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Can it be challenging to merge drastically different companies? Of course. But can the right employee comms strategy ease the transition? Of course! Discover how has merged three geographically and culturally separate corporations into a single, cohesive force via a centralized employee communication strategy and a mobile-friendly platform. In fact, the platform originally designed to support the transition has become the central backbone of the organization’s entire internal comms strategy—a success any way you look at it. Discover Their Employee Communication & Merger Journey Tata Realty is one of the fastest growing real estate companies in India today, specializing in the development of residential, commercial, and retail properties. In fact, they have close to 500 employees working together as a seamless unit. But this wasn’t always quite the case—their current workforce was created from the merger of three separate companies, which brought employees from different geographic locations and cultures together, and in a position where they needed to forge a common identity and communication channel quickly in order to integrate and succeed. Their Challenge: How to merge and unify three companies that are geographically dispersed and dependent on mobile? Tata Realty was thrilled to be merging three separate companies located in different countries and composed of different cultures. The move represented a huge step for their company. But they knew they needed to create a common sense of identity from these different units, while also getting everybody on board some form of common communication stream. Up until that point, the various workforces that made up the companies had been largely mobile reliant—up to 40% of employees, in fact, only used their phones—and communication was more ad hoc than formal, relying on a jumble of WhatsApp groups and intranets. Tata Realty needed to find a way to get them all together into a cohesive communication system, with immediate access to company resources and breaking company news. The employees involved were generally young and tech savvy—68% millennial in fact—but they had never been given a common digital space for communication, engagement, and knowledge sharing. But there was more to it than just enhancing communication. Tata employees care about making a difference in the world as well. CSR has always been an important objective, as a desire to help society at large is shared by employees and management alike. And the new strategy needed to reflect that fact. Sociabble creates a strong sense of happiness and positivity when you log in.Reena WAHI – Senior Vice President HR, CSR and Business Excellence Our Solution: A mobile-friendly, centralized, Single Sign On employee communication platform that brought everyone closer together. In partnership with Sociabble, Tata Realty developed and introduced a new centralized communication strategy that utilized the Sociabble platform as the hub for all information streams. Features include: Simple and Intuitive User Experience Tata Realty didn’t want a complicated platform that would discourage users or require too much training. The solution proved to be a straightforward platform with an intuitive UX and simple search and menu bars that employees can readily get the hang of with a minimal amount of instruction. A nd when it comes to employee training or answering questions, Sociabble’s local Mumbai office means that assistance is never far away. We wanted a tool where the adoption would be very high, and where people won’t have to struggle with technological barriers.Reena WAHI – Senior Vice President HR, CSR and Business Excellence Single Sign On Tata Realty knew that the solution had to be centralized, with the ability to offer access to the other tools and platforms of the company. It had to be comprehensive, a central hub. Which is why their Sociabble platform relies on Single Sign On technology, which makes access simple. But security was also a consideration, which means that the platform’s GDPR compliance and strict data privacy protections are crucial factors. And thanks to the mobile app, their employee base, which is often on the go, has immediate access to all of it from their phones, no matter where they are. Targeting and Engagement Features Tata Realty wanted to be smart about ensuring that the right messages reached the right people at the right time. They saw the advantage of the Sociabble platform’s targeting and audience engagement features. In fact, the targeting feature permits them to create specific channels and to regroup dispersed employees who now work in the same department because of the merger, creating a unity amid the physical distance, and increasing group identity and cohesion. This became especially important in light of the Covid-19 health crisis. With so many employees working from home, creating a sense of belonging and community at the company was absolutely essential. As a people and planet-centric organization, being rewarded with trees for actions on our communication platform has improved the adoption.Reena WAHI – Senior Vice President HR, CSR and Business Excellence Simply put, strong communication keeps employees connected and aligned. And when it comes to engagement, one feature that stood out was Sociabble Trees, a CSR module that rewards engaged employees with actual trees planted in their name, in forests around the world. Augmenting that, in terms of general engagement analysis, a full analytics package helps to monitor UGC content, and to determine which pieces are most effective for driving engagement and communication. The Launch: Training & top management involvement make the difference. While many elements have contributed toward the success of the launch of the initiative, three factors have proven especially effective in helping Tata Realty employees adopt their new Employee Communication platform: Training and Consulting Tata Realty has worked together with Sociabble to tailor-make a training program that includes recommendations about channel content, tips for boosting engagement, and educational programs for the IC team. Also read:Tata Consultancy Services Doubles Its Conversion Rate Thanks to Employee Advocacy Sociabble also offers support and guidance in the form of a dedicated CSM contact who is available to answer questions and solve problems at any time, as well as well via a full battery of FAQ and educational materials that are available on the platform itself. In fact, the proximity of the Sociabble Mumbai office means that a local team is actually available to assist them, on exactly the same time zone and yearly work schedule. All of these support factors have significantly sped up the adoption and usage of the platform among Tata employees. Involvement of Top Management Knowing that the best leaders lead by example, Tata Realty waited for their town hall meeting to kick off the new communication initiative, involving the MD and the senior leadership of the company. They took charge and showed their teams the power of the new strategy by putting it into practice themselves. The Results: Streamlined communication and an incredible engagement rate. Tata Realty has successfully integrated the three companies onto a single cohesive communication platform, overcoming hurdles of geographic separation by getting everyone to embrace a common way of staying informed and sharing information. The involvement of top management at the launch had a huge impact and helped ensure high adoption rates from the start. 70% of the company was registered on the communication platform within the first 24 hours, and today, 99% of employees are registered and use the platform. And that initial enrollment push has only been augmented by sustained engagement drives designed to ensure continued use. The Sociabble Trees CSR feature, which was launched during the Tata Sustainability Month, has also proven to be a powerful engagement engine, with 600 trees planted during just those four weeks. And thanks to UGC, two-way communication has become the norm, with both top-down and bottom-up information flows now being the standard at the company. Employees can share their learning and experiences together on a common platform by participating in everything from photo contests to customer success stories. Additionally, employees also now have access to a wide variety of targeted content, including industry news, company specific announcements and initiatives, and wellness articles, not to mention fun challenges and quizzes. Thanks to the “My Tools” channel, all of the company’s digital internal tools, like HR and self-service platforms, are available at the click of a button via Single Sign On. Overall, employees have been extremely satisfied with the experience, and in a satisfaction survey involving 200 participants, Sociabble was rated 4 out of 5. Because of this overall internal communication initiative, the engagement rate has reached an incredible 90%, which in turn has helped to cement the merger and create a shared sense of corporate identity. By streamlining internal comms around a common, mobile-accessible communication hub, Sociabble helped Tata Realty combine three separate business entities into a single cohesive unit with a common culture and identity. In short: the merger, while at first daunting, proved to be a stunning success! However, the story doesn’t end there. In the years that followed, the very same platform emerged as the backbone of the company’s entire internal comms strategy, building upon a tradition of two-way communication and positive engagement to keep employees informed and aligned on all major business objectives. The Next Chapter: After a successful merger, the Sociabble platform became the central pillar of Tata Realty’s communication strategy. Following the successful deployment of Sociabble and its role in the merger of three separate companies, the next step involved consolidating those initial efforts and using the platform’s features to keep employees informed and engaged on an ongoing basis. Giving employees their own voice via the platform’s top-down and bottom-up functionalities was key. Employee engagement centers around a feeling that each individual’s voice is heard, and the platform’s survey and feedback features empowered Tata employees to do precisely that, enhancing engagement and knowledge retention in the process. Community Building Activities Another initiative to boost engagement involved community building activities that could be promoted and interacted with on the platform itself. This included UGC challenges to encourage participation during company events, as well as purely fun contests, like their Indian Premier League cricket challenge, or various festival challenges. Another addition was a new series known as “No Filters Attached,” designed to highlight leaders at Tata and introduce them to the entire staff, building a common sense of identity and making them more approachable. An Award-Winning Record of Success The initiatives and engagement efforts launched by Tata Realty have resulted in extremely positive results, and garnered the company industry accolades. As of 2023, 93% of employees are considered “active users,” and 90% are “informed users.” So impressive are the outcomes, they’ve actually resulted in Tata Realty being officially recognized for their efforts. At the 2nd Corp Comm Vision and Innovation Awards, they received recognition in three separate categories in the APAC region: Effective Internal Change Communication, Internal Branding and Culture Building, and Digital Transformation Communications. A win-win-win, you might even say! Conclusion: The right communication platform and strategy brings companies together. By joining forces with Sociabble, Tata Realty was able to not only build a common corporate identity out of three separate companies, but also bring those employes together through the engagement and information features that their platform provided, and continues to provide today. Altogether, this is solid proof that investing in employee communications is the best way for organizations to keep employees well informed, and also engaged, while forging a common culture and team spirit in the process. If you’d like to learn how Sociabble can help your company achieve similar results, don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’d love to discuss ways we can assist your organization in achieving all of its communication objectives, and then some. You can sign up here for a free demo today. Schedule your demo Want to see Sociabble in action? Our experts will answer your questions and guide you through a platform demo. 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