Stayokay

"At Stayokay, we strive to transform our employees into brand ambassadors. Oneteam’s digital learning and communication platform helps us to do so."

Liza de Vos

HR Manager at Stayokay

Introduction

Stayokay has been around for over 90 years, counting 20 hostels and approximately one million overnight stays per year. It is the largest provider of budget accommodations in the Netherlands. They are also part of Hostelling International, a network of more than 4,000 hostels worldwide.

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We interviewed Liza de Vos, HR Manager at Stayokay, to hear how Oneteam helps them to connect, engage, onboard, and retain their employees.

Summary of the results

• An all-in-one solution for employee experience;
• Improved employee engagement;
• An increase in knowledge sharing throughout the organization;
• 80% of weekly active users;
• A personalized and fun onboarding experience;
• Tailored eLearning programs per job role.

The challenge

What Employee Experience challenges were you facing before using Oneteam?

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Every year we welcome between 500 and 600 new employees (non-pandemic years). These employees must be trained as soon as possible to have them carry out their work independently. However, due to the shortage in the labor market and therefore personnel, this could not always be done properly. This negatively impacted the employee experience of our staff.

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Furthermore, we realized that approximately 65% ​​of our workforce has a non-desk function (e.g., housekeeping or hospitality), and they did not have easy access to our systems. As a result, it ended up in a severe loss of information. Whether and how the news reached the employees depended too much on the managers. Not to mention that our old intranet and training system no longer met the needs of the new generation of employees, who are used to do everything on their mobile phones. Also, communication emerged as a point of attention following our employee satisfaction survey. Finally, all this led us to the conclusion that we needed a clear and modern way to inform, onboard, and train our employees.

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What impact did this have on your business?

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The first one hundred days of a new employee are crucial. When there is too little time to train people properly and a lack of effective communication, it often leads to unwanted staff turnover, directly impacting the business. With our old system, there was a lack of good two-way communication, and a lot of information did not reach the employees.

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The solution

Why did you choose Oneteam?

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We were looking for both a learning and internal communication platform, and we spoke to several vendors. The uniqueness of Oneteam is that it includes several functions, allowing us to use one platform for internal communication, onboarding, and eLearning. With Oneteam, we can offer our employees an all-in-one solution for the complete digital employee experience.

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Who uses Oneteam within Stayokay?

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At the moment, we have over 80% active users and we are working hard to get this to 100%. We have set up a project group with colleagues from various departments who work jointly to boost our onboarding programs and stimulate employee engagement by sharing messages within different groups. For example, we have subgroups for social media ambassadors, hostel managers, and F&B employees.

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“Oneteam has made a significant contribution to improving engagement and the connection between all employees across the different locations.”

The results

How did your employees react to using Oneteam?

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Our employees reacted very enthusiastically to the use of Oneteam. It is a very user-friendly tool. They like the fact that they are more aware of what takes place in other hostels, can easily chat with each other, and share their knowledge and experience with anyone within our organization.

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Do you see an improvement in employee engagement?

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Involvement, connection, and togetherness are very important to us. In addition, it is our goal to make our employees proud of our brand and mission. Oneteam has contributed significantly to improving the involvement and connection between all employees across the different locations.

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How does the onboarding module help you onboard new employees?

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With Oneteam’s onboarding module we are able to unburden floor managers by offering a structured online onboarding experience. In addition, it gives us the opportunity to make employees a fan of both their work and our Stayokay brand. During the onboarding program, all new employees start with a general introduction to our organization. After that, they follow hostel-specific modules and targeted eLearning programs depending on their function group. This helps us to offer all employees a personalized and interactive onboarding experience.

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What other results have you seen so far?

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We currently have around 80% weekly active users. Furthermore, we have already created an extensive digital onboarding program and prepared various additional e-learning courses. So far, we have already developed 20 different modules, and counting.

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How does Oneteam help you achieve organization-wide business goals?

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Oneteam contributes to various strategic pillars that we have established within Stayokay:

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Strategic pillar 1: Strong Brand

One of our strategic pillars is strengthening our positioning on the job market while making our employees fans of our brand and mission. The situation in the job market is very challenging at the moment. Therefore, a strong brand not only helps with recruitment but also with employee retention and advocacy. Our employees are the ambassadors of Stayokay. Through Oneteam, we offer a fun, personal, and interactive onboarding experience that gives new recruits a WOW feeling and immediately makes them brand ambassadors.

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Strategic pillar 2: Sustainability

Stayokay considers sustainability of extreme importance. We established the ‘Doing Good’-program as part of our CSR policy. Oneteam’s platform also supports us in this because it facilitates us in sharing updates about how our organization is doing to contribute to a better planet. In addition, we can use the platform to inspire and encourage employees to start ‘doing good’ themselves.

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Strategic pillar 3: Feel Good at Work

Within Stayokay we also have the ‘Feel Good at Work’ program, which aims to inspire and motivate our colleagues on subjects related to personal growth, a pleasant working environment, health, and of course, a lot of fun! Oneteam contributes to every aspect.

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“With Oneteam we’re able to offer a fun, personal and interactive onboarding experience, that gives new recruits a WOW feeling and immediately makes them brand advocates for Stayokay”