Framework aims to give employees greater flexibility in their decision making and customer care
Elly Yates-Roberts |
Czech energy company innogy has implemented Microsoft’s Great Place to Work initiative to give employees greater flexibility in their decision making and customer care.
“We have experts in specific fields, analysts, consultants, and we also work with external experts, which is why flexibility is key for us,” said Jana Švecová, a member of innogy’s Business Development team.
“We use agile methods, set up three-week sprints with regular meetings and gradually adapt the system to the needs of the team and individual projects. Some are so large that they have their own sprints and smaller teams within the big one.”
The company also adopted Kanban, a Japanese workflow which focuses on lean production and clearly outlining tasks in a visual format, allowing team members to identify potential issues and increase collaboration.
Microsoft’s research has shown that for companies to receive maximum impact from adopting new technology, they must first ensure that they have adopted a digital culture so that its benefits can be felt across each area of the company.
As part of its transformation, innogy adapted its interpretation of Kanban into a technological workflow. “We use Microsoft Teams to replicate paper Kanban methods,” said Švecová. “In this way, everything we have created on the large physical board in our department, is also represented in a digital form.”
“Through SharePoint, everyone has constant access to all documents, we share the notes from meetings with OneNote – these are vital tools for us,” Švecová added. “We can also be in touch with external colleagues without them having to travel every day.”
Each month, the company’s employees carry out 19,000 two-way calls and 15,000 conference calls using Skype for Business, eradicating geographical barriers and providing additional flexibility.
The motivation caused by this level of flexibility is clear, especially for employees with parental commitments or the preference to work outside of regular company hours.