In 1984, the song Pride (In the Name of Love) emerged into the world, courtesy of Irish rock band U2. No, you haven’t reached a new music blog, and we at Xtra Mile haven’t replaced our main occupation. But Pride is the topic of this blog, because pride motivates us, for good or bad. It sets us in motion. So, let’s move forward.
At “Bait Balev,” one of our clients, the subject of pride was inserted into the work program in 2022. Bait Balev, a nationwide Maccabi healthcare chain of assisted living facilities for the elderly, provides protective live-in healthcare services and rehabilitative treatments to all its customers. Its ranks of diverse employees come from the entire spectrum of the medical and service professions.
In 2023 Israel, the demand for these workers is high, the talent competition is very high, and in any case, this is a branch in manpower shortage. Chava Zuckker, Vice President of HR operations at Bait Balev, best describes the competition in simple words: “I need employees; I must create differentiation in my value proposition to employees, and I have to recruit, first of all, my organization to this contest, otherwise – I lose.” The key word is – pride. In order to bridge together Chava’s needs and employee branding, we at Xtra Mile connected using, among other things, intra-organizational activities, which originated in the mapping of the needs of Bait Balev; understanding the strengths of the organization as an employer, defining appropriate messaging and the manner of its communication.
The research stage in the employee branding activity raised the main strengths of Bait Balev as an employer:
An organization with very stable employment foundations
Wide-ranging human diversity
Real meaning at work – doing good
As a result of these strengths, we created a short, catchy message that we use when approaching the Bait Belev employees at any contact point with them – “feeling at home, giving your heart.”
Now, we understood the strengths of the organization, and we have a message. what do we do from here on out to embed it with the employees?
To make them feel connected with it, to feel attached (and later on, recruit them to bring their friends to join the home and become talent magnets)?
Pleased to meet you – HR TECH
To understand the gap that existed in Bait Balev at the beginning of 2022 on the level of intra-organizational communication and the ability to communicate with the field, it will be enough if we mention that a sign on the kitchen bulletin board in every home was the main communication tool.
But more than that – Bait Balev is an organization that provides services to the elderly; a vast majority of the employees are not computer people, spending most of their time facing the screen, and there was never, really, an effective platform to communicate with them. This is a decentralized organization, spread out from the north to the south, with a wide-ranging number of diverse employees speaking several different languages. The challenge grows by the day.
Into this challenge we plugged technology – the Connecteam app, to be precise. This app can be installed quickly and easily on every mobile phone, is very intuitive, easy to operate, and has segmentation, targeting, and instant messaging capabilities. Furthermore, it enables two-way connectivity, between the employee to the organization, and vice versa.
So we have a platform, but it needs “life” breathed into it in a way that will cause employees to “fall in love” with it. In a world of multiple messaging and an abundance of applications, how do we move the employee to connect to us and download precisely our app?
We began with an impressive launch event, and this is the video clip that will accompany it.
From there, we insisted on a grinding work process that will preserve and even increase the level of involvement of the employees in the app. These are the key principles that guided us:
Monthly Gantt chart: As in the social depart so to here, we map out the overall relevant content for the employees (with “soft” content such as birthday wishes, monthly employee perks, participation in the organization’s events, employee, and home success stories, as well as professional material, reports, and articles).
Defining the functionaries responsible for the technological part of the application maintenance, content people, opinion leaders from within the organization, regular tutorials for house managers to instruct them and explain “what’s in it for them from this app,” etc.
Stickiness – And in plain English, make sure the content panel in the app will make the employees want to access it again. We transferred the hourly report system to the application, as well as documentation, forms, benefits, website, a friend bringing a friend, eLearning, and any essential information – to be in the application. Also, the onboarding process for a new employee starts with it.
We opened a direct, uninterrupted channel between the Bait Balev management and CEO to the employees. Wish to speak with Galit, General Manager? Simply log in to the application.
These days, we’re working on making the content accessible in additional languages. How do we say, “feeling at home, giving the heart” in Hindi?
We’re in the middle of the process, or, what’s called, “it’s finished but not the end.”
The implementation rates during the first two months are high, but not yet perfect. Take a look at the data, and see what’s happening at your organization:
The implementation rate, in Bait Balev’s terms, is a huge step forward!
In the joint lecture of Chave Zucker and Sharon Israel, co-CEO of Xtra Mile, Sharon said that “until several years ago, when we would mention ‘human resources,’ we would be tossed straight to the ‘soft’ domains: Placement, evaluation discussions, salary worlds, an ocean of Excel documents, lots of tabs, etc. – what does all that have to do with HR TECH?”
Like everyone, like your organization, so is Xtra Mile entering the Tech field out of the understanding that this is the future of employment, and employer branding.
We invite you to have a chat with us about HR TECH!
