Sevita’s employee engagement transformation with Oak Engage

Before Oak Engage, Sevita’s intranet was outdated – it had limited search capabilities and was only accessible by the 20% of employees who had a company-issued email address. The company’s benefits portal, which housed the HR help ticketing system, was also being discontinued. The reliance on cascaded communications left a significant number of employees without important updates and news. A new onboarding experience to combat high turnover in the industry was also desired. It was essential to find one system that could meet all these needs so employees had a one-stop resource centre at their fingertips.

Our journey began with the rapid deployment of COVID reporting due to the pandemic’s emergent demands. Oak were able to tailor the system to meet the needs of the many and varied state requirements. The platform allowed individuals to easily report vaccine status or request an exception, and also allowed managers to easily run the reports they needed to make sure we were in compliance with regulators and were keeping the individuals we serve and our employees as safe as possible. It also meant we could share needed information with our regulators on demand. This has added exceptional value. 

Afterwards, we initiated the rollout of the HR ticketing system and the intranet in three strategic phases spanning across the entire company which launched in August 2022.

Given the absence of a dedicated intranet manager at Sevita, we opted for a platform that could easily be managed by content managers with little or no experience, highlighting the platform’s user-friendliness. Currently, thirty content managers administer the platform, facilitated by a specialised area on Sevita Source, enhancing collaboration and resource sharing.

One single source of truth

Sevita Source now serves as the central hub for employees. It offers role-specific news updates, a regularly updated company directory, version-controlled policies and other important documents, a comprehensive onboarding experience and an interactive ‘I have a question’ page. This gives employees one location to ask HR or IT a question, should they not be able to find the answer in resources on Sevita Source. Recognising our diverse workforce, our benefits page was expanded to show benefits to non-benefits eligible employees, such as employee discounts and recognition tools. Furthermore, people are now only receiving information that is relevant to them, increasing impact and cutting through the noise. 

Oak’s capability to integrate data from legacy systems while offering dynamic group formation options was pivotal. We transitioned vital communications to Sevita Source, positioning it as the primary information hub. Group pages can be created in an instant and this enhances engagement, allowing for broader document access and fostering collaborative workspaces. Group pages, such as those for content managers, people managers (any employee with a direct report), HR managers and our talent recruitment team have allowed us to expand access to documents that were once circulated only via email.  Calendars and chat spaces also boost engagement for these groups.

A new onboarding experience

Oak has allowed us to create a completely new onboarding journey for our people. Homepages for prestarts, days 1-30 and days 31-60 guide an employee through their onboarding and shows them information relevant to them in their role.  Acquired employees (employees joining us through a merger or acquisition) will see their own specific homepages to help transition them into the company and provide much needed guidance and clarification in often tight timeframes.

Our onboarding processes and COVID reporting turned the platform into an essential touchpoint. Moreover, by shutting other outdated platforms and redirecting to Sevita Source, it was established as the go-to employee resource centre. Engaging representatives from all levels of the organisation in workgroups for the various areas ensured the platform was truly built by employees, for employees.

Performing better as a business

Post implementation, we observed a really positive shift. Not only did Oak enhance the employee experience, but managers also saved countless hours answering questions and tracking down resources for their team members. It also has given us one central place for important policies and resources that are essential for our compliance as a healthcare provider and our mission to offer adults, children and their families innovative, quality services and support that lead to growth and independence, regardless of the physical, intellectual or behavioural challenges they face.

Results

The results speak for themselves. Our industry is a remote workforce with high turnover, so to have 84% of our workforce (35,662 employees) active on the platform is a success, especially when the majority are direct caregivers, historically a challenging group to connect with directly. The search functionality is also exceptional, which makes it a very user-friendly platform without having to be familiar with the structure – something that is important for those who are not usually on a computer or use applications.

Positive employee feedback

Recent user experience tests have reflected overwhelmingly positive feedback. We followed a handful of deskless employees as they navigated through Sevita Source and also surveyed employees regarding their experience.  We also have a feedback form for comments and questions.  Suggested improvements are brought to the content managers and governing board and dozens of improvements have been made as a result.  We also measure success through Oak’s in-depth analytics which provides visibility across the entire company to make data-driven decisions and to make sure we’re always compliant.

“Thank you to those who created this! We definitely needed a more modern, up to date, one stop shop that we can all go to and refer people to.”

Regional Manager