A new mobile-first era for employee-company engagement with Vodacom Business and Wyzetalk

At a time when companies need to ensure employee engagement is inclusive of all staff at various locations, the platform to leverage is one that is in each staff member’s pocket: their mobile phone. According to DataReportal, at the start of 2022 South Africa’s population of 60.4 million had 108.6 million mobile connections; putting the mobile penetration rate at near 180%.

"Clearly, we are a mobile-first nation, meaning mobile tech holds the key to effective employee engagement,” says William Mzimba, Chief Officer for Vodacom Business. This thinking underpins the exciting new partnership between Vodacom Business and Wyzetalk, a homegrown brand that is making waves both locally and abroad for its innovative mobile employee-engagement app.

Why rethinking engagement is paramount

The pandemic has made office time for a full staff complement a thing of the past. As a result, finding innovative ways to reach out to all staff – to connect, check in, collaborate, and share vital information – has become crucial for businesses. When many are working from home and in-person meetings are not feasible, employees still need to feel like their organisation is looking out for them. They seek correct and relevant information from their company and want to feel like they are part of the company culture, which can easily slip away when it is not nurtured for staff across scattered locations.

However, engagement must be consistent and inclusive even outside of the context of the pandemic’s restrictions. For many companies, huge sectors of the workforce are not desk-bound, and work on site, for example at mines or manufacturing plants. For these employees, email is not an accessible platform for engagement like it is for their office-based colleagues.

The benefits of employee engagement, when it is done right, cannot be argued. According to research, approaching employee engagement as a business strategy reduces absenteeism by 41%, while increasing productivity by 17% and profitability by 21%.

How mobile reimagines engagement

A partner of Vodacom Business, Wyzetalk is a fully managed company-employee experience platform accessible on all mobile devices. Through the partnership, businesses can rely on the continued maintenance and updating of the mobile solution and will also benefit from consulting and advisory services throughout the complete employee-communications journey. "The solution can be company branded, it’s zero-rated and is accessible across all mobile devices, including 2G-enabled ones, to provide a rich experience for staff,” adds Mzimba.

Proving its importance on a global scale, Wyzetalk is currently used by more than 30 blue-chip clients across five continents, engaging over 700 000 employees daily. “Aside from boosting engagement, our digital employee-experience solution automates critical business processes, upskills employees through digital learning, and improves efficiencies and productivity for the businesses we serve, including Anglo American, Woolworths, the Shoprite Group, Sasol and others spanning many business sectors,” says Gys Kappers, Chief Executive Officer for Wyzetalk.

Features and benefits of Wyzetalk

What are some of the core functionalities of this mobile platform? Wyzetalk is run on a secure and scalable platform that enables tiered admin permissions for database management and content publishing. You can segment content and messages for specific audiences within the business, and access analytics and reporting from every engagement on Wyzetalk’s unified real-time dashboard. The solution’s ability to easily integrate with existing business systems like payroll, e-learning and shift-management helps deliver relevant, personalised information to staff. This information is further tailored to your employees through the platform’s ability to translate content into different languages, giving the user a choice for language preferences from a list of options.

Three core sections where the platform adds value include:

• Communications, which spans internal and crisis communications.
• Engagement, which covers team interaction and staff surveys, as well as employee feedback.
• Productivity, which encompasses operational workflows, personal well-being, and health and safety updates.

For business unit managers, the solution helps reduce cost inefficiencies and boost productivity by analysing baseline data. It allows businesses to identify problem areas, with recommendations given for relevant actions to take. For human capital, the solution helps map the employee-experience journey, designs engagement surveys and devises appropriate strategies for corrective action to enhance levels of engagement. For communications teams, Wyzetalk helps develop and implement high-impact communications strategies, while providing hands-on community management, content curation, message scheduling, publishing, and reporting, as well as 24/7 crisis support.

“Combining the power of a technology platform with the expertise of our team of sector specialists, the Vodacom Business and Wyzetalk partnership transforms how people experience, understand, and engage with their jobs, colleagues, managers and, ultimately, the organisation,” ends Mzimba.