Restarting a Large Retailer

This short case study shows how iyarn supported team engagement, connection and development during a post lockdown phase for a major Australian retailer.

Moving Past a Covid Lockdown 

In June 2020 retail shopping across Australia shut down, due Covid-19 Lockdowns, retail workers lost over 110 million hours of work, resulting in 66.4% of retail workers have experienced a mental health condition since the start of COVID-19 (SuperFriend Spotlight on the Retail Industry, 2020).

One of Australia’s leading clothing retailers was looking for an innovative and effective way to rebound from a long and uncertain COVID lockdown. As the retailer had thousands of team members, nemourous store locations spanning across Australia, they needed an effective way to capture sentiment analysis to ensure their teams were supported and engaged during such uncertain times. 

Why is Checking in So Important?

In order to improve employee engagement and build better connection employers must create happier and more satisfying working environments. This can often be done through regularly checking in on your employees and investigating where you can have the most impact in improving their moral. 

Checking in leads to improved employee mental health and wellbeing as employees feel a greater sense of belonging and connection to the workplace and to the work at hand. According to Ed Deci (quote from layers doc) greater connection and support through the workplace can greatly increase the employees intrinsic motivation and improve overall productivity. 

Improving Connection

Through the support of an expert transformational change and leadership consultant, the organisations leadership team conducted a state wide wellbeing check in. The Wellbeing check in gave the organisation a clear pulse check of each store’s sentiment across 11 different areas. Through collatation of these results, the organisation was enabled to have real and powerful conversations to support each other in their wellbeing post COVID lockdown. 

The Segments were designed in consultation with the organisation and the consultant support to promote open and honest communication surrounding wellbeing. 

The ability of having a quick and effective wellbeing check in enabled the leadership team to gain a real time snapshot of how each store was going thus they could deliver custom support in the specific areas. This encouraged greater connection between line managers and support services by enabling real conversations on the issues at hand. 

Additionally, the regular conenction between each store through checking in had immense benefits for the organisations culture, by enabling reflection and connectivity through sharing feedback and recongising their successes developed a profound sense of trust and improved engagement and performance. 

Expanding Beyond What’s Required

The organisation saw the value of fast reliable feedback from each individual store and wanted to go further then simply checking in on a single store. The organisation wanted to empower and energise all of their team members and was able to do this by implementing individual weekly check ins to all staff. 

This rollout saw over 2500 check ins completed which encouraged increased connection, collaboration performance and productivity within each team sector. With the use of iyarn, the large retail organisation has the ability to conduct quick and easy staff sentiment analysis and professional development, this allows their team and leaders to have an enhanced connection and engage directly with the issues affecting their team in the moment. 

Team Feedback

“Our people are always our number one priority which is why we are launching a trial of the iyarn app. The app is designed to check in on our teams during our busiest time of the year, and keep us connected.”

Manager

“This check in tool is an amazing way to ensure our team are feeling empowered, energised and connected in the lead up to (a major milestone) and as a leadership team we can support and understand what our team needs.”

State Manager

“What I love about this check in tool, is that as we learn, we can understand and support our team to be energised, united and empowered. It also allows our leadership team to be agile as they understand what their team need. Now that is powerful!“

State Manager

Discover the Power of Check ins

iyarn creates the conversations needed for teams to perform and empowers managers to take action, it is simple and intuitive, offering a fast and effective way to check in for teams across any organisation. 

If you would like to find out more about how iyarn can support your organisation please email Lockie Cooke.