Telecommunications organisation BT has enhanced its communications strategy to ensure its employees feel more connected during the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic.
The employer, which has 80,000 employees working in 54 countries, has expanded on the services it uses through connectivity platform Workplace. BT believes that the communication tool will help create an inclusive culture and strengthen employees’ working relationships across the organisation.
Employees can communicate freely with their co-workers and line mangers through an instant messaging tool which allows employees to either create group chats or utilise its one-to-one feature for more private conversations. Employees also have the option to video call their co-workers or line managers.
Additional enhancements to the service include a new live communications network where staff can collaborate, share their screens and offer new ideas, and a new group feature where the organisation can communicate updates and next steps through online calls and videos.
The mobile-friendly app has also been introduced to increase staff transparency and trust during uncertain times, and is available to all office-based staff, front-line engineers and retail employees.
Philip Jansen, chief executive at BT, said: “Through using Workplace, we have seen many benefits including being able to share news instantly, gather feedback on subjects that our employees care about, and enable more authentic leadership communications. Even more importantly, it will strengthen our communities across BT and Openreach.
“Through Workplace, employees connect with each other on the things that matter, sharing ideas and problem-solving together in real-time. That is hugely beneficial to our staff and BT as a whole.
“The service has made it so much easier for us to stick to our principle of ‘inside out’, letting our employees know what’s happening, increasing trust and in turn, advocacy. Sometimes we have a matter of minutes to reach our people. Workplace allows us to do that, and to do it well.”