Ideas for retailers to improve employee engagement during times of change

How Dunelm connects its workforce with tailored communications

2 min read

When the global pandemic began, companies scrambled to find quick ways to communicate important information to their dispersed workforces. As offices, stores and businesses were closing, more employees were working from home and the uncertainty in the world decreased employee morale.

Businesses without a communications strategy or an online platform were left unequipped to handle these unexpected changes. 

Fortunately, this wasn’t the case for Dunelm, a high-volume retailer and Reward Gateway client, that already had a platform in place with a communications strategy that allowed the company to reach its workforce of more than 9,800 employees in real-time. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic started to impact the business, Dunelm needed to inform its furloughed employees of store closures, wanted to create a space for employees to provide feedback and focussed on boosting employee wellbeing and morale.

Dunelm has been using its platform, 'Home Comforts,' as a key player in its internal communications strategy, using blogs to communicate with and gather feedback from employees, as well as to host employee recognition initiatives, employee discounts and more.

Ben Waterfield, Engagement Manager at Dunlem, adds:

I just wanted to say that having Home Comforts has been absolutely critical during this. Following the lockdown news, it was great to get out such an important message from our CEO in one go to reach all our employees.

Since the beginning of March, Dunelm has published nearly 30 blogs, with a total of close to 115,000 unique reads. The 'Announcements' feature was especially helpful as it sent out an alert to every single employee to announce store closures following country lockdowns. 

Since the store closures, Dunelm has also implemented a Wellbeing Centre, where employees can access hundreds of videos and articles to help with their physical and mental wellbeing. Alongside the wellbeing initiatives, Dunelm uses the blogs to keep employees up to date with critical company updates and to share positive news when employees need it most.

Communicating with your people during uncertain times is especially important. If you’re ready to get started, chat with one of our Employee Engagement Specialists today to learn how we can help your business in these difficult times.