Proximus: Keeping its promise of the best communication experience for its customers and employees
The Proximus Group is active as a provider of digital services and communication solutions in the Belgian and international markets. The group opens up a world of digital opportunities, so people live better and work smarter. They do this by: building the best open gigabit network, offering products and services tailored to the needs of every customer, by being the trusted digital evolution partner for companies and the Belgian society, and by contributing to a greener world.
Employees:
+ 11 400
Services:
Internal Communications, IT
Industries:
Telecommunications
Placing Employees at the Heart of the Business
Proximus offers customers a world of digital opportunities so that they can live better and work smarter.
This business ambition is reflected in their mindset toward internal stakeholders. Talent and career development are highly valued at Proximus in the pursuit of business objectives. They aim to create a culture in which employees develop, make a difference, contribute to business results and be the best brand ambassadors.
Achieving this goal means working towards providing the best possible conditions for employees to do their jobs. At the end of 2020, Proximus introduced their new fully multilingual collaborative intranet platform #WAP+ (standing for “We are Proximus”), to communicate, facilitate connections among employees, promote informal cross-team collaboration and improve knowledge sharing.
The Challenge
Stimulating interaction
Proximus had extensive objectives requiring a solution that goes beyond traditional internal communication tools. Interaction and collaboration are at the core of their corporate culture along with a commitment to positive employee-employer relationships. Therefore, they wanted to provide a digital workspace where every employee can create, share and interact across the business.
Speaking the local language
As a leader in the Belgian market, the use of multiple languages is key to Proximus’ communication strategy. Proximus communicates in 3 languages – Dutch, French and English. Previously, multi-language communication was a time-consuming process and employees’ feeds were overlapped with duplicating content.
All functions matter
At Proximus, a considerable percentage of the workforce are non-office workers, like technicians and customer-facing teams that work from various locations without daily access to a desktop computer. Proximus needed a mobile, on-the-go solution to ensure those employees are just as involved in the organization as office workers.
Building a Multilingual and Collaborative Platform
Starting their transformation project in the midst of a global pandemic increased the importance of finding a suitable solution. The stable and secure transition was a key to ensuring the continuity of business operation.
To support their needs and address its challenges, Proximus trusted LumApps to be their new employee experience platform. To set the project for success and ensure local support, the internal teams decided to rely on one of LumApps’s trusted partners, Devoteam G Cloud Benelux for the implementation and deployment of the platform.
A major deciding factor for Proximus was the multitude of communication flows between collaborators and the goal of breaking through language barriers. The ease of creating content in multiple languages and the flexibility to target it to the right people is a key features. Employees interact in various social and professional communities. The automatic translation of posts and comments allow for effective collaboration because employees can interact in their own language and reach everyone across the organization.
The major advantages of WAP+
- Structured homepage ensuring clarity and relevance
- Greater personalization of the content
- Fully multilingual solution (both on content and comments)
- Enhanced search capabilities based on metadata
- Flexibility and ease of publishing any type of content via templates
Why our customers choose us
Key Use Cases
Using communities to empower employees
Proximus has a strong sharing culture between entities and currently counts 436 active WAP+/LumApps communities. As Microsoft Teams is used to collaborate on shared deliverables, WAP+ communities are focused on sharing knowledge, giving support and creating a sense of belonging. Every employee can take the initiative to start a community, as long as there is a need, a clear objective and interest to manage it.
“We all go the extra mile”- a community of interest that allows employees to exchange ideas on how to improve customer experiences. Finding best practices that work, raising suggestions and letting others upvote their proposals in the name of a common goal - bringing a smile to customers!
“Splicers“ community - a community of practice, for and from the field technicians, responsible for the installation and repair of the fiber cable network in the field. They are on the road daily building the installation network. Through this community, they get access to the most important tools, get work-related instructions and updates, ask for help from peers and share their experiences.
“Learning at Proximus” - is a typical support community, an extension of the Proximus Learning Management System. It’s used to promote new learning initiatives, to communicate last course vacancies and give support to learning questions of the user.
#WAP+ Support - is a support community to optimize the use of #WAP+. It includes direct access to knowledge documents, updates and acts as a true help desk. It supports two specialised communities, one for the WAP+ publishers and one for the #WAP+ community managers.
Employee Voices
Every employee in the organization can share experiences, stories or lessons learned through blog posts. Support materials and guidelines are provided to give equal opportunity and empower employees from different backgrounds to participate. At first glance, it’s a simple blog, but it’s a powerful tool for setting company-wide trends, empowering people, and facilitating knowledge flow across teams.
Smart Inter-Linking
The platform is the place that guides employees through their workday. In addition to the well-defined business unit pages and communities, employees have personalized and quick access to all relevant business tools. The platform provides a centralized catalogue of useful links sorted and targeted by business units.
Agile Transformation Program
Supporting major business transformations is done through a distinct subsite that helps employees understand changes and their impact. The site and its dedicated community consolidate all the project communications. According to employee profiles, there are built-in personal action plans to help them follow processes step by step, deadline reminders, progress updates and support documents.
Employee Social Advocacy
The integrated social advocacy tool enables Proximus to create powerful brand ambassadors throughout the lines of their workforce. People are not only able to share corporate news through “WeBuzz”, but they can also propose topics and content to be shared externally through a dedicated “LifeatProximus” community.
Mobile App
Employees can connect to their workspaces no matter where they are thanks to the LumApps for Intune mobile application. It’s particularly useful for technicians and field representatives that receive company and team updates through a personalized news feed, but also for leaders and everyone that works in a hybrid way and seeks maximum flexibility. Everyone has instant access to Proximus News, a complete employee directory and can contact colleagues on the go or find support in one of their professional communities.
The Need
At Proximus, technicians, customer-facing teams and other non-desktop workers represent a considerable amount of the workforce. Employees in the field have strict schedules and no daily access to desktop computers, but still, need to ensure they are delivering the best possible customer service. To avoid the perception that looking for resources and information is time-consuming, the company wanted a solution that would make communications accessible and practical for all employees.
The Solution
With the LumApps for Intune mobile application, Proximus has built a mobile experience for all its employees that provides continuous access to knowledge at their fingertips. The on-the-go solution enables employees to exchange knowledge, collaborate, and connect no matter their location or work device. As hybrid work environments become more common, the mobile app offers maximum flexibility without compromising work efficiency.
Key Results
99%
Active users
38%
Contributing users
258
Publishers
436
Active communities
244
Active ambassadors
426
Posts created for the past year
50%
Adoption by 2023
8,24/10
Employee recommendation note
Discover More Customer Stories
10,000+
Driving Change and Integration Communication Through a Centralised Digital Hub
The Kitchen has played a key part in allowing us to drive a clear and consistent message during a time of intense change (made especially difficult due to Coronavirus).
