How Boden increased employee engagement by 20% in just one year with The Loft, an inclusive hub for its entire global team

Alongside Reward Gateway | Edenred, Boden embarked on a year-long campaign to promote The Loft, resulting in an 87% active user rate, over £17,000 of employee savings and a 20% boost in engagement.

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£14,000

saved through Discounts in one year

87%

active user rate 

20%

improvement in employee engagement

£9,000

of Cycle to Work orders, saving employees £3,100 and the organisation £1,300 in NI contributions

What they needed

Boden is a British fashion retailer that’s been making clothes that last and put a smile on people’s faces for over 30 years. With a diverse workforce of around 850 people divided between a HQ in London and Customer Service and Warehouse teams in the UK and U.S, the People Team had a challenge on their hands to build a sense of connection and retain the company’s family values.

Despite more than 30% of Boden’s team being frontline workers in one of the company’s warehouses, only desk-based employees with a company email address could access the intranet. This left a big gap, as opportunities to communicate with the wider workforce were extremely limited. Because information about benefits was spread out across Boden’s intranet, the lack of awareness had resulted in low usage and modest utlisation of benefits.

The team knew things had to change, so launched a strategy to increase the percentage of active platform users, raise awareness of the benefits available to Boden colleagues and drive a more consistent approach for both online and offline employees.

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Industry:

Retail

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Number of employees:

4,000

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Platform features:

Discounts, Communications, Cycle to Work, Recognition, Wellbeing, SmartTech™

How we helped

2025_Boden imagery eCards_UKBoden worked with Reward Gateway | Edenred to launch its platform, naming it The Loft to signify a cosy storage space where employees could access everything they needed.

The first part of the plan was to raise awareness of The Loft across both office and warehouse-based teams, helping to increase the percentage of active users throughout the company. Where frontline teams could not log into Boden’s intranet, The Loft was fully inclusive and could be accessed on personal devices without the need for a corporate email address. Working closely with Reward Gateway | Edenred, Boden’s People Team then began to build upon the platform by promoting new features, including recognition eCards in line with World Gratitude Day.

The Loft was transformed into an inclusive one-stop shop for all of Boden’s employees, quickly becoming an essential connection for its warehouse team members who did not have access to the previous intranet site. Supported by its Client Success Manager at RGER, Boden tailored the homepage of The Loft for different locations and different role levels, spotlighting the information and benefits that were most relevant to each group of employees.

 

What they achieved

Promoting The Loft as a central hub for all of Boden’s employees’ needs has helped to level the playing field between office and warehouse-based teams in both the UK and U.S. By encouraging more of Boden’s people to use the platform, the People Team successfully shifted the sole focus away from the HQ in London, helping dispersed team members feel more connected, involved and engaged.

The platform’s active users rose to a whopping 87% of the workforce, with employees racking up yearly savings of over £17,000 through Discounts and Cycle to Work. The people of Boden have spent £19,000 through SmartTech™ so far, and the Wellbeing Centre has been viewed more than 580 times.

On World Gratitude Day itself, over a third of Boden’s global workforce recognised one or more of their colleagues by sending an eCard, taking the current total to 772 eCards sent. The Loft has helped the people of Boden to feel more appreciated, included and valued, contributing to an impressive 20% increase in employee engagement over one year.

"In the past year, our employee engagement has risen significantly, which I have no doubt is down to our people feeling more appreciated and realising what benefits are available to them…all thanks to The Loft."

People Experience & Internal Communications Manager, Boden

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