Customer stories

“At LOAVIES, our mission is to inspire the young fashion-minded to feel awesome, proud and confident. We know the foundation to do this starts with our people – by creating a supportive and inclusive environment for our employees. We believe that honesty is iconic, and that's why we use Winningtemp to measure our employees' feedback. Being able to foster real-time communication and listen to our employees' opinions helps us make informed decisions to improve employee satisfaction and wellbeing.”

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THE CHALLENGE & SOLUTION

At LOAVIES we work in a fast and flexible way, so the known yearly employee satisfaction surveys were not the right fit. Winningtemp enables us to receive frequent and actionable feedback from employees, with the aim of improving overall employee satisfaction and wellbeing. It allowed our employees to provide their feedback and opinions quickly and easily. The platform's real-time insights, which included multiple-choice feedback and weekly pulse surveys, enables us to understand changes in employee sentiment quickly.

THE RESULTS

Thanks to Winningtemp and an 84% participation rate in the weekly pulse surve, Lovaies improved their two-way communication between managers and employees and enabled proactive actions and prioritisation for managers via the anonymous conversation feature. This increased theoverall transparency in the organisation.

Improved Employee Wellbeing and Engagement

Since implementing Winningtemp, Loavies has seen a significant increase in employee engagement, with 84% of employees sharing their feedback via the weekly pulse survey. Additionally, topics that normally are not discussed or highlighted are now more clear and it’s easier for leaders to open the discussion in their teams.

Transparent and Supportive Leadership

Winningtemp has enabled Loavies to create amore supportive workplace culture. Managers are now more available and receptive to feedback, leading to more transparent conversations and improved communication between employees and management. Result? Action lies with the employee, to take charge of their own development in the company.

Increased overall transparency

Winningtemp's weekly pulse surveys and temperature dashboard provide Loavies with real-time feedback on employee sentiment. This allows the company to take immediate action on any issues that arise, preventing them from becoming more significant problems. The dashboard with insights and smart actions is loved by leaders across the business.

Features

“With Winningtemp's temperature dashboard, we have a clear understanding of the overall sentiment of our employees. This helps us make informed decisions on the data and create an uplifting and openwork environment for everyone. Winningtemp has become an important tool in our commitment to employee wellbeing and satisfaction and Winningtemp data is discussed in our team meetings and town hall”.

Conclusion

Winningtemp has become an important tool in Loavies’ commitment to employee wellbeing and satisfaction. The platform has enabled the company to foster real-time communication and listen to its employees' opinions, leading to a more engaged workforce and improved business outcomes. Winningtemp data is discussed in team meetings and in general, demonstrating the company's dedication to creating a supportive and inclusive environment for its employees.

Volvo Car Retail has 16 facilities in 3 regions, where they help Volvo owners with financing, service, repairs and much more. Their goal is to contribute to simple car ownership, free from worries.

The company is a relatively new merger of Bra Bil, Upplands Motor and Volvo Bil. Even before the merger in 2022, Bra Bil and Upplands Motor had started using Winningtemp to streamline and improve their corporate culture.

The challenge

Charlotte Sterner, Senior HR Business Partner at Volvo Car Retail who worked with Upplands Motor before they began using Winningtemp, says employee wellbeing used to be measured through annual surveys which were extremely inefficient.

 ”It was quite difficult at the time,” says Charlotte. ”Before we had gone through and compiled the results, a few months had passed and the results felt almost out of date. We clearly wanted a way to do surveys in real-time instead.”

In 2019 they switched to using Winningtemp and they noticed a difference immediately. With Winningtemp, they were able to quickly act on the insights from the results and work on the ”soft” questions in a clearer way.

”We know that soft values ​​lead to good results in the end. Therefore, it was very much appreciated to be able to have quick temperature measurements, to be able to follow up on feedback and to receive important information via the employees' comments,” adds Charlotte.

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‍The merger led to new challenges

 In 2022, Bra Bil merged with Upplands Motor and formed Volvo Car Retail. And although both companies had used Winningtemp before, the merger created new challenges, when two company cultures became one.

”The companies had not worked with Winningtemp in the same way, so it took a while before we understood how to use it together. But with 'commitment' as a common watchword, we ended up with an approach that everyone appreciated,” says Charlotte.

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Concern among managers

 There was also a challenge in getting everyone onboard. As a manager, it can be sensitive to be judged in such a concrete way, and when Winningtemp was discussed, there were doubts among the leaders.

”Not everyone thought it was a great thing, some managers thought it was pretty scary from the start. They were worried about getting numbers on how good or bad they were and probably didn't fully understand the benefits of such frequent examinations”.

 Solution

 As the usage of Winningtemp increased in the new company,more employees became aware of the advantages.

”The managers learned quite quickly that temperature changes are not something to be worried about, but are an opportunity to learn and take the organisation forward,” says Charlotte.

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Adapted based on the needs of the leaders

During the spring of 2023, Volvo Bil joined the company, and today there are a total of 800 employees in the company. Therefore there are many different teams and managers who have different needs. With that in mind, they don't have a common way of working across the entire organisation, rather each team gets to choose how they work with Winningtemp.

In our working method, the management group chooses a focus area, and then the leaders choose another - preferably together with their employees. Metrics are set jointly based on these areas and Winningtemp is a standing discussion topic in various forums every week”, says Charlotte.

Ultimately, Winningtemp is a leadership tool, but even the managers may need support from their teams, HR and other leaders, and therefore Winningtemp is a tool that everyone in the organisation can benefit from.

Results

 The leaders within Volvo Car Retail send out shorter pulse surveys every week, and have a response rate of around 70% - including many valuable comments. Charlotte emphasises the importance of high commitment and how it leads to better results and profitability.

”We believe that engaged employees lead to better results for the company. Winningtemp is an important tool in that journey, and that's why it's so fun that it's used so much by leaders and employees”. 

‍More control over well-being

Winningtemp use has led to several positive effects in daily work.

”Now we don't have to guess what the employees think, now we know. This means we can make better decisions when things need to be fixed. We also have better control and see that things are going in the right direction, even if not every single number is measured", says Charlotte.

 Now they don't have to wait for feedback for months, instead they can act faster and work more agilely.

”When any part of the organisation is about to get worse, we can quickly discover it and reverse the trend. We always have a clear overall picture thanks to all the comments that employees can submit anonymously.”

 The company culture is still evolving but Volvo Car Retail is on the right track to creating a more engaging and productive workplace - and Winningtemp is one of their most valuable tools along the way.

Do you want to work more effectively with employee feedback? Book a demo and see how Winningtemp can help your organisation.

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‍“It’s very easy for leadership teams to think their employees should just be grateful to have their jobs in today’s business environment. But, no – it doesn’t work like that. Employees want to feel they have a purpose, they belong and that their employer is grateful for them. Winningtemp has lifted the veil for us at Montcalm to understand what our employees want and how we can take action to make it happen. We’re no longer guessing what our people strategies should look like. We now have the data and power to truly put our employees first, creating a more inclusive culture that reflects the values of our business and employees.” – Jo-mandi Templeton, Head of Talent & Culture, The Montcalm London Hotels

“Our leadership and people operations teams decided we needed to build a culture where employees could genuinely feel psychologically safe to perform the best work of their lives. But we also needed to quantify this information, to measure progress and take the guesswork out, so we decided collecting employee survey data was a good starting point. Done under the cover of anonymity, we discovered this data could be used to create dialogue, through feedback loops and focus groups. This allowed us to really show employees they were not only seen and heard, but that they belong.”

“Our employees do an incredible job to help patients make the most of every moment.It’s not an easy job, but the care they provide is exceptional. We need to showcommitment to every single one of our employees, just as they do every day forour patients. We launched Winningtemp as part of our wider employee support andwellbeing package to create a space for people to share their thoughts andfeelings. Employees can choose to comment anonymously, and we’re committed toreplying to every single one, so no one is left unheard.” – Gerry Crow,Director of Operations & Support, Mary Stevens Hospice

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As a multinational, forward-thinking company, many employees worked remotely, or in different offices to their managers prior to the pandemic. However, due to the worsening Covid rates in early 2020, the company, like many others around the world, were forced to ask all their people to work from home, indefinitely.  

“For us, COVID sped up something that was slowly happening already. The company is spread between five offices across Europe with different functions in different countries. Our headquarters are in Ireland, but most of our employees are in Spain. For instance, I'm managing the HR function for the whole company here in Dublin, yet most of my employees are outside of Ireland. So, I'm a remote resource for them already.”

However, in the months following the office closures the travel industry was brought to its knees. The ONS reported that monthly air passenger arrivals to the UK fell from 6,804,900 in February 2020 to 112,300 in April 2020, a fall of 98.3%. In terms of room occupancy, Greater London saw the largest fall of any English region from 2019 to 2020, with just 20% of rooms occupied in July 2020 compared with 90% in the same month in 2019. The consequences were catastrophic and in 2020 alone, Statista Research Department estimated that the global travel and tourism market lost approximately 62 million jobs.

A clear need

As the pandemic took grip, the travel industry felt its stronghold almost immediately with global restrictions placed upon everyone. As concerns set in, Kasia reveals that Bookassist knew they needed to understand how their staff were feeling to help them through this turbulent period. Bookassist are part of umbrella organisation Jonas, and, while managed separately, partake in an annual survey run by Jonas.  

“The annual survey is sent to all their employees, but we felt once a year wasn’t enough. Moreover, because it is used across multiple countries it tends to be quite broad and generic.”

The Jonas survey gets sent to multiple global companies that are not necessarily in the same areas of business or experiencing the same challenges as one another. But the pandemic has of course affected businesses differently, and if ever there was a time that generic was not good enough, it’s now. Bookassist felt it was crucial they understood what their people were going through on a deeper level.

“Some companies were not affected at all and some of them suddenly ceased to exist. So, people had quite different experiences, and we were looking for the best way to understand how our people were being affected. We knew we wanted regular feedback from people that wouldn't feel intrusive or time-consuming for them to answer.”

Introducing Winningtemp gave their people the chance to express their feelings, whilst providing management with the feedback needed to help them.  

“Every country we operate in suddenly had a lockdown in place. So everyone was working from home whether they wanted to or not. They were having regular calls with their line managers, but people don’t always feel comfortable sharing their feedback in person. Because Winningtemp is anonymous, they tend to feel more comfortable expressing themselves.”

The concept of remote working may have chiefly been how the company operated pre-pandemic, but without the option of an office at all, they soon noticed the disadvantages that brought about. Pre-pandemic, Bookassist were afforded the ability to share the care and wellbeing of employees in a way that just wasn’t possible once the Coronavirus took hold.  

“As a manager in Ireland, I could have an employee reporting to me based in the Spanish office. While I wasn’t physically present in the office, other managers and colleagues would see that something might be wrong and inform me of their concerns. Suddenly, that was gone.”

They were finding that those conversations between managers and their staff that would naturally occur in an office setting, were not always happening remotely. If there is an incident, or someone is upset, it can be easily identified. But working from home can mean that people increasingly hide how they are feeling. And if you cannot see a problem, you cannot react to it.

“We needed to implement Winningtemp to help identify things that we would have noticed in an office setting. We needed a way for people to express how they are feeling. We needed feedback so that we could be accountable and actionable to our people.”

Engaging a workforce through the worst of times

The company have been using Winningtemp throughout much of the pandemic and from the outset the platform was received well with a large proportion of employees using it and providing feedback. One of the primary functions of the Winningtemp platform is the ability to provide comments and feedback anonymously, crucial when there is so much uncertainty.

The hotel industry has been through a devastating couple of years and many of Bookassist’s clients were struggling to make the revenue they needed. “It has really been the toughest time and keeping morale high throughout the whole company can be challenging, even in ‘normal’ times.  

“Of course the whole premise of the platform is keeping your company engaged, and that has been truly put to the test since we began using Winningtemp. We provide supports for hotels, but a lot of our clients have really been affected by the travel restrictions. Some had to pause services -or worse.

“Which of course has a worrying effect on our own people concerned about whether we would lose clients, and what that would mean for us as a company and them as an employee. So keeping people motivated became the priority. We needed that safe space for our people to voice their own concerns, while our clients took stock of their situations.”

And that’s a challenge when your people are based in different countries, and all receiving different levels of help from their own governments. In some regions they were able to keep people working the entire time, in other countries they had no choice but to furlough some staff.

“There are errors. People are very frustrated. They're not getting the money that they need, and it's nothing that we as a company can do about it because it's not on our side, it's on the Government, but obviously it affects people’s morale.

“It's particularly challenging and very demotivating for those on furlough because people begin to feel redundant, even though they're not really. So having a platform in which they could express themselves became especially important to us, particularly when they were feeling low and not communicating directly with their managers.

“People have had vastly different experiences. And for our managers, managing teams who are all having such different experiences has been difficult, but the platform has really enabled those conversations.

“If someone is giving positive feedback, they can have a conversation around how to sustain that. However, sometimes it transpires from the comments that something is not going all that well. But if your people can tell you the bad things as well as the good, it means the platform is doing its job and enables us to focus conversations on the correct topics and a closer working relationship develops.”

Fully booked for 2022

In January 2022, Boris Johnson offered the travel industry some much needed hope with the lifting of many restrictions, including the end of the pre-departure test, which he said: “discourages many from travelling for fear of being trapped overseas and incurring significant extra expense.”

As the world finally begins to open again and the UK becomes restriction free, people are already embracing the opportunity to book hotels and accommodation again. Having chosen Winningtemp to better understand and help their people in the worst of times, what would Bookassist hope to achieve from the platform as the world opens for business again?  

“I hope that people will engage and express even more. That’s what is going to help managers understand better. As people feel more comfortable providing feedback, and giving honest opinions, the more it helps develop our managers and help them understand their teams. When you have quality feedback you start meaningful conversations, even if it’s difficult to hear at the time. Because this is when you learn.”

“My hope is that managers will learn to really listen to their employees and in turn learn from them how they can be better managers. At the same time, the employees will feel much more confident that they can share openly what they think and how they feel and that it's going to be taken on board by their managers and used as much as possible.”

And finally, does Kasia have any advice to any leaders new to the platform?

When you get negative feedback, use it as a learning experience. What are your people trying to tell you? What does the data tell you? You must talk to your people. What can we improve? What can we do better? And if it is me – as a manager, I need your input to help me improve.  

You must have these conversations and it's not always going to be pleasant. But having an environment that encourages people to openly express their feedback to you, that's the best thing that can happen to you as a manager. It's the only way to improve and grow.

The construction industry has dealt with controversies in Sweden when it comes to corporate culture. The controversies are characterised by issues of equal treatment and gender equality. Wästbygg, one of Sweden's largest construction and project development companies, has taken a holistic approach regarding its corporate culture and is focusing on improvements with Winningtemp.

Wästbygg's vision is to improve people's lives by designing and building attractive living spaces, as well as commercial and public sector properties. Anders Jansson has served as the HR manager at Wästbygg for over two years and is witnessing a changing industry.

“The construction industry has been under considerable pressure for a long time, with a large turnover of staff and extreme project volumes. We're an organisation that's growing, so right now, my focus is on leadership and corporate culture development. The goal is to create better workplaces and deliver favourable employee experiences. It's about everything from who we attract, to how we onboard new employees and how we hone the skills of our staff. "

The role of HR manager at Wästbygg includes helping strengthen the business by creating the right working conditions for employees and making the management team a better employer. To succeed with this, relevant data needed to be gathered to find out what the employees think about the working environment, leadership, and how management lives up to employees' expectations. Anders' first job when he started at Wästbygg was to select an appropriate employee experience management tool.

Improved skills development

Traditional employee surveys consist of basic questionnaires focused on specific issues. These lacked group-wide data and relevant follow-up questions. When selecting a new tool, Winningtemp was the apparent option, owing to the fact that its intuitive system can measure and collect data continuously, automatically and in real-time. Also, because the foundation of Winningtemp is based on research, it has a high degree of credibility. For Anders, it was also important that the tool be scalable and easy to administer because the organisation was in a transitional period.

“Winningtemp can successfully facilitate various forms of dialogue between management and rank-and-file employees. We chose the tool because it has so many useful functions and has a customer-oriented approach, which has made us feel like partners in the further development of the system.”

In February 2018, a pilot test was conducted with various departments, and eventually, the tool went live for the entire organisation in September the same year. According to Anders, there are already many instances where employees' experiences of the company have led to reprioritisation or new initiatives, including skills development.

“Things have become much better after completion of a significant communication and training program. Winningtemp initially helps us to highlight the things we need to work on. After that, it's through leadership and communication that we can contribute to changing behavioural and cultural patterns."

Becoming the construction industry’s best employer

The company hopes that Winningtemp will be integrated organically into the fibre of the organisation.

"The goal is to develop the company further and become the best employer in the industry. We can measure this directly in Winningtemp, and in the latest measurements, we can see that we are very well-positioned compared to our competitors. It is achieved through dialogue, where employees feel seen and heard, and Winningtemp is really helping us succeed", says Anders in conclusion.

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Why is it that some companies enjoy fantastic customer satisfaction feedback and others do not, even when their products are relatively similar? Many companies are struggling with this challenge, which obviously affects revenue. Bianca Britten-Austin, who is the talent manager at Elite Hotels, has the answer to that question.

“Engaged employees are the secret behind increased customer satisfaction. That's precisely why we implemented Winningtemp,” says Bianca.

Elite Hotels haven’t worked with systematic or company-wide issues related to staff well-being previously. That all changed on November 7th 2017 with the introduction of a new tool that turned out to be incredibly valuable. That was the date they began using Winningtemp, the platform that measures staff well-being across entire organisations and provides deep insights for better employee experience.

“We work in the service industry, and I know that there is a strong correlation between employee engagement and customer satisfaction. We constantly ask our customers about their experiences in our hotels, so it was quite logical for me also to ask our employees just as often how they feel about the workplace. Since the day we implemented Winningtemp, we have been able to measure the well-being of our employees in real-time, which is incredibly valuable!”

Increased employee engagement

"We see that employee engagement is at a relatively steady and stable level, which is positive and important for us to monitor on an ongoing basis,” says Bianca. “This helps us to to provide the right support, together with the managers on the local level, for continued positive development.”

She also adds that the praise you can give each other through the platform is an incredibly important function because appreciation leads to engagement and mental satisfaction.

"For us, it has been important to strengthen our feedback approach, and the function for giving praise contributes a lot to that. You see all the good things your fellow employees are doing, but you don't always have time to stop and say something appreciative personally. The praise function allows you to let people know that their efforts are noticed, and it’s always nice to hear that ping signalling positive and constructive praise.”

Complete anonymity

We live in a time where burnout and sick leaves due to poor mental health are continually increasing, and at the same time, it can be challenging for employees to open up and tell those in charge about what they really think. Winningtemp guarantees full user anonymity, which Bianca says is a decisive factor for them. The platform has been well-received by the employees - it’s easy to use and answering the weekly questions only takes about 30 seconds.

"One of the absolute best things about Winningtemp is that well-being and employee engagement are no longer things we only judge from the outside. We now have real-time data that is concrete, and that comes directly from the employees themselves. Employee engagement is one of our key factors for good profitability. That’s just the way it is. And Winningtemp is essential."

Science-based employee experience tool

Elite Hotels chose Winningtemp over other employee well-being tools for one simple reason – because it is research-based. Bianca knows that the questions that the platform poses are data-backed and developed based on research, and she can trust that Winningtemp knows what drives engagement.

“The questions change if an employee responds negatively for a certain number of days, which can signal, for example, that stress levels on a team are becoming increasingly dangerous. That is what makes the platform so valuable to management staff because this can be something that could easily go unnoticed in day-to-day operations. I must also add that Winningtemp is incredibly professional in everything they do. They are very responsive and patient in how they treat their customers, which I truly appreciate."

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Nowadays, at, Zeekr it takes about eight seconds for employees to share their thoughts and experiences about the workplace. Consequently, this impacts their working conditions both at the individual level and for the entire organisation. By being data-driven and proactive with the well-being of employees, management gains a comprehensive picture of the company's leadership capacity, stress, and engagement levels. A task that previously took several months for Zeekr to measure and compile is now carried out directly in Winningtemp.

Zeekr, is a technical innovation centre in Gothenburg working on delivering technology to several well-known car brands such as Geely, Volvo, Lynk & Co, and Lotus. Approximately 2000 people presently work at CEVT. The company was looking for a modern tool to replace the traditional employee surveys, and they quickly chose Winningtemp.

"We thought Winningtemp sounded exciting because the platform is based on research and AI, thus compiling automated analyses," says Dennis Heltorp, project director for GROW at Zeekr. "That's something we haven't seen before."

Insights that led to concrete actions

With Winningtemp, Zeekr gained access to real-time, data-driven insights and analytics regarding employee engagement and satisfaction. These crucial insights led to concrete actions being taken for the employees to improve their working condition and increase their engagement.

"We noticed that a team recorded a significantly low score regarding their work condition, which necessarily points towards dissatisfaction. This gave Winningtemp a reasonable basis for advising their supervisors to help them out by allocating additional resources." We were able to get an action plan in place, and within a few weeks, you could clearly see a surge in the scale for 'working conditions' category. You could also see that the temperature measurement for the 'leadership' category rose. "

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Up until the spring of 2019, E.ON Sweden used annual employee surveys to explore how the staff felt about their working conditions and leadership capabilities. But, the method was cumbersome, and the results of the survey were deemed obsolete by the time they were presented to the management team. Consequently, any action taken to rectify the situation was already too late. The company was, therefore, looking for an alternative to facilitate more productive conversations between managers and employees. They chose Winningtemp, which had previously been pilot-tested by a focus group within the company with excellent results.

It's safe to say that the tool lived up to its expectations.

"A colleague of mine pointed out the contrast perfectly. With the annual employee surveys, we got a solid set of results to relate to, but it was measured on only one occasion. While with Winningtemp, we continuously measure the 'work temperature'. Also, instead of just measuring it, we follow the trends and changes in temperature over time and analyse the reasons behind it. It gives us much better ammunition to be proactive in solving any problems and developing what's working!"

"Since Winningtemp is a transparent tool, everyone, including employees, can access the temperature of their group in real-time. This makes it easier for both the manager and employees to address both positive and negative developments within the group quickly. So Winningtemp has really helped us in developing the ongoing dialogue between managers and employees."

Each week, the staff can answer four questions, either in the browser or in the Winningtemp app. E.ON has chosen to use Winningtemp's standardised basic questions as they are based on research, thus enabling comparison with other companies in the same industry. If one of the employees responds negatively, the tool's AI function ensures that a similar question is asked the following week. In this way, the managers get a clear picture of what is not working and can use it as a starting point in the dialogue with their department.

"In recent years, we have been working actively to develop our feedback culture, and Winningtemp provides an accurate picture of how employees experience different components of their work life. For us, the introduction of the tool has enabled us to work more constructively with issues related to the working environment, and I truly recommend it to other companies", concludes Hanna Havelius.

Morrinson Wealth was founded in 2014 by Stanley Morrinson. The practice has grown from a team of three, to almost 100 people (with a mix of employed and self-employed team members). The practice’s headquarters are in London with an additional office in Reading, and they provide wealth advisory services to clients across the UK.

COO Nneka Orji joined Morrinson Wealth in 2019; one of her goals was to enhance the collaborative and inclusive culture within the practice. She understood the value of keeping a pulse on engagement and looked to engage an employee engagement platform that would support her in realising this goal. She introduced Winningtemp in the practice in the Autumn of 2019.

“People and Culture is one of the four areas that I look after. The practice has always taken this seriously, with regular feedback opportunities albeit more manual. With our growth, we had to find a more fit for purpose solution. I wanted a platform that would give us visibility so we can get a better pulse of the business and a sense of how everyone is really feeling.”

With the recent addition of an office outside of London, Nneka knew it was critical that the people working in Reading felt as part of the company as those in London. “What we see in London can be very different to what we see in Reading – there is one culture across the practice, but local offices can have different priorities and different concerns. Being able to understand the nuances between the offices and the cultures being developed there was crucial.”

Having used Winningtemp for almost a full year, Nneka is confident that the tool has assisted in numerous ways to establish the desired culture within the business.

From a top down approach, the platform has enhanced the management team’s ability to respond more directly across the practice.

We integrate Winningtemp in two main aspects of our approach. Firstly, the management team review the dashboards and insights monthly. As such we now have a deeper insight and understanding in terms of issues that we might need to address.

“For example, a recent point regarding learning and development was raised from someone in a specific area of the business. The insights from Winningtemp gave us the opportunity to discuss how we can support that individual.”

A second and substantial area in which the platform has supported leadership within the company is from the perspective of the line managers. This has been especially helpful when structuring one-to-ones, which had been in place but not fully embedded across the practice.

The line managers are now far more engaged and have much more content to direct their conversations in their one-to-ones with their team members. We encourage them to look through Winningtemp in advance of their one-to-one meetings to identify any trends or themes that might be coming through.

She shares that it has been especially useful during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

“For instance, someone might divulge that working from home has been challenging for them. And rather than asking who has said that, it can be identified as a theme within this month’s one-to-ones.”

And while the pandemic conditions are far from ideal, using Winningtemp allows people to share how they are feeling at any given moment, from wherever they may be. “We’ve been able to see the parents who are struggling with working from home and parenting at the same time. We’ve received positive feedback saying that the practice has been supportive which has also been affirmative for us as a management team.”

An anonymous forum, Winningtemp offers an area in which all individuals can be honest.

In terms of creating an environment in which people feel comfortable to share ideas, this is vital. For Nneka, it provides a way into potentially sensitive conversations that might otherwise get left unsaid.

Some people feel less comfortable discussing specific points with their line manager. The forum allows them to raise those points anonymously. For example, someone may say they don’t feel as though they can share ideas and be creative in meetings with their line manager.

It gives me and the rest of the management team the opportunity to talk to the line manager about the problem and look for a way to solve it. It’s helped in terms of developing individuals but also in terms of developing the type of culture in which people do feel able to share ideas.

Using the tool, Nneka can see at any moment the overall pulse of the whole business as well as drilling down to how individual teams and people are feeling. It’s an important aspect for her that supports all areas.

“It helps in many ways. Meaningfulness, especially within the back-office, is one of the trends and insights that we look at often. Admin and paperwork are not always seen as the most meaningful tasks, however, it’s always important to understand why we might see a decline and interventions that might provide a reminder of the end goal that we’re working to for our clients. When they need a morale boost it’s useful to remind them that what they are doing is important.”

And while in general, the dashboard looks green and positive, there are occasions when Nneka knows uncomfortable comms may need to be issued that aren’t particularly upbeat – for example, during challenging economic environments when the management team has to make a difficult decision. Using the platform, she can monitor responses and act accordingly.

Whilst the response to the news might be disappointing, using Winningtemp gives us the opportunity to see the true impact it has whilst also providing us with important feedback from our teams. That gives us greater detail and the opportunity, if needed, to explain things further.

Nneka introduced Winningtemp because she wanted a platform that could support her in enhancing a collaborative and inclusive culture that empowers people to realise their aspirations. In under one year and in a challenging time that has seen the entire organisation working from home, the practice has made significant inroads towards this.

Why Acorns Children’s Hospice puts its trust in Winningtemp’s revolutionary platform

The hospice care sector supports more than 225,000 people with terminal and life-limiting conditions in the UK each year. But in a year that has had a universally devastating impact on the healthcare industry, it is the caregivers themselves that have witnessed unimaginable heartbreak, shouldered the burden of low staffing levels, comforted, and calmed emotionally charged clients and their families, and remained composed when supplies of basic safety wear ran short. But everyone has their limit, and if ever there was a time to support the people working in these vital roles, it is now.

Matt Bullock is the Director of People & Culture at Acorns Children’s Hospice. Based in the West Midlands, Acorns provide care and support to life limited and life threatened children, and their families. Matt joined the multi-site organisation in August 2020, 6 months into the global pandemic, acutely aware of how crucial it is (now more than ever) to put people – your greatest asset – first.

The quality and consistency of the service delivered to children and their families depends upon the person or people delivering it. Your most expensive, and therefore your most important asset is always going to be your people. So that’s where you need to focus your time.”

Matt prioritised the matter by immediately implementing a ‘cultural diagnostic’ of the entire organisation. He sought to discover how his people were honestly feeling, but he wanted to do so with as little discomfort to them as possible. In addition to initiating numerous focus groups, he introduced Winningtemp’s employee engagement platform. An anonymous, user-friendly tool that provides real-time insight into the wellbeing of your people.

As with many organisations, the pandemic has left its footprint on Acorns. By the time Matt had joined, there were already several areas of concern to overcome. Early into the outbreak of Covid-19, the Birmingham Acorns Hospice moved to offer a greatly reduced service to help ease the burden on the NHS. This meant that those working at the Birmingham hospice had to be redeployed to other sites across the region, often up to a 45-minute commute, which was once only 10 minutes.

“It may not seem a considerable point, but suddenly not being able to take your kids to school because you’ve got to leave early due to the traffic and distance, and then you’ve got to wear full PPE the whole day long that you don’t normally have to wear and which hurts and is uncomfortable and adds another 15 minutes or more on to your day, before driving back home in traffic, suddenly, the impact of that becomes quite significant.”

However, Matt recognises that the pandemic isn’t the cause for all conflicts. “A lot is driven by Covid, but I think there is an underlying theme across the organisation where we seem to have several red flags that should be much better understood so we can set a course to improve.”

To understand the situation further, he went as deep as possible. Starting with a large, one-off survey using the Winningtemp tools which he ran for 3 weeks. His goal was to pinpoint the areas that were working well, and conversely, those which weren’t working as well as they could be. “We then paused the survey for 2 weeks before relaunching it to initially run every fortnight with 6 questions each time. The ambition is to get to running the questions weekly, once people can see that feeding into it achieves something positive.”

Even in these preliminary days, the data that the platform has provided Matt with has been truly insightful. “It’s interesting, because overall for the whole organisation, Acorns has a higher-than-average Index score. Which on the surface you think, “wow that’s good – there’s nothing wrong”. When you start to dig and look at where some of the lower scores are coming from, we have a lower level of engagement and satisfaction in our care delivery teams particularly.

For Matt, the power that the insights can provide for other areas of business such as within leadership, is invaluable. “It is forming the basis of the leadership culture that we want to create.”

“That’s really about a cohesive leadership culture around everybody within the leadership team, effectively ‘signing up’ to doing things in a certain way, within a certain set of rules. Collectively, we need consistency.”

Matt’s deep diagnostics have found that throughout Acorns there are pockets of excellence and pockets that aren’t quite so good. “It’s about understanding how we are going to set our stall out, in terms of the leadership team and leadership approach.

“That will inform where we need to develop, how are we going to do that, and how we inform our learning and development offer. Which brings it back full circle again as to what’s the impact of that for our people? Are they seeing that change? And therefore, realising that their direct feedback has the ability to influence what we do.”

They say that mighty oaks from little acorns grow; but the oak does not become ‘mighty’ overnight. It takes time and patience and will grow through several life stages before maturing, much akin to a seismic shift in culture.

We are focussed on creating a culture in which we constantly listen and feedback. Did something positive happen by accident or was it by design? We must know where the problems are. Only by being brave enough to ask the questions, whether the answers are negative or not, can we possibly improve and know what to focus on.”

The accounting firm Klara Papper has been using Winningtemp for nearly a year to get a clear understanding of their employees’ views towards the company, their duties, and expectations.

“Winningtemp has really helped our managers with their leadership.” says Magnus Ramfelt, CEO for Klara Papper. “It’s a tangible way of finding out what we’re doing right and where corrective actions might be needed.”

Before Klara Papper began using Winningtemp, they had no idea how much it would facilitate HR administration. The company’s CEO, Magnus Ramfelt, heard about the employee experience tool via LinkedIn and decided to give it a try. The reason behind the decision was that the management’s perception of its employees’ engagement does not always conform to reality, and Winningtemp’s intuitive platform offered a more accurate picture of how things really are.

“With Winningtemp, we can verify whether our understanding of how staff members are feeling is actually true”, says Maria Bjurström Rosén, administrative manager at Klara Papper. “We had no specific problems in our mind, but it was more of a matter of wanting to know whether things were as good as we thought. But the tool also reveals many other aspects of our company. It has surpassed our expectations. Now I wonder how we ever got by without it.”

People-first culture

Klara Papper’s fundamental values are “security, development, and commitment.” With Winningtemp, companies can concretely measure how their key values are perceived and adopted. From the very beginning, the response rate from employees has been nearly 100 per cent. According to Maria, it is because the employees like the platform and have seen that their responses lead to actions.

“Now we know precisely how employees are feeling, week-by-week. If we’ve taken a particular initiative or been busier than usual, we could see exactly how the actions were perceived. The tool also made it that much easier to know what we are going to talk about during performance appraisals. Every organisation benefits from knowing exactly how their employees feel about their workplace.”

Better employee interaction

Winningtemp has a wide range of pre-formulated questions that form the foundation for different “temperature measurements,” but there is also the option of writing your own surveys. Employees can respond quickly with smileys ranging from positive to negative, and if deemed necessary, they can even write an anonymous comment.

“Our employees’ response rate has increased. They’re starting to notice that the comments lead to action. That means that more people feel connected and committed to the company. Two weeks ago, we had a one-day conference, and afterwards, I sent out specific questions about what the employees thought about the event. Every time we use Winningtemp like that, I appreciate how good it really is!”

For a company with over 500 employees, it can sometimes be challenging to get an overall picture of how people feel about their work environment and job responsibilities. The cable supplier Nexans is, therefore, actively working with Winningtemp to improve its leadership, employees’ working conditions and job satisfaction.

“By collecting questions and feedback from the group and talking about them, I’ve been able to grow as a leader,” says Christer Snäll, production supervisor at Nexans.

Nexans is Sweden’s largest supplier of cables and accessories. The main office, manufacturing and logistics centres for the entire Nordic and Baltic countries are at Grimsås in the Swedish province of Västra Götland. With more than 500 employees sitting together in the same location, it becomes vital for both the employees and the management team to feel happy and co-exist with the belief that they can actually influence the condition of the workplace.

Christer Snäll is the production manager for fibre production at Nexans, and his department was the first in the company to test Winningtemp. They have now been working for over a year and a half with the data provided by Winningtemp and are very satisfied with the results.

“We’ve been able to increase employee satisfaction after discussing the issues that have been identified with Winningtemp. I feel it makes me a better leader when I get feedback from my group.“

Importance of open discussions

By diving deep into the questions related to leadership, Christer Snäll notices significant opportunities for development. He feels that as leaders, you should not be afraid to ask open questions to the group if the results haven’t been as good as you might have expected.

“It’s a matter of daring to address all issues, even those that are directly negative to one’s leadership,” he says. “It’s only by talking about problems that you can come up with solutions and make improvements. I strongly believe in open leadership and open discussions. “

Answering the four weekly questions has become as natural for the employees as punching in and out. The anonymous answers are subsequently compiled into a report that is sent out to the entire company, which all the relevant production managers can go ahead and read.

Christer’s top tips for other managers working with Winningtemp is to take advantage of this process and talk about the responses with the group each week.

“We’ve worked up a response rate of 93% by actively presenting the results each week. I feel that these discussions and allowing employees to participate and influence make me a better leader. The entire organisation gets a boost from increased job satisfaction, and that employee opinions are valued. ”

Opportunities to influence

Previously, Nexans conducted employee surveys every two years. After starting with Winningtemp, these surveys were scaled up to twice a year, complementing the automated weekly questions that employees responded to directly on the digital platform. Frequent feedback from employees allows management the opportunity to develop corrective measures faster, and it makes employees feel more involved.

“We realised that when employees answer the questions, they are expressing how they feel at the moment. When we surveyed once every two years, we didn’t get a good picture of how they felt over time. With detailed reports every week, we in the management team now get a much better picture of job satisfaction in general, and we have the opportunity to take corrective actions promptly.”

Winningtemp helps Prisjakt to be a highly engaged organisation

Winningtemp has been an invaluable tool for Prisjakt for more than three years. With continuous follow-ups, they capture crucial insights and “record the organisation’s temperature” so to speak, to determine its health and condition.

“It’s like anatomy,” says Linus Jonkman, HR manager at Prisjakt. “The organisation is our body, and Winningtemp is our nervous system. With Winningtemp, we can notice if, for example, there is a sudden pain in hand, and we can react in time.”

Prisjakt has over 200 employees in six offices in Ängelholm, Malmö, Stockholm, Oslo, London, and Krakow. The human resources manager is Linus Jonkman, one of Sweden’s leading human resources lecturers who have also written seven books on the subject. In three years, Prisjakt has increased engagement among its employees from 43% to 72%, while the average for businesses is about 30%. Also, there is a definite connection between employee engagement and increase in sales.

“I see the organisation as a big amoeba, and we are the ones responsible for keeping it healthy,” says Linus Jonkman. “This applies to everything from being clean to personal development. Our employees should like to come to work because it is only then that we can establish engagement.”

Transforming existing employee surveys

The traditional way of measuring how an organisation is doing is by bulk-sending employee surveys once a year. These age-old processes lack tools and resources to deal with the areas that need improvement. Winningtemp, on the other hand, is a repository of relevant, trigger-based questions produced in consultation with individual organisations. These questions are chosen using unique computer intelligence that adapts them to the “temperature” of the organisation.

“It’s easy to answer with a positive/negative smiley, but you can also write more if you want,” says Linus Jonkman. “Total transparency is important to us at Prisjakt, which is why anyone can log in and see how the teams are doing. Winningtemp also provides an attractive visual overview that makes it easy to understand. “

Praise creates a culture of feedback

Another vital feature of Winningtemp that Prisjakt loves is the ability to praise one another. The compliments you receive can be seen by everyone on the team and are displayed as medals. A playful and creative way of giving each other feedback.

“Gamification is an area that is in its infancy in human resources,” Linus points out. “But I think it’s incredibly exciting. It can be about using gamification within the areas the organisation needs to further develop, but also as an important cultural bearer. “

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Avega Group records over 350 employees, distributed across several different companies specialising in digital transformation. They use Winningtemp throughout the organisation and have already witnessed positive results in areas such as work environment, employee development, and leadership. Winningtemp has now become a business-critical tool as its unique engine helps leaders develop and retain skilled consultants.

“It’s great to be able to see what’s happening in the organisation in real-time,” says Anette Melin, Head of HR, Avega Group.

Real-time data is absolutely crucial

The goal of Avega Group is to become the most attractive and progressive workplace for its employees. The reasons for choosing Winningtemp were three-fold. They wanted to have an understanding of how their employees and the organisation as a whole are affected by corporate decisions, be able to get real-time signals or red flags and to create a transparent company culture.

The CEO of Avega Group, Fredrik Ring, talks to Winningtemp about the importance of focusing on employee development.

“In our industry, everyone wants to attract the best consultants. Therefore, we have to understand what they think of us, whether there is something we can do better or something we should do differently. It is not enough to have this understanding just once or twice a year. Simply put, we need to understand our consultants as well as possible to create an environment that is as healthy as possible. I believe strongly in this way of working. The fact that employees, through the tool, can give us clues about what we can do to help them succeed and of course, retain them, is precious. “

The effects of employee insights and pulse measurement

Avega decided to try Winningtemp for a pilot project for several months, with employees being involved both before, during, and after the project. Their inputs tipped the scale towards investing in Winningtemp. The pilot project was so successful that Avega chose to implement the platform across all the groups, which at present affects all seventeen specialised subsidiaries and approximately 350 employees.

Winningtemp helped the Avega management team to be proactive and take the necessary actions at just the right moment.

“The management perspective is probably the most significant part. The goal was to provide managers with a tool to continuously measure and understand how their organisations are doing. This has helped the management to be able to act more quickly. Having a user-friendly tool and being able to work in a data-driven way is so important. It’s worth highlighting that Winningtemp is not just a tool that HR initiates and implements. The pulse surveys and the insights gleaned are leveraged by the entire organisation because of the fact that these affect everyone.”, says Marketing Manager Ulrika Nyberg.

Anette points out that there’s an increase in interest among the managers to have expertise in areas such as health and safety issues. When the manager of each company receives the results, they sometimes come up with follow-up questions to understand how to handle the information that they have collected. They are increasingly becoming more receptive to gather more knowledge and insights.

“A somewhat unexpected effect is that we have been able to work more with questions about the work environment than we might expect. Our managers not only have a responsibility to look after the well-being of the consultants but also to ensure that the consultants have been assigned to those customers whose working environment complies with the existing laws and regulations. This means that we can take even greater responsibility when it comes to a healthier work environment.”

Annual surveys were not enough

As a consulting company, Avega is dependent on its skilled consultants. It’s their knowledge and expertise that contributes to Avega’s unique position in the market. Therefore, it’s crucial for them to create a workplace environment that attracts skilled individuals.

Previously, they used annual employee surveys to gauge the employees’ experience and their satisfaction quotient. Quite naturally, the final results of these surveys were not only outdated, but they were also really hard to analyse. It took several weeks to get the results, and when the results arrived, it took a few more weeks just to study them. As a result, the survey outcome was no longer perceived to be pertinent, and managers felt that the large mass of information was confusing to break down and transform into specific action items.

In her role as marketing manager, Ulrika is also responsible for internal communication in the group. She explains how the need to measure employee experience at the workplace grew steadily over time.

“We want to be the best workplace. To do that, we need to understand how employees perceive their current situation and how they react to the changes that affect the whole organisation. Previously, we used to send employee surveys once a year. It was far too difficult to do anything with the results as it took several weeks to produce them, and then several more weeks to go through them. By then, the results were no longer valid. We also heard complaints that the managers found it challenging to process.”

The management team felt that there was a need to invest in a modern solution that could measure the ” temperature ” of the organisation and help them understand in real-time how their employees felt about changes and the management decisions. Being able to show managers and employees simply and transparently what the “temperature” looks like was the top priority.

Partnership and flexibility

When the decision was made to invest in an employee experience solution, the team decided to invite several suppliers to get a clear picture of what the market had to offer. Anette Melin revealed the criteria they had set.

“The most important features we wanted were that it would be an easy-to-use application and that it should be easy to get answers to questions. It should not be complicated for the user in any way. Being able to see the results in real-time was a crucial factor for us. We also wanted there to be a pedagogical analysis tool so that we could easily understand the results that were presented even if there was a lot of information. At the same time, we needed flexibility, that we could customise certain functions such as the question frequency or even the questions that we’ll send out to the people.”

The management team chose Winningtemp because it not only met the criteria and expectations that Avega had set, but it also exhibited a willingness to allow customers to be involved and influence the development of the platform.

“There are several reasons why we chose Winningtemp’s solution. They were curious about what we as a future customer needed. We experienced a lot of flexibility and transparency, where we could be involved and influence how the tool would evolve further and also be customised. We co-created parts of the tool, and this was a huge plus for us. We continue to collaborate as we feel that our voice as a customer plays a role in the development of the tool, “concludes Anette.

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Winningtemp helps Sigma get feedback from the organisation in real-time

Sigma Technology Consulting is at the forefront of people management. They ensure a strong employee experience by combining Winningtemp with the efforts of a People Success Manager whose primary responsibility is to ensure that the company’s leaders are always putting their team members first. Through several measures of incorporating Winningtemp as part of their employee-focused corporate culture, Sigma Technology Consulting stands out in the competition of attracting the industry’s top talents.

Sigma Technology Consulting is a part of the Sigma Group and a global supplier of product information, software development and design of embedded systems, as well as offshore development. At Sigma Technology Consulting, “development” is the watchword, and the employee experience is the main priority. A People Success Manager has the overall responsibility for ensuring that the company’s team leaders have regular employee discussions and encourage employees to align their personal goals with the corporate strategy.

“For us, employee development is very closely related to customer development,” says Daniel Thysell, vice president at Sigma Technology Consulting. “It’s when both are working systematically; we can achieve business impact. That’s how we earn the loyalty of our employees. We have a dedicated People Success Manager because we see our employees as our customers. We want to earn their confidence, so they want to work with us. We are in an industry where people can change jobs in a day if they want. It is in our interest to provide a good and robust holistic experience, and Winningtemp is part of this. “

Why Winningtemp

Sigma Technology Consulting has chosen Winningtemp as its platform to nurture each employee in their career development. But the benefits of using Winningtemp have gone far beyond that.

“One of our taglines is ‘we give you the ability to evolve’, and Winningtemp is a big part of that. We can communicate that we have the platform for it when we recruit,” says Daniel Thysell. “Everyone in the industry claims to do that, but with Winningtemp, we have a platform that many competitors lack. Besides, several of our customers have chosen Winningtemp after we mentioned that we use the tool as part of our offerings to our customers. Taking the team’s well-being seriously is considered to be highly professional, and rightly so. That’s why it’s invaluable to us. “

The company’s wellbeing is the real measure of performance

At Sigma Technology Consulting, the response rate in Winningtemp among employees is typically 85%. Employees are committed to using the platform because it contributes to their own career development.

“Having a healthy workplace is essential, and Winningtemp delivers accurate measurement of performance. We follow up on our financial ROI regularly, but we think it’s equally important to track employee satisfaction and performance data in the same way. The platform provides trends and forecasts in real-time and in a visual format.

When we pay attention to our employees’ needs and motivations, we get better engagement, which leads to innovations for our customers, growth and better career development for our employees. That job has to be done. It is essential to set aside time for this type of analysis, setting requirements and making it part of the corporate culture and reward system. It is otherwise difficult to assert yourself in the competition for talent. We chose Winningtemp because it’s such a fantastic tool for precisely these kinds of things. “

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