When Rituals, a global cosmetic company, started to see rapid growth, they adopted a branded employee engagement platform to keep their workforce on the same page. They called this Speakap product, ‘Rituals Connect’ – one app to keep all employees connected. With it, they’re able to share knowledge from HQ to employees, provide trainings, and strengthen their onboarding experience. But they’ve also taken it one step further and use the employee engagement tool to foster company culture. By sharing the vision and mission of Rituals with employees via the app, they engage their entire workforce and provide more purpose. And what does it all lead to? Better customer experiences; when employees are engaged and equipped with the knowledge they need to do their best job possible, it resonates with customers.
To sum it all up, and in the words of Arjen Schouten, COO of Rituals:
“Rituals is all about enjoying the small moments in life. That’s important for our customers, so therefore it’s also important for our frontline employees who are working with our customers every day. Therefore, we need people who are passionate about that vision and about our brand.”
Rituals serve some of the most demanding consumers in the world, so training and educating their customer-facing employees is key. Here are 3 takeaways from Rituals around the usage of employee engagement tools that HR professionals can implement to drive business value.
#1Reach employees quickly
With an employee engagement platform, Rituals have the tool they needed to reach employees with any company news. They use the employee tool to engage and connect with their entire workforce at a tap of a button. In fact, a lot of investment goes towards creating, launching, and adding new products to the shelves, which makes it important for employees to stay updated. Assortments are changed frequently, and when employees are informed about them, they’re able to create better customer experiences. And what’s the quickest way to reach employees? They use one employee engagement tool with one instant message to all concerned employees.
When faced with a crisis, they used ‘Rituals Connect’ (a Speakap product) to instantly reach out and engage their employees so as to find the quickest solution. Hear about it from Irene Vernie, HR Director of Rituals:
“I vividly remember we had just launched Rituals Connect the day that our system stopped working globally for a few hours. After my morning coffee, I received a notification on the employee engagement platform from our IT Director. This was not the first crisis that I had experienced, but it was different and in a good way. It was above all efficient because we received the updated protocol directly from our IT director via the employee engagement tool. We even started a group chat for all shop managers in order to align on individual cases. I was shocked at how much faster we were able to handle crises by communicating the right way.”
#2Grow your company culture
With over 800 stores and offices, and with more than 8,000 employees worldwide, Rituals needed not only to reach every employee efficiently, but also to instill a company culture. It’s easy to lose sight of internal branding and identity when teams grow rapidly, which is exactly what Rituals wanted to avoid. The company also understood that employee engagement, company culture, and customer experiences were all part of the same common thread that would help them scale. And in order to reach happy customers, they needed to engage employees on a common platform and grow their company culture.
“It is crucial to maintain our culture to fuel our rapid growth at that scale. At times, an easy-to-use employee engagement tool is the only thing we need to break the ice between individuals. Rituals Connect is that platform where employees can come together to share their own Rituals experiences.”
Arjen Schouten, COO of Rituals
Rituals use their employee engagement platform to share the company's values and vision. And since a big part of their brand is about customer experiences, they make sure that their own employees experience the brand first-hand and that they clearly understand the vision and brand. In fact, they go the extra mile to celebrate successes and achievements.
“We think it’s important that our employees have a platform to engage and really share life events with each other, and celebrate special moments like a birthday, or a special achievement.”
Irene Vernie, HR Director
#3Share best practices across stores using an employee engagement tool
When companies are going through rapid growth, there are a ton of employees that need to be onboarded and oriented towards the company vision. For Rituals, scaling meant a lot of new stores opening with new teams forming across the world. And in order to avoid reinventing the wheel, they used the employee engagement platform to share learnings, details, and ways to excite customers. Floor employees use ‘Rituals Connect’ to get insight from other stores and to learn from each other globally, no matter the distance. With stores spanning the world, from New York to Amsterdam, for instance, they’re able to easily connect and get the information they need to excel at their jobs.
“I can get tips from my fellow colleagues and ensure that all my customers are happy.”
Al Sienkiewicz, Shop Manager, Rituals New York
With an employee engagement tool to chat and exchange knowledge, Rituals’ employees are able to better understand their customers and give them the experiences they’re looking for.
Who benefits from this employee engagement platform at Rituals?
- All employees receive best practices from each other, instead of reinventing the wheel each time
- New employees are onboarded more easily
- HQ receives customer insight from employees, across the world
- Customers receive the experiences they’ve come to expect from the brand, every single time
