Most organizations use some form of workplace collaboration tool, but how many measure its impact on business outcomes? We asked Andrea La Mendola, COO at HyperloopTT, precisely this question. HyperloopTT is a company looking to bring 1300 KMPH hyperloop transport into the market. Read how the company leveraged Workplace by Facebook to turbo-charge its business.
We’ve been pushed into an era when online workplace collaboration is no longer a buzzword. It is a necessity. If they haven’t already, employers are increasingly looking to leverage cutting-edge tools to help their distributed workforce communicate better.
A studyOpens a new window of over 5 million workers around the globe found that video, screen sharing, and other tech tools are popular across a variety of workplace collaboration scenarios. What’s more, the average meeting is likely to last for a significant 39.4 minutes – underscoring the importance of these tools that enable seamless collaboration across geographies.
One of the world’s most popular collaboration tools is Workplace by Facebook. In 2019, Workplace crossed the 3 million paying usersOpens a new window milestone (leaving behind competitors like Slack, who had 100,000Opens a new window paid customers as of 2019).
What makes Workplace by Facebook a favorite among distributed workforces today? How can it help organizations streamline workplace collaboration? To delve deeper, we spoke with Andrea La MendolaOpens a new window , chief operating officer at Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HyperloopTT), to discuss the company’s Workplace by Facebook success story.
About HyperloopTT and Its Unique Workplace Collaboration Requirements
HyperloopTT is a growth-focused company, known for its bleeding-edge innovations in the transportation sector. It was envisioned as a research firm to bring the hyperloop concept of mobility to life – as envisaged by Elon Musk – based on crowdsourced ideas and contributions.
Recently, HyperloopTT has strengthened its brandOpens a new window with a set of new strategy guidelines and a renewed focus on the capabilities of its workforce. This renewed focus makes collaboration critical, connecting its 800+ employees (and additional contributors) around the world.
Collaboration at HyperloopTT isn’t just about maintaining business as usual (BAU). The company is working towards a highly ambitious project – 1300 km per hour floating pod transportation with a capacity of 15 million passengers per year.
Speaking exclusively to HR Technologist, Mendola tells us: “HyperloopTT moves quickly. In our business, our hiring, and the transportation system we’re creating. It’s imperative that our team is able to communicate and collaborate as efficiently as possible to keep pace with our needs.
“When it comes to connecting our global, distributed workforce, there is no other tool that allows us to collaborate and streamline processes as Workplace does.â€
Why Workplace by Facebook Makes Perfect Sense for HyperloopTT
Previously, the company used Slack for its daily collaboration requirements, but they decided to switch as it grew fast and needed a highly layered workplace collaboration platform.
“We have almost 300 different Workplace groups that allow countless combinations of teams to communicate meaningfully across the globe, even in different languages,†said Mendola.
Several features made Workplace the ideal solution for HyperloopTT’s collaboration needs:
1. A social media-like interface
Given that Facebook is the world’s most popular social media platform (and nearly all of us use it/have used it), Workplace’s UI is familiar. It has a low barrier to entry for users across cultures, languages, and countries of origin.
“Our team took to Workplace quickly because it’s a complete solution that works seamlessly for our global teams distributed across many different time zones,†Mendola told us.
2. A massive library of integrations and languages
It can integrate with all the platforms you need to simplify workplace collaboration, including G-suite, Office 365, Dropbox, and 50+ other enterprise tools.
“We were attracted to Workplace because of how easy it makes working cross-functionally,†mentioned Mendola. Multilingual capabilities was another factor, as Workplace supports almost every popular language and can even translate speech into 46 languages instantly (in contrast, Slack is available in 8 languages/dialects as on dateOpens a new window ).
3. A keen focus on security
Security is an area where HyperloopTT couldn’t afford any compromise, given the confidential nature of its intellectual property and agreements with governmental agencies like NASA.
To address this, Workplace follows different security standards than consumer-facing Facebook – it has all the industry-standard security certifications like SOC2, SOC3, ISO27001, and ISO27018.
Christine Trodella, head of America, Workplace by Facebook, told us, “Additionally, all of Workplace’s integrations have been subjected to an external, independent security audit as well as met our high internal standards.â€
4. The ability to create and prioritize posts
Workplace lets you create posts and even mark them as “important,†so that they reach every member of your organization. Once again, the sheer familiarity of it makes features like Posts and Groups accessible.
“It’s important for us to have the ability to create posts in Workplace Groups so we can keep track of shared information across different time zones and teams,†Mendola added.
The Benefits of Using a Secure 360-degree Workplace Collaboration Tool
Workplace by Facebook brings together essentials such as HD video calls, workplace chat, and mobile communication on a single platform. In addition, it has a wide range of value-added functions, such as an organizational chart to help distributed teams figure out the right person to talk to about a workplace issue.
It even has auto-translate, breaking down any linguistic barriers to workplace collaboration for globally distributed teams.
And for companies looking to maximize productivity like HyperloopTT was, its workflow automation capabilities come in handy. Workplace’s bots let users define specific automations that can help in their daily work schedules.
All of this has made a vast difference to HyperloopTT’s business outcomes.
“We started testing on the world’s first full-scale Hyperloop system in Toulouse, France, which would have been impossible without our contributors on the frontline. Also, collaborative posts within groups on Workplace have led the company to form relationships, acquire technology from, or create agreements with organizations like NASA, AWS, and more. Workplace is where communication happens, and it’s part of what’s helped us scale and succeed so quickly,†commented Mendola.
Finally, the data shared and stored on Workplace is protected by stringent privacy regulations. Trodella of Workplace by Facebook tells us, “Facebook acts as the data processor, and our customers act as the data controller. So, our customers retain all rights, title, and interest (including intellectual property rights) to their data.â€
Reimagining Workplace Collaboration for a Brand New Team Structure
Companies like HyperloopTT challenge the traditional notion of teams.
No single leader and team members sit in a closed room, sharing ideas in a restrictive space. Instead, team structures are becoming increasingly more social, sometimes inviting contributions from a stakeholder located on the opposite side of the globe. This has undoubtedly been integral to HyperloopTT’s success.
Given the recent outbreak of COVID-19, distributed teams have become the norm. In fact, if this work-from-home experiment succeeds, it could become a permanent feature across several organizations.
We expect platforms like Workplace by Facebook to help organizations in reimagining collaboration, combining business productivity with employees’ ease of access, as we enter a new era of work.