When the largest private employer in the world makes a technology decision that could affect 2.3 million associates you’d be right to expect due diligence.

But what’s interesting about the Workplace deployment at Walmart says Joe Park, is how the familiarity of the Workplace platform helped make the decision easier.

“Workplace gave us a common platform, a common language”

Ease of adoption

This meant Walmart could spend less time on the operational challenges, training and the customization that companies normally need to establish new technology in their complex organizations.

The result was quick adoption and development of strong working communities between the people using Workplace.

“We spent more time, liking and loving, crying and laughing,” Joe explains, “instead of having to figure out how to use the tool which can be a barrier. For us, that’s been terrific.”

“We spent more time, liking and loving, crying and laughing. For us, that’s been terrific.”

Empowering people with technology

Walmart believes in the idea of tech-empowered people. For Joe and his team, that means embracing technology to empower associates to better serve customers ‘with a human touch’. Using Workplace is helping Walmart to retain that focus.

“There’s a lot of great technologies out there today,” Joe says. “But if you lose sight of what it means to actually use it and what it takes – it won’t work.”

Persistent memory

The immediacy of Workplace overcomes this obstacle. And it’s also helping new starters to build an immediate affinity with the global company culture.

“If I think about what’s come out of Workplace, my favorite is when new associates come in and are able to see the history and the evolution of the Workplace groups we have. That persistent memory helps them feel a part of the culture from day one. That’s a really neat thing to see.”

“That persistent memory helps them feel a part of the culture from day one”

Using Workplace to improve processes

“I wouldn’t give all credit to the platform, but we’ve seen a 60% drop in informational requests.”

“We took a look at our data and saw on a yearly basis we have hundreds of thousands of requests to our helpdesk,” Joe explains. The result of this analysis was to launch a new chatbot (in beta) for technology and HR requests.

“It’s really made an improvement. I wouldn’t give all credit to the platform, but we’ve seen a 60% drop in informational requests.”

“For us, Workplace has gone beyond communication. It’s actually helping us solve problems.”

The effect of this is considerable. People are using Workplace to ask each other questions and provide even better solutions.

“We’ve created product management groups and we’re crowd-sourcing all the help. For us, Workplace has gone beyond communication. It’s actually helping us solve problems.”

With big thanks to Joe Park, Walmart