The Tribe Report 9. The Collaboration Issue | Page 5

On the day of Virgin America’s new website launch, I
sat down with Benjamin Eye, Manager, Teammate
Engagement and Communication. We spoke about
how such a unique workforce collaborates on these
companywide projects, and how they communicate
every day around the world.
DOES COLLABORATION PLAY A BIG PART AT VIRGIN?
Certainly. We collaborate all the time. Being an airline, you
need to have everyone coordinated and on the same page.
WHAT KIND OF CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS EXIST?
We have our guest service agent groups who are always up,
running from one project to another. And our flight crews,
of course. We have very distinct buckets of people that all
absorb information and communicate differently. Our flight
attendant and pilot teams work very closely together, but
they process information very distinctly.
Each department has a designated head of communications,
someone on the team that can be responsible for pushing
information to their department. They are collaborating all
the time to find the right ways to communicate with each
other and their teams.
HOW DO YOU PRIMARILY COLLABORATE?
Well, almost 80 percent of our workforce is remote. There
are nearly 3,000 people at Virgin America, and at any given
time there are only about 300 to 350 people in the office.
With our flight crews, we rarely get to see them, so there
is very little face time.
We heavily utilize our intranet, VXConnect, and the
Salesforce1 mobile app to reach our entire workforce.
Having a good tool like this in place allows us to have a more
widespread approach to how we distribute information, so
that people can find the way that appeals to them.
CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE MORE ABOUT YOUR INTRANET?
The cool thing about VXConnect is that it’s built completely
on the Salesforce platform. It