Globe Telecom’s digital usher for disasters and emergencies, also known as the delightful acronym DUDE, was initially launched to help manage a complex national contact tracing system. Previously staff were being asked to manually update a centrally owned database, but many weren’t and reminding staff to do so was taking up a huge amount of time.

Using DUDE, staff were automatically sent daily reminders asking them how they were feeling, if they had come into contact with anyone with COVID, developed any symptoms or tested positive themselves. Based on staff responses, DUDE could then provide emergency support, contact information, instructions for isolation and alert anyone who may have come into contact with them. 

Almost immediately DUDE was being used by 76% of staff and instead of being an unwelcome interruption, DUDE became seen as a friendly companion and helpful colleague with employees actively looking forward to hearing from their friendly digital workmate each day. 

With such a great response to DUDE, the Employee Experience team then looked at how else DUDE could help. They added information about a mental health program to help with COVID related stress. They allowed staff to request additional PPE and cleaning supplies through the bot, or even book emergency transportation to a hospital. 

DUDE also sent pulse surveys to check in with staff and see how they were doing. The previous method of running surveys at Globe Telecom usually resulted in around 2000 responses after a week and required multiple follow ups, but DUDE generated over 5000 responses (150% increase) without the need for any leaderboards posts or follow ups. 

In terms of promotion DUDE was put in front of staff by using The Bot Platform’s broadcast feature, as well as posts being published on various groups on Workplace and employee communication channels. But Globe also got their internal champions and leadership teams singing DUDE’s praises with Ernest Cu, Globe’s CEO, telling staff at a company wide All Hands meeting that he uses DUDE every day and they should ensure they do the same.   

For Globe’s Employee Experience team though, the most effective driver of usage and adoption from staff has been the echo chamber on Workplace of positive feedback and stories about using DUDE from staff. 

After seeing how easy The Bot Platform was to use and the benefits that came with automation on Workplace, Globe Telecom’s Employee Experience team turned their attention to another challenge they had been facing – employee recognition. 

Employee appreciation and creating a culture of recognition is incredibly important at Globe Telecom. Previously they were using a separate app that staff could use to recognise their colleagues and, on average, it received about 2000 submissions a year. With their staff all being connected on Workplace, Globe Telecom wanted to integrate their employee appreciation efforts into the same channel to make it easier for staff to find and participate, and remove the need for a separate third party app to manage and direct people to. 

Globe Telecom’s new recognition program is called Wanda and was inspired by their original company slogan, Create Wonderful. Using WANDA staff can say thank you to a colleague by selecting an e-card from a series of templates and adding a personalized message. Staff can also see thank you’s that they’ve received from their colleagues, see leaderboards with the most thanked staff, and access FAQs about the broader recognition program. 

WANDA was launched in June of 2020 and has already received over 8600 thank yous from staff, more than 4x the amount of nominations they used to get in a year and, if it continues at the same pace, is on track for a 900% increase in nominations from staff over the course of a year.    

As well as helping with ongoing recognition, WANDA was also used to celebrate Globe Telecom’s anniversary on the 17th September. For this year’s 917 day, special eCards were created for staff to send to each other and broadcasts were sent out recognising teams that had gone above and beyond. These anniversary Thank You’s were sent by over 1000 people in just 2 days.

Seeing the success the Employee Experience team were having with building their own bots on Workplace, Globe Telecom’s IT team decided to build an automated assistant that would help with hardware and device issues being reported by staff. 

Using The Bot Platform, the IT team were able to easily create and launch DANI – their Device Anomaly Investigator.  

Previously, IT Help Desk enquiries were handled by a third party ticketing system which made it harder for staff to easily log and report issues they were experiencing with equipment. With DANI, all of this was able to be integrated directly into Workplace from Facebook. Using the bot, staff can submit questions and support tickets about hardware and device issues, see FAQs and troubleshooting tips, or even book an appointment with Globe Telecom’s ‘Mobile IT Bar.’