Building Open House to keep colleagues connected during remote work

In response to the challenges that the global Covid-19 pandemic presented, including a compulsory work from home mandate from many governments, Eversheds Sutherland wanted a solution that would help to maintain the social bonds of the firm’s employees. This solution would sit within the wider global wellbeing programme at the firm.

As the period of remote working during Covid-19 was unknown, but likely to be long term, Eversheds Sutherland wanted to address the following concerns that the executive team had:

• Adjusting to a permanent remote working environment can be challenging to maintain a good work/life balance.
• Adjusting to remote work can have adverse effects on mental and physical health.
• Remote work can loosen the social bonds between teams.
• Staff only had WhatsApp and email groups for staying in touch with colleagues.
• Outside of email or one-to-one calls, there was no place for employees to talk informally and share ideas on a range of non-work related topics.
• Content creation for online solutions can often be resource intensive.
• Finding or creating a solution that would make people want to use it.

Eversheds Sutherland developed the Open House app to help employees maintain the social fabric of its teams and combat other effects during the lockdown. The primary features of the app are:

• Multiple chat room areas created including well-being, remote working, helping others, clubs, hobbies, kidzone and just for fun.
• The app can be downloaded securely onto work mobile devices through the firm’s dedicated app store.
• Content is a mixture of firm produced content and peer created content.
• Employees can create, comment on and bookmark content.
• Available globally to all its International colleagues, so people who don’t normally interact have the opportunity to do so.
• Photo sharing within chat rooms brings a closeness between people that wouldn’t normally exist.
• Pre-recorded seminars, workshops and webinars for all staff to access.
• Show public recognition within the app to say thanks to a colleague, which is tied back to the firm’s values.

Immediate plans are in process to implement notifications for new comments on active posts and the ability to @ mention people in conversations similar to external social media platforms.

The Open House app was the Gold winner of Communicate Magazine's Internal Comms and Engagement Awards in the Covid-19 category. The award judges commented that it was an excellent example of collaboration and agility delivering a very positive outcome.

The key benefits of the app for Eversheds Sutherland are:

• Fast development: The firm’s in-house technology and digital team built and deployed the app in three weeks.
• Shared content scoping: Content and threads were scoped out by the firm’s communications, HR and diversity and inclusion teams.
• Connected workforce: Colleagues are now able to interact with each other on a range of non-work related topics, extending the reach of networking beyond their usual team and project interactions.
• Delivering value to existing programmes: The app builds on the global wellbeing programme already established at the firm over the last two years.
• Easy video distribution: Ability to share webinars, seminars and live workshop recordings in one place with all staff globally.
• Peer recognition: Easy way for colleagues to acknowledge another for upholding a specific company value.

For the first 1.5 months, the app had 1,198 users, with 50% having 4 or more sessions, 5,801 likes across 602 pieces of content, and 947 comments across 38 categories.