How to reorganize offices and how to “talk” to each other remotely. Arnold wasn’t the only one at Scio to find out.
Arnold helps in Scio perhaps a little unconventionally: four to six times a year, with his help, they learn employees’ opinions on current topics. “Based on the results, we implement measures to address any current burning issues in the company,” says Tomáš Habermann, leader of one of the teams.
Scio, which has more than 25 years of experience in the education sphere, started using Arnold in late 2019. Until then, they had been getting feedback from employees using comprehensive questionnaires developed internally. They usually sent them out twice a year.
“But that didn’t work out very well for us. We noticed that people often live in the moment of what is currently happening in the company, but after some time they have forgotten it. So asking them retrospectively was not very effective,” explains Tomáš Habermann, which is why Scio started using the Arnold chatbot. They “send” this to employees whenever they need to know their opinion on current topics
Tomáš Habermann
It’s not surprising that recently there have been serious changes forced upon us by the pandemic. Among them, for example, the perception of intra-company communication. “It bothered people that when they started working remotely, internal company communication was fragmented and took place through too many channels. Thanks to the survey, we found out that the employees would like it to be consolidated,” says Tomáš Habermann.
Based on the results from Arnold, the company therefore started, for example, to organize ad hoc company-wide meetings, in which what is happening across the company is always presented. Thanks to the introduction of these meetings, people now learn everything important in a comprehensive form, without being overwhelmed by information from different sources.
Other current “hot” topics at Scio included office renovations. Arnold helped figure out how to organize them to better suit new work habits. “We found out, for example, how often employees plan to go to the office and how inclined they are to shared workplaces,” explains Tomáš Habermann.
The survey also confirmed that people are now experiencing a shortage of meeting places. “With the help of Arnold, we obtained clear results, which we handed over to the architects. Based on this output, we were then able to proceed with even more detailed questioning within focus groups,” adds the team leader.
Scio is a smaller company, with a total of about 60 people working there. Over 80% of them regularly answer Arnold’s questions. The response rate is therefore high.
“What we especially appreciate about Arnold is that we can create our own questions. The ready-made ones did not really suit the nature of our business, and it’s therefore far more beneficial for us if we can tailor them,” adds Habermann. According to him, it is also now possible to go into more detail and ask employees about very specific things.
A significant majority of them answer using their own names. And management also communicates openly, making survey results available to all employees and individual teams. All this contributes to greater employee engagement and involvement in the company’s activities.