ROI of Employee Engagement - The Executive Study
Founded in 1874, Sabis is a Swedish family business with a long tradition of offering quality food and service in retail and hospitality. Today, they run 28 of the top grocery stores, hotels, and lunch restaurants in and around Stockholm.
Sabis has its organizational mission crystal clear. “We want to create the best customer experiences in Stockholm,” is the message their teams live by. For years, Sabis has aimed to maintain employee engagement levels high in order to achieve their mission. Recently, they chose to partner with Actimo to refresh internal communication and training, while keeping their united, family-like company culture alive.
91% activation of their Actimo employee app.
A united workforce - colleagues are reconnecting, sharing positivity, and coming closer together on the app.
200% increase in communication open rates.
Maintained high customer satisfaction levels, even throughout the pandemic.
Management at Sabis was looking for more than a rarely-used intranet that stored corporate information. They hoped to find a digital solution that was truly interactive.
“One of our biggest goals is to bring the company together,” Linnea Stenströmer, HR Business Partner at Sabis, starts telling us about their search for a mobile solution.
Sabis'
Madeleine Brehmer - CEO, owner
Caroline Cederblad - Chairman of the Board, owner
“One of the reasons we chose Actimo is because it’s engaging,”… The “Social Wall” where employees can upload pictures is very interactive. I think it was a really big challenge having 28 units and them not being able to talk to each other before.”
Linnea Stenströmer - HR Business Partner at Sabis
In addition to being dispersed, the workforce at Sabis is also diverse, explains Linnea. Education levels, ages, and backgrounds are varied. Yet, most employees share one thing in common: “They are true pros at what they do and are excited about the customer experience.”
Certainly, Sabis wanted their solution to reflect who they are, and what makes them the best. Therefore, their branded employee app powered by Actimo was rolled out with the name My Sabis and their main “Social Wall” is called Sabis Customer Pros.
Note: To this day, all content on their app is published in Swedish, but employees are able to automatically translate everything to the language they prefer.
Today, the app is considered an important tool used for various purposes by the workforce. Indeed, activation has remained quite high at around 91% since its launch.
And what’s been key for their employee app’s success? Linnea shares that content planning and their philosophy to “make things fun and positive” have made a difference. From quizzes asking employees what type of herring (fish) they like the most, to driving weekly campaigns on mental health awareness, the app has been a place for positivity.
A big part of the fun has also involved employees sharing positive stories with each other. For example, for mental health week, Sabis employees shared pictures of what positively affected their mental health during the pandemic, i.e. baking, walking their dog, etc. Other posts by employees have included a team with Santa hats, or a recipe that customers love.
In general, the app has been used as a vehicle to bring the family-owned company together. “Sabis is a family company that’s been around for almost 150 years, so it’s very important to keep that familiar culture. Some people have been with us for 40 years!” explains Linnea.
She has actually noticed that employees that have been with the company the longest are keen to reconnect with old colleagues, who may have moved to other Sabis locations for development opportunities.
Linnea also hints at Actimo being not only uniting, but also motivating for employees in times of crisis. Digital sharing across sectors has a positive effect. “The Actimo app has been a great way to spread faith in the company,” says the HR Business Partner.
In sum, she states that “culture has been so much easier to maintain especially during the pandemic”.
Other people processes have benefitted from My Sabis app too, especially during tough times.
“To have Actimo during the pandemic has been amazing. It's very easy to send out information, and we are able to control what goes to what units. For example, our retail units need to have some info, and our hospitality units need other info. That’s been really easy.”
Linnea Stenströmer - HR Business Partner at Sabis
In general, Linnea describes overall communication as fast, and easy. For employees, it has provided flexible access to updates, and the individual responsibility to be 100% up to date. , which Linnea says keeps them motivated. Communication open rates are actually up 200% from initial messages on Actimo.
Beyond communication, employee training and development have also seen major upgrades at Sabis. Linnea shed light on big changes brought forth since launching their Actimo app.
They have gone from handing paper brochures as part of their workers’ welcome, to having digital preboarding! In fact, now “everything is automated [with regards to onboarding], and it’s a very nice thing for the managers to know that they don’t have to do much,” shares Linnea. Of course, a personal welcome is still considered a must though.
Employees also get training on leadership development, building amazing customer experiences, the company’s values, and who they are. “These have had very positive reviews,” says Linnea.
She is especially fond of how easy it is to quiz the workforce, and the engagement insights available on Actimo. “It’s easy to see how many have done it, and who have done it. Plus, it’s easy to upload pictures and videos. It’s very interactive and easy to create engagement within the training. It’s not just the training you get; you can have GIFS, photos, and more”.
Going forward, Sabis’ HR Business Partner shares that other pieces of employee training will likely be done on their app, and paired with in-person development when relevant.
“I think we want to use it a bit more to upload documents as well”, adds Linnea. Indeed, the potential to use Actimo as a full-on resource hub has not been exploited yet.
Evidently, uniting and developing their workforce has been at the center of Sabis’ journey towards amazing customer experiences. They are proud to have maintained employee engagement and high customer levels, even throughout the pandemic. Now, they are eager to take advantage of communication groups, and upcoming features. Linnea says “the sky is the limit,” and we at Actimo agree.
“I love talking about this app because I truly feel like it is a really good solution. I have to say Actimo is really having high speed in coming up with new things and developing stuff. I just want to tell you that, as a customer, I really appreciate it,” she concludes.
🇩🇰 Denmark
Vesterbrogade 1 L, 7.
1620 Copenhagen V
Denmark
+45 38 41 47 00
🇪🇸 Spain
Casa les Punxes
Avinguda Diagonal, 420,
08037 Barcelona
+45 38 41 47 00
ROI of Employee Engagement - The Executive Study
Chat is here! 🎉 Connect your teams like never before with chat in Actimo.
30% OFF ACTIMO TRANSLATE
Grab our free onboarding template and start building a cohesive onboarding flow!