Introduction:

Challenges:

• Aggressive Timeline: Our client required that the platform be in place and operational for all remote employees within three months of the contract being awarded.
• Last-Minute Need for Hoteling Space for All Remote Employees: Three weeks after the project had started, Leadership decided that a hoteling floor needed to be made immediately available for all remote employees until their assigned floor was ready. This timing change required that we quickly pivot to configure and enable desks, offices, and conference rooms for over 1,000 employees.
• In-Flight Office Reconfiguration: Engineering and construction projects were running in parallel to the Envoy deployment, forcing ETI to develop a unique solution that accounted for ever-evolving vendor deliverables and changing timelines.
• Changing Health Guidelines: Adhering to ever-changing health guidelines required specific planning with the flexibility to change as the health guidelines evolved.
• Employee Adoption: Employees were hesitant to return to the office amid the pandemic. A comprehensive adoption management strategy was paramount to ensure employee adoption of the platform.
• Expansion Beyond Headquarters: After our initial deployment, our client asked ETI to deploy Envoy at four additional locations with different stakeholders and different degrees of construction.

Approach:

• Aggressive Timeline: To meet the three-month deadline, we employed a wave-based, iterative implementation that would allow us to scale up the number of employees and suites.
• Last-Minute Need for Hoteling Space for all Remote Employees: The change in timing required that we quickly pivot to configure and enable desks, offices, and conference rooms for over 1,000 employees on a temporary hoteling floor. We also fast-tracked creating training material that could be available to all employees.
• In-Flight Office Reconfiguration: We established bi-weekly meetings with the space management point of contact and our stakeholders to stay informed of changes to the construction schedule. We created a detailed schedule, deliverables, and dependencies document to track what was needed and when for each suite, updated in real-time in each meeting. 
• Changing Health Guidelines: ETI partnered with our SMEs to craft health surveys that were published in Envoy. These surveys could be quickly updated to address changing guidelines.
• Employee Adoption: We partnered with the Communications and Future of Work teams to create and implement an adoption management strategy based on our best practices. This strategy included training videos, feature-based snippets, training manuals, quick start guides, announcements in Envoy, and office signage.
• Expansion Beyond Headquarters: Leveraging our relationship as a trusted IT partner, we directly collaborated with subject matter experts and stakeholders, allowing the internal IT team to focus on their core priorities.

Impact:

• Successful Migration: Aligning with the customer’s aggressive timeline, Phase 1 was successfully deployed in February 2022. This allowed for a safe and flexible return to work for over 1,000 employees.
• Support Staff Training: Help desk and IT staff were trained to provide seamless support, enhancing user experience and issue resolution.
• Additional Roll-out: Phase 2 expansion to four locations occurred smoothly during the summer of 2022, indicating the scalability and adaptability of the implemented solution and meeting our client’s timeline and goals for return-to-office.
• Managed Services: Our client continues to engage ETI for assistance in leveraging Envoy to address business needs. This involves ongoing support, refinement, and expansion of the Envoy platform, further enhancing workplace flexibility for our client’s employees.