Sentient Jet’s journey from email exchanges to Workvivo
How an aviation SMB engaged 100% of its shift workers like never before
99%
Adoption among staff
86%
Of employees logging on every month
100%
Of shift workers engaged
Before partnering with Workvivo, Sentient Jet had no platform in place for internal employee communications.
What it did have was a very basic intranet, which the company describes as a “landing site for HR policies and employee requests, but not leveraged in any way as a communication portal”.
Sentient Jet, which is headquartered in Massachusetts, has been a pioneer in private aviation for nearly 25 years.
The company’s Senior Vice President of Owner Services, Alan Walsh, says there were communication silos across teams. “Not only that, but it also drove friction as the teams had no visibility into other business operations and initiatives,” he explains. “Outside of monthly and quarterly company meetings, we did not have a regular communication vehicle outside of email.”
People
< 200
Industry
Aviation and Aerospace Component Manufacturing
Location
US
Category
SMB
Workvivo has had a big impact on our company culture and morale. Having scaled the company in the past two years, we have a growing percentage of our workforce that is disparate. Having Workvivo allows us to interact daily without missing a beat
Alan Walsh
Senior Vice President of Owner Services
The runway to Workvivo – Sentient Jet’s digital transformation strategy
So, why did Sentient Jet turn to Workvivo?
“We built a very robust technical strategy in 2019, knowing it would take time to implement newer technology,” Alan shares. “A major part of this digital transformation strategy was a centralized communication platform.
Prior to Workvivo, internal communication relied solely on email exchange, whereas now, our teams can collaborate, share and empower engagement across each area of our business – thus removing that dependency on Outlook email.
During COVID, like many companies, we moved to a fully remote business. We needed our teams to stay connected more than ever. This is where Workvivo was able to help Sentient in a big way.
What did that look like? Leadership was able to provide regular business updates, but also “create a newer culture of business transparency and shoutouts”.
“Pictures, some humor, and interacting with colleagues actually helped develop a much-improved business culture as a result, which has only gone from strength to strength,” Alan says.
The Workvivo effect
Implementation and onboarding
Alan says that deploying Workvivo to Sentient Jet staff was “easy, simple, and straightforward”. He was relieved that the setup wasn’t “overly technical”, resulting in “minimal IT lift”.
The key decision points were the configuration choices of the system, like Spaces and banners,” he explains. “The only IT challenge we ran into was making Workvivo the company home page, and this was addressed through an easy internal technical work-around.
Launch
When it came time to launch Workvivo, the option to pre-plan content made all the difference.
Alan shares, “This allowed us to set the right tone at launch time with the team. This has meant that we’ve not had to take any team member to task regarding appropriate content and commentary.”
Adoption and engagement
How are Sentient Jet’s teams engaging with Workvivo? Since its launch, Alan says the platform has become “the established company communication vehicle”.
There has been great adoption amongst newer team members, many of whom have been hired in a permanently remote location. Highlights include Shoutouts amongst team members, creating a sense of belonging.
In Alan’s own day-to-day role, he takes to Workvivo to share short business updates. “This helps team members to feel engaged and to see it and hear it directly. The feedback remains very positive on this.
Workvivo has become our CEO’s communication vehicle of choice. This is a huge vote of confidence in the platform and demonstrates the level of adoption and engagement in Sentient.
Between 1 October 2022 and 2 April 2023, employee posts on Workvivo received 155,254 impressions, 4,796 likes, and 541 comments.
Feature spotlight
Before Workvivo, recognition at Sentient Jet came in the form of formal commendations that were sent to HR and then posted physically to the employee’s home.
Alan and his team wanted to continue recognizing staff but in a way that was scalable, impactful, and community-driven. By shifting its recognition program to Workvivo, colleagues across the business can chime in and add their own kudos, building recognition into Sentient Jet’s very culture.
Now, Sentient Jet employees have an accessible, central place to give each other shoutouts. Building this sense of recognition and appreciation has helped elevate the company’s employee experience offering, with Alan describing it as a “very positive cultural direction”.
Feature spotlight
Before Workvivo, recognition at Sentient Jet came in the form of formal commendations that were sent to HR and then posted physically to the employee’s home.
Alan and his team wanted to continue recognizing staff but in a way that was scalable, impactful, and community-driven. By shifting its recognition program to Workvivo, colleagues across the business can chime in and add their own kudos, building recognition into Sentient Jet’s very culture.
Now, Sentient Jet employees have an accessible, central place to give each other shoutouts. Building this sense of recognition and appreciation has helped elevate the company’s employee experience offering, with Alan describing it as a “very positive cultural direction”.
People at the heart of Workvivo x Sentient Jet
Another highlight for Alan and his team has been the relationship they’ve developed with Workvivo. Workvivo and Sentient Jet got the chance to meet in person during one of Workvivo’s company offsites in Boston, for example.
“It’s always valuable to be able to meet and share real-life experiences,” Alan says. “It also clearly showed why Workvivo has been so successful. The caliber of people was amazing.
We are clearly advocates. Workvivo has had a big impact on our company culture and morale. Having scaled the company in the past two years, we have a growing percentage of our workforce that is disparate. Having Workvivo allows us to interact daily without missing a beat.
