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Stronger internal communication for a deeper company culture

Century Group implemented the Jostle platform in 2014 after recognizing the need for better internal communications. The Jostle platform helped them overcome significant communications challenges, successfully connecting their dispersed and diverse workforce. Now, three years on, Century Group is embarking on the second stage of their journey.

Rather than rest on their laurels, Century Group’s leadership team is working to further the success of their company-wide communication. They want to use Jostle to enrich company culture and create stronger connections between their teams. To this end, they piloted an innovative six-month training course for their staff, which lays more groundwork for a deeper communication network.

Who is Century Group?

Century Group is a Canadian, family-owned, mixed-use real estate development company in business for 60 years. In addition to development, Century Group owns and manages a diverse portfolio of operating businesses, which includes apartment rentals, retail and commercial leasing, hospitality, and seniors’ living.

Century Group employs over 400 people, whose work is just as varied as the properties they work in: development project managers and coordinators, cooks, servers, caregivers, catering and hospitality services staff, property managers, facilities maintenance technicians, accountants, and various other head office team members.

Initial challenges and goals

Many locations challenged communication

Due to the company’s many locations, communication tended to be very siloed and site-specific. There was limited contact with the head office and little to no communication between the locations. Century Group wanted to combat this—they wanted a stronger, more informed internal community with better communication between teams.

Onboarding required an update

As they grew, Century Group discovered gaps in their onboarding process. Teams were growing fast, and they wanted a streamlined onboarding and orientation process. Vice President, Corporate Services, Barbara Hughes, told us: “One of the things that people often said, particularly as we started to grow, was that they’d like an organizational chart with faces on it. Orientation is like a fire hose of information, and they don’t know who they just met.”

Company culture initiative needed traction

In 2012, Century Group identified a “Culture of Partnership” as an important strategic objective. This is focused on finding more ways for employees to influence their work and provide feedback to the company, taking on more qualities of a business-partner relationship. “We wanted our workforce to be more involved in the company, but for that to happen, they had to be informed,” said Barbara.

Century Group recognized the need for an online space–a platform–where their people could connect to the company and overcome communication barriers. Instead of attempting expensive upgrades to their underperforming intranet, Jeremy Gruman, Director of Information Systems, began the search for a different tool and, in the end, chose Jostle’s employee success platform.

Results

Century Group rolled out the Jostle platform in 2014, and the results speak for themselves:

Connectedness

Jostle allows leaders to connect with the entire company at the same time when announcing company news. Participating in Discussions, providing updates, and giving a Shout-Out to recognize a teammate is easier than ever.

Orientation

Staff use the platform’s intuitive organizational chart with headshot photos to remember all the people they met within the first week, to find out more about their team members, and orientate themselves. They can also easily search for resources and links to policies in the Library.

Culture

There are also active forum-style chats, which enable their Culture of Partnership to come to life. Staff from all properties, whether entry-level or senior executives, can connect and converse about the initiatives they’re taking on and provide updates on their “corner of the company.”

A successful employee platform requires care and dedication—things that Century Group doesn’t shy away from. It needs to be populated with content that’s both interesting and relevant. “We heard that staff want to read more about what was going on in the business and about our projects and successes,” explained Barbara, “but it’s impossible for our small Communications Department to follow all that’s going on and report it in a timely fashion.”

Their solution is to encourage more people from all levels and locations of the company to contribute to internal communication. “We needed to engage more of our staff, educate them about Jostle, and get them more involved and sharing their stories,” Barbara told us.

With a broader group of contributors, Century Group intended to break down internal communication barriers and generate a culture that reflects their workforce.

Starting an upward spiral of communication

In 2016, the company entered the second wave of their platform journey by rolling out an internal communication training program. They understood the obstacles in their way and established a plan to overcome them.

To get the ball rolling, Century Group reached out to the entire company and invited staff to put themselves forward as internal communication Champions. These Champions would advocate for the Jostle platform offline, contribute to it online, and teach their colleagues the necessary technological skills to break down any barriers to adoption. There were 38 respondents, all of whom attended the in-person training event that kicked off the Champions program.

Knowledge boundaries

The purpose of the training day was to educate the Champions on how and why to use the Jostle platform. Their Jostle Customer Success Manager joined to provide their staff with the hard skills and best practices for using the platform and underline the importance of the Jostle platform and the benefits it can have for communication and culture at Century Group.

“First, we’re giving them the skills to use Jostle. And, after that, it’s giving them ideas and empowering them,” Lesley Yuen, Digital Marketing Specialist, told us.

Century Group also hired someone on a term basis to travel to all the sites to support and coach the Champions and leaders, reinforcing the learning from the training program.

Cultural boundaries

Hosting the training day in-person also served to break down other barriers. Many staff members were meeting face-to-face for the first time, creating bridges across the company and reinforcing the Culture of Partnership.

“I think that it also humanized some of our leaders,” Barbara shared. “They were there to learn, alongside everyone else. It reinforced the idea that we’re all in this together. We all have a job to do, regardless of our title.”

Physical boundaries

Due to their line of work, many Century Group employees don’t have access to a computer. To overcome this physical boundary, 15 Jostle Champions were given iPad minis to use at work and from home. “Many of them have already decided to put their iPad in the building and make it available to everybody they work with,” said Barbara.

With these steps, Century Group intends to cause an upward spiral of communication, engagement, and company culture. They hope the enthusiasm they’re sparking among their Champions spreads throughout the rest of the company (and so far, it’s working). Century has noticed an increase in employees’ comfort with using Jostle and now regularly hear “it’s on Jostle” and “look on Jostle” uttered by their staff.

What’s next?

Century Group is trialing their ambassador program over six months. They will provide more training modules on other software–such as Gmail and social media channels–and how these integrate with the Jostle platform. If all goes well, they’ll re-run the program for another round of Champions.

“I would like to see more Champions, so a proliferation of them, rather than replacements. I think we should foster and encourage more,” Barbara said enthusiastically.

The time and energy that Century Group is investing in nurturing their internal communication plan is noteworthy. They’re taking a practical, but patient, approach to change management at their company. With their focus, and support from our Customer Success team, we know they’ll navigate the tricky waters of change to find further success for their ever-growing organization.