using Workplace– formerly worked at RNIB, who were
pilot partners of Workplace
Pilot stage — two weeks
• Launched within corporate affairs directorate (around 30 people) in early December
• Access also given to senior leadership team and key IT staff
• Helped us get a feel for Workplace and potential issues
Launch phase one (1)
• Champions identified and given early access (13 December)
• Remaining 2,500 desk- and home-based staff added a week later (19 December)
• Communications plan leading up to launch
– emails from chief executive and HR director introducing Workplace
– showed support from the top
Launch phase one (2)
• Full support from Facebook
– suite of resources —guides, videos, etc.
– helped us develop roll out/comms plan
– conducted hour-long webinar with champions
– regular catch-ups to generate ideas for maximising account activation and engagement
Early engagement on Workplace• Organic engagement motivated
by Christmas activities at
services around the UK
• User generated ideas
– ‘Freecycle’ group for care homes
to exchange equipment they no
longer need
– 2017 is centenary of our
founder’s birth
– Workplace provides natural
place for internal sharing of
ideas and successes
• Two-way communications
• Created a place for our staff to
feel less isolated
Challenges (1)
• Quality of data
– no single source of truth
– non-standard use of record fields
– difficulty creating auto-sync tool for
accounts
So. Many. Email. Notifications.
• Overwhelming number of email notifications– by default, as soon as a
person is invited, Workplace sends email notifications multiple times per day about recent activity
– over time, notifications get ignored or moved into clutter/junk folders
Challenges (2)
• Engagement– lots of people sharing
good news stories which is great for morale and our brand, but we’d like staff to work more collaboratively
– staff not buying into Workplace and are addicted to email —say they don’t want a ‘social media’ account
Overcoming challenges
• Crucial to have IT on board before launch
• FAQs and regular communications — set up a
Workplace email address for queries
• Use your champions
• Handle individual cases quickly
• Encourage projects to use Workplace — cross-
team working
Next steps
• Add 4,000 remaining staff!
– email accounts created
– Workplace accounts can be
created — but no easy way to
communicate activation link
– make sure there’s enough
engaging content when people
log in
– create the FOMO (fear of
missing out) effect
Top tips for Workplace
• Leadership buy-in
• IT support, willing to improve their
systems
• Be flexible
• Be prepared — not everyone likes change
• Keep up the momentum
• FOMO — avoid duplication
@d_p_hunt / @sophbennett1 / @LeonardCheshire
Any questions?
Visit the CharityComms website
to view slides from past events,
see what events we have
coming up and to check out
what else we do:
www.charitycomms.org.uk
23 March 2017SeminarLondon
#charitydigital
Digital trends: how
charities are adapting to
shifts in the digital
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