The Tribe Report 10. The Non-Desk Best Practices Issue | Page 15

from their intranet to a WordPress site that employees
can access outside the firewall, according to Mandy
Welborn, Senior Manager of Internal Communications.
“The Daily Dish newsletter will be mobile-enabled so
associates can access it from iPads we have in the stores
or from their personal devices,” Welborn said. “I’m really
excited about this because it gives us more access and
reach. We’re also investigating giving Wi-Fi access to
associates in the stores, to really open this up with their
personal devices.”

“There’s a statement at the
beginning that says, ‘By clicking
this button you’re verifying that
you’re on the clock.’”
Many companies have concerns about the potential
legal issues of employees being asked to view mobile
communications outside work hours, but PetSmart has
come up with a simple solution. “This is for associates to
use while they’re at work, so they have to confirm that
when they log in,” Welborn said. “There’s a statement at
the beginning that says, ‘By clicking this button you’re
verifying that you’re on the clock.’”
INTERFACE
Interface, the carpet manufacturer known for its
sustainability goal of having zero environmental footprint
by 2020, started a pilot program last year of sending text
surveys to their employees’ personal mobile devices.

Mission Zero goal?’ We give them a menu of options
such as 1 for yes, 2 for no, 3 for not sure.” In addition to
sustainability, other topics for surveys included safety, HR
and other cultural issues.
Gathering personal phone numbers wasn’t an issue,
Brooks said, because “operations already had everybody’s
cell numbers for emergencies. But we were very
transparent about it and made sure they knew they could
opt out if they didn’t want to participate.”
The expectation was that employees would respond to
the text surveys while they were at work, “although for
safety reasons we ask them not to use their phones on
the floor,” Brooks said. “The surveys are for when they’re
on break or lunch.”
Although Brooks says they thought initially that employees
might be concerned about text charges, “We didn’t get
any kickback for that. Apparently most people’s data
plans make it a nonissue. In the beginning, just in case
that was a concern, we entered anyone who answered
the survey in a drawing for a restaurant gift card.”
The results of these short text surveys may not offer
tons of data, but it helps the communications team know
which way the wind is blowing. As Brooks said: “It gives
us a barometer. It lets us see where we may need to drill
down a little further.”

Bruce Brooks, Director of Global Internal Communications,
said, “In the Americas, more than 60 percent of our
employees are on the manufacturing floor. These are nonwired employees without email or access to the intranet.
We wanted to give these employees a voice.”
For the pilot program, “We sent three or four questions that
would take maybe five minutes of their time,” Brooks said.
“Like we might ask, ‘Do you feel aligned with Interface’s

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