Biggest unanticipated benefit of I-Connect has been the ability to use the app for crisis communications
New York, NY, October 21, 2020 – Looking to replace an ineffective desktop-based intranet, improve employee communication, and influence culture and engagement among a dispersed workforce of nearly 1,700 healthcare workers, North Carolina’s Iredell Health System partnered with Staffbase on a solution.
Prior to this year’s global health crisis, a survey revealed the communication strategy for a system encompassing more than 34 medical specialties and 20 offsite locations, spread throughout multiple counties outside the system’s flagship Iredell Memorial Hospital campus, was not working.
Iredell Health quickly enlisted the help of Staffbase, a global market leader in mobile-first employee communication platforms that engage diverse, disconnected and distributed workforces, to create a new mobile communications portal — a customized, branded employee app called “I-Connect”.
“I-Connect has helped our staff connect more with each other. Everyone knows what’s happening, no one is left out. It has helped us to eliminate silos that previously existed between various departments and given our employees an easy way to keep up-to-date with everything happening in our organization. We’ve eliminated the huge communication gap we had before launching the app and that has helped our employees feel more valued, more appreciated, and more important overall,” said Meagan Kowalski, Director of Planning, Community Relations & Marketing for Iredell Health System. “I-Connect has become the go-to communication resource for our company, which was precisely what we had hoped for.”
A follow-up employee engagement survey post I-Connect’s launch found “employees no longer felt like they were missing out on important information, especially those employees who work at locations outside of our main campus,” said Kowalski. Launched in November 2017, I-Connect now has 1,645 registered users and an average of 1,200 active users a week.
The biggest unanticipated benefit of I-Connect is the ability to use the app for crisis communications. Currently, the most visited page is COVID-19 updates. Kowalski and her internal comms team created an entire area of the app dedicated to all things COVID-19, including links to different resources. It’s kept up-to-date with everything from the latest procedures for PPE to information about emergency childcare options for essential workers who have to contend with closed schools. Plus, critical information now reaches workers quickly via push notifications vs. email.
“The number of non-desk workers in the global healthcare workforce is conservatively estimated to be just over 59 million workers. The bulk of these employees, however, don’t have the types of jobs that require them to sit at a desk in an office all day,” said Staffbase CEO and Founder Martin Böhringer. “Antiquated internal communications tools don’t take the needs of frontline workers into account and this must change. Embracing tools like employee communications apps addresses how modern employees expect to give and receive information—quickly via their smartphones. Staffbase is looking to the future by developing ‘next level’ solutions that help communications professionals put people first and align their communications tactics with the needs of an increasingly digital workforce.”
With a Staffbase Employee App or Intranet for healthcare workers, communications professionals can:
- Organize their staff with a shift plan
- Host a cultural hub that creates a sense of belonging and builds employee satisfaction
- Reach, connect, and engage workers across an entire healthcare network from any device
- Send instant notifications
- Ensure a high level of security for sensitive information
- Finally reduce turnover and burnout
- Provide top-down transparency from management
About Staffbase
Staffbase is a global market leader in mobile-first employee communication platforms for enterprise companies. The mobile compatibility of the company’s platform allows employers to securely reach their employees everywhere with reduced complexity — whether in the office, at home, on the factory floor, or on the road. Staffbase solutions give employees greater access to the corporate information that’s relevant to them and tools for the modern digital workplace, including existing intranets. With headquarters in Chemnitz, Germany, and offices in Amsterdam, Cologne, Dresden, London, Munich, and New York City, Staffbase provides branded solutions for more than 400 leading companies worldwide who are transforming their employee experience including Adidas, Audi, DHL, Iron Ore Company of Canada, Paulaner, UC Health and US LBM.
Please visit staffbase.com for more information.
Press contact:
Leigh Nofi
Staffbase Inc.
PR Manager
e-mail: leigh@staffbase.com