How CloudTalk Uses Officely to Increase Office Attendance

As a cloud-based telecommunication software, CloudTalk is all about improving the lives of its customers.

The software allows you to deliver exceptional customer support and will fully adapt to the needs and size of your business. You can manage all of your calls from one place, and it’s easy to use, adaptable, and integration-based.

It’s no surprise that as a people-first software, Cloudtalk also has a people-first approach to running its business.

Initially, the company was looking for a way to understand its office usage. The priority now, however, is encouraging employees to make use of those offices through Officely’s range of features. 

“Nothing replicates the connection of seeing people in person,” Esme Fegan, Cloudtalk’s Office Operations Lead explains. “We have four beautiful offices, people should benefit from them.” 

Challenge: Encourage Employees to Make Use of Offices

Once it was clear that CloudTalk’s offices made financial sense, Esme started to use the app for a different purpose; increasing attendance.

“It’s not about the finances of it anymore, it’s about building connection and collaboration as a remote-first team. I want employees to feel like they belong here.

“People don’t recognize how much working from home can impact your mental health. Of course, you can work from the sofa or stay in your pajamas. But if you have nothing to leave the house for and you don’t have a routine, you’ll wake up one morning and realize you haven’t seen another person for days.

“It’s a really hard habit to break.” 

As an international team, not everybody has direct access to an office. But for those who do, Esme’s made it her mission to create an environment people want to go into. 

“I knew that I needed to come up with events and ideas to incentivize people to make the journey into the office, and I needed a way to make sure they were on everyone’s radar.”

Esme quickly realized she already had access to the only tool she needed to achieve this.

Solution: Show People What’s Happening to Incentivize Attendance

Officely is a visibility tool for employees to see who’s in and what’s happening in the office. 

We’ve found that the more people booked into an office day, the more likely people are to join. And that’s exactly what Esme found too.

“People want to see people. Although getting out of the house is great, it’s much more incentivizing to come in if you know you’ll see some friendly faces.”

Esme used Officely to start getting those initial bookings, through features such as Officely FM, Office Extras, and Announcements.

Phase One: Start Broadcasting Initiatives and Office Perks

First, Esme came up with initiatives that she felt people would benefit from. She wanted to make them consider attending the office when they previously hadn’t planned to. 

“We’re never going to be a business that insists our employees come in on X amount of days each week, it’s just not a direction we want to go in. 

“We want to build a culture where people choose to come in. So, we have Fruity Tuesday, where we supply fruit for the team all day, we have monthly Thursday brunches, we host barbecues and team drinks…

“...You name it, we’ve probably hosted it at one of our offices.” 

With a fluctuating number of people coming and going from the office, Esme has to make sure anything that needs ordering accurately reflects the number of people attending.

“All I ask is that if they plan to attend one of the events, they book in via Officely so I can see who will be there at the start of each week and order accordingly.” 

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CloudTalk has set up Officely to broadcast what’s happening the following week each Friday. 

That way, everybody has the opportunity to view the week’s events, see who’s booked in, and decide what they do and don’t want to attend. 

But it’s not just the events themselves that people come in for.

“The number one thing I’ve realized is that it’s so much more than just the events themselves, it’s ‘Who is in the office that I want to meet up with?’.

“People come into the office to catch up with their friends, to head out for post-work wine… the initiatives are a great way to encourage attendance, but it’s the people themselves that make it work.

“The social aspect really does transform team culture and morale. It’s amazing to see people being so collaborative, and building relationships beyond CloudTalk.” 

By recognizing the impact increasing attendance has on performance and team morale, Esme decided to create an event schedule in-line with the most popular office days.

Phase Two: Use Insights to Curate CloudTalk’s Office Schedule

Any employee will tell you that some days are worse than others when it comes to traveling into the office (we’re looking at you, Monday). 

The reality is, if you have a remote-first hybrid work model, there are going to be days of the week when it’s easier to encourage people into the office.

“It just makes so much more sense to put our resources into the days people actually come in. 

“Because so many employees are basing their decision to attend on their coworkers, we quickly realized that the best way to increase attendance was to use the most popular office days.”

Esme uses Office Insights to understand attendance trends and adapt her weekly initiatives.

“At the end of each month, I export the Officely Insights report and use it to help plan the month ahead. 

“For example, I might find that Thursday is incredibly popular, while Friday isn’t. I can then plan more events for Thursdays, knowing that people will be more willing to come in and benefit from it.”

Results: Employees Want to Come into the Office! 

Esme uses Officely to overcome one of the biggest challenges in the hybrid workplace: making people attend the office when they don’t have to.

With Officely’s visibility features, she’s successfully created a workplace where nobody wants to get FOMO.

“For us, the most valuable feature of Officely is that it shows people what they’re missing out on. 

“It shows the exciting events happening each week, it shows who’s going to be there, and it makes you stop and think ‘Wait, I don’t want to miss out on that’.”

By listening to employees’ needs and recognizing their attendance patterns, Esme has successfully created a remote-first hybrid work model while maintaining four active physical offices across Europe. 

If you’re a business struggling to encourage employees back into the office, find out how Officely could help you.