Ms. Becker, how does the employee app work?
Clara Becker: Every Ramelow employee with a personnel number automatically gets a platform profile. The employee registers, downloads the app and communicates using the platform: Associates can upload videos, like messages and comment. Everyone can communicate with everyone. All departments talk to each other via chat groups. Examples include the cross-departmental “Ladies Group” or the “Deco Group”.
Do you manage the content?
Clara Becker: We have a core team that handles content management and makes sure that shared content is really relevant and not just arbitrary. We initially had an editorial calendar to get things started and encouraged employees to share content. By now, everyone shares without being asked.
It probably wasn’t all that difficult to teach employees how the app works ...
Clara Becker: That’s true but we often had to explain why we do this and that we wanted to give our associates a professional job-related communication channel that is separate from their private mode of communication.
How did staff members respond?
Clara Becker: We mostly had a positive response. Our employees want to join the conversation. If the boss shares a video, the associates in accounting would also like to see it at some point. People talk about it in the cafeteria and this prompts dynamic changes.
Initially, there were a few skeptics, but at this point, 95 percent of Ramelow employees use PIA on their smartphone.