We have an app that can trigger change. Fancy giving it a go in your company?

We have been down that road too. Over the past 25 years, we wanted our people to do all sorts of things – filling in timesheets, proactive contributions to our social media presence, adherence to all kinds of rules, you name it. We have also tried running creative in-house campaigns, instructing our staff, but also encouraging them with positive motivation.

People – their profiles, motivations and requirements – are naturally subject to change as well. It is admittedly next to impossible to predict what changes you will want to implement in 10 years’ time. However, regardless of whether they will concern business development, training or waste separation, you can rest assured that they will primarily involve a collective change of behaviour.

Overall, it was positive motivation that worked best for them, though. For this reason, we decided to develop a way of using positive motivation to support our values, as well as any change of behaviour in our company – a future-proof concept that would work for years to come. Our Seesame App is just the thing – and, more importantly, you can take advantage of it as well!

We first wanted to create a digital record book that would allow our team to track their educational achievements. It quickly kept growing in terms of functionalities, though, so much so that the app eventually became a much more comprehensive tool – a single source of many solutions:

• We can use it to encourage people to do things that are currently important for our development.
• It allows us to inspire each other and provide each other with quality feedback.
• We can acknowledge (through praise and financial support) employees’ actions and steps that are within our vision.
• The app has been developed to integrate almost all types of benefits that our company can offer.
• We have a dedicated mobile platform for our own timesheets at last.
• Our company logo and templates are instantly available to us now, so there is no need to access the company server or ask colleagues in this regard.
• Since we managed to launch our app during the recent pandemic times dominated by remote working, the app also served as an excellent tool for day-to-day communication, patting a colleague on their shoulder, and staying in touch at a time of intense social distancing.
• We’re having a lot of fun with it! 😊

How does it work then?

The app is based on a point system that allows individual employees not only to collect points, which can be used to purchase cool items later on, but also to give points to others.
After a thorough and fair discussion, our team agreed on what we wanted our company’s primary mission, focus and culture to be, subsequently defining:

• the types of activities for which all employees should receive points from our management and team leaders (exceptional quality, outstanding achievements, proactivity, tenders, self-development and training provided to other colleagues, supporting the company’s marketing and brand-building), and
• the types of things for which we can give points to each other (we’re very benevolent on this matter, the only condition is that we need to specify what it is exactly that the points are awarded for so that the receiver gets valuable feedback – for example, for helping out a colleague with a task in the evening or for hearing out a colleague in a tight spot).

The points that an employee manages to collect for being great can later be exchanged for something they can truly appreciate – while some might prefer corporate merchandise, a bicycle or a set of earphones, others will go for a flight voucher or a financial donation to their preferred charity organisation. Needless to say, we also compete to collect more points than everyone else every now and then. 😊

What our app has helped us achieve

Positive motivation for any desirable change

The desire to keep on improving is integral to our corporate culture. That said, it also means shifting our focus from one thing to another day in and day out. Our management do not have a magic wand that would instantly make everyone enthusiastic – it’s all about getting the whole team actively involved in things. Rather than a magic wand, we now have an app – an excellent tool for inspiring people and rewarding them for their attitude.

Valuable feedback

If you have a skilful team and plenty of work to do, people often jump from one project to another, leaving no room for quality feedback – rather than just feedback on the projects themselves, this also applies to “comradely” interaction and supporting the culture we care about. A case in point might be when a colleague of yours finds the time to help you out, hear you out when you need it most, or make you a cup of coffee. To put it simply, no matter what it is you value in your life, go on and appreciate it. That said, you can only give points to your colleagues as long as you specify what you’re grateful for.

From hide-and-seek to one-stop-shop

We’ve got everything safely stored on our company server, but the server is already brimming with our data and new items just keep on coming. Whenever we wanted to know what code to use when printing a presentation for Samsung or where to find our media list of food journalists, or whenever we wanted to come clean about not knowing the password for our monitoring tool, again and again, we always ended up looking for a needle in a haystack (that is to say, in 25 years’ worth of company materials).

All those things are gone now that we have our app. All important documents are accessible from each and every employee’s phone within a few clicks – be it telephone numbers, presentation templates, budgets, headed paper, media lists or our on-boarding brochure. On top of this, everyone can use their profile to see details of their leave of absence. At the same time, all these little things encourage our team members to use the app more often.

A troll-free in-house social network

Know that feeling when you want to share something with your colleagues but you’re wondering if it’s a good idea to send YET ANOTHER email? “Shall I send it to everyone or only to my team members? Isn’t it awkward? Is it at all appropriate?” Our app features a dedicated social network we can use to share, categorise a discuss content in a safe environment. We mostly share inspiring ideas, but there is also room for jokes, coffee devotees’ tips, and eventful life stories.

An app that isn’t an app

Our app is not strictly speaking a mobile app. The thing is, we never really wanted to develop an iOS and Android app as it would subsequently require costly maintenance. Instead, our solution was to create a responsive webpage primarily designed for mobile phones – one that works on a mobile almost just like an app would. This way, all functionalities are a few clicks away and available in our pocket. Easily accessible from desktop devices, our app prompts us to admire our beautiful visual identity on a daily basis as well.

Could the app be for you as well?

It wasn’t our goal to develop a product. Having been using and improving our app for almost two years now, however, we believe we have developed an actual app of our own. Mind you, we don’t exactly insist on keeping it only for ourselves. On the contrary!

The app is ideal for small and medium-sized enterprises (based on the number of employees). For management, it is an effective tool for encouraging their employees to embrace desirable changes. It is also instrumental in building corporate culture, supporting cooperation, fostering a sense of belonging, and promoting healthy competitiveness. What you need to know is that all the functionalities, settings, graphics, titles and headings are adjustable to meet the needs of any company or culture – and even though it is fully customisable, it comes with clearly defined benefits by default.

We are happy to tell you more about the app in person – as it’s likely to be just the thing you need!