As with most business owners we were sitting in the boardroom discussing how we could improve our company. We have a great ethos, hold fantastic Christmas parties and staff say we’re great (this week) but this doesn’t mean that 2013 will be as good to us as 2012.
We began by looking at how our staff communicate and realised that although email is important to our clients and will still make up part of our marketing strategy it’s little more than a backside covering solution within the office.
So we banned it, we took away everyone’s email address and replaced it with kik (LevandeLtd is my handle in case you’re interested). Kik is an instant messaging solution that connects everyone together via their smartphones. It’s meant that our teams now communicate freely on Sunday’s and collaborate more; they share ideas and are less worried about suggesting them in the first place. It’s helped the staff connect with the management team as now the door or the phone is always open to them. I get suggestions from people who had never emailed me before and some of them are game changing.
In fact one idea is so good, Levande is going to put up a Chinese wall and our R&D team will go into “Stealth” mode to develop it. So although I can’t credit banning internal email with increased creativity, it has reduced staff workload by 20% freeing up time to develop, create and collaborate.
Let’s put it this way, no one has missed their email address and no one is demanding it back. Like 2012 it’ll pass on December 31st and not return.
If you’d like to know more about Levande then please visit our website.
Tags: banned, email, kik, Levande