Ensuring your distributed workforce is happy and engaged can be a challenge at the best of times; throw a pandemic into the mix and you have your fair share of work cut out for you.
Bragi, a Munich-based software company with employees around Europe, sought to make sure its personnel remained satisfied and motivated despite the ongoing challenges of the pandemic.
Determined to keep their finger on the pulse of their far-reaching dynamic teams, Bragi introduced Officevibe to their employees in the summer of 2021. After several months of using the software to gather anonymous feedback from their teams, Bragi was able to launch an array of successful initiatives to boost employee happiness including additional vacation days and a home office spending budget.
We sat down recently with Dr. Franziska Grassl, Bragi’s People and Culture Manager, and Ipek Sümer, Talent Acquisition Associate, to learn more about her experience with Officevibe and how they were able to make meaningful changes based on the employee feedback they collected.
Why did Bragi decide to use Officevibe?
It was important for us to measure employee engagement to see people not only as resources, as is often implied in HR, but like actual rounded individuals. It’s so important for us to be to able to tap into our employees’ full potential.
I think having a tool like Officevibe allows us not only to gather direct feedback on particular topics but lets us dive deeper with pre-set questionnaires where you can look into specific feedback on specific themes. It also allows us to take note of how we are doing overall as a company when it comes to the different Officevibe engagement scores. We take [employee well-being] very seriously.
What did you like the most about Officevibe?
We examined different metrics, most notably we did a “deep dive” into the happiness metric four times so far. It seems to be a recurring topic that we really try to keep our eye on so that people can work productively and happily from home or at the office.
We also looked quite a lot at the analysis and reports offered by Officevibe. The feedback we gathered from the questionnaires and direct feedback features were so valuable in guiding current and future HR initiatives.
What did you learn while using Officevibe?
Home office topics and remote work challenges were frequently brought up. Of course, we can provide a nice environment at the office, but it’s equally important that our employees have that at home, too. We are a software engineering-focused company, so we are trying to establish an environment that will remain mostly remote moving forward.
I think with Officevibe we were more able to look at specific challenges and explore adding things that may be missing from their home office environment. Thanks to the feedback we gathered from Officevibe, we introduced a home-office budget to ensure that people have the work environment they wish for.
What changes have come about at Bragi as a result of using Officevibe?
These HR initiatives, like additional vacation days and a home office budget, are a start, but we are also introducing an encompassing performance management tool that will involve not only a performance review but also coaching and disciplinary features among other elements.
For example, when we looked at our fairness and transparency scores, we received constructive feedback to take into consideration. We now try to tackle these problems not only by trying to improve the manager-employee relationship through team-building events but by really trying to establish an accountability structure where managers are not only encouraged to be nice but are also accountable and responsible for the people they are leading.
With the insight from Officevibe, we have guidance on where the focal points should be for these kinds of initiatives. The software is easy to use and has quite a lot of templates and questionnaires that are extremely useful.
Officevibe is the incredibly friendly people-first employee experience platform— the fresh, new way to engage, recognize, align, and enable world-class leaders and teams. Easy to use and super powerful, it creates an environment that encourages genuine conversations, with conditions that inspire a better vibe for all, no matter where you work.
Officevibe is the ideal way to show employees the big picture and how they can best be a part of it. It equips managers with the right tools to lead, tackle tough situations and guide important conversations, the human way.
See how Officevibe’s intuitive features can help you collect invaluable feedback from your employees and develop deeper connections with your team members.
