From working with the FiftyEight team to customising the Just Good Work platform for their own workforce, The Summer Berry Company’s People & Culture Coordinator, Emma Smith, describes what an app to support workers has achieved for their company.
At The Summer Berry Company we have worked with the FiftyEight team to tailor our app to encompass everything we need our company to offer our workers, alongside the built in Just Good Work content. This includes company specific induction content, a smart system for registering with us, signing documents and our own guide for our workers to refer back to.
As a business that employs an average of 1000 seasonal and agency workers, the Just Good Work platform seemed like a great fit, both from a technical perspective and because of our shared ethos. We needed a technical solution that would improve workers’ experience from recruitment to onboarding by providing consistent, multiÂlingual engagement which enabled live feedback from workers in the UK. We also wanted it to help reduce our admin time and create a more seamless and consistent channel for communication.
The development of The Summer Berry Company app was a large project and we were impressed with the drive from FiftyEight to work with us to build something that really helps our business in many ways. One of our main aims for implementing the app as part of our induction and ongoing support processes is transparency for all our workers on the farm. We want to have a positive impact during the onboarding process and help people recognise we are an employer that strives for new ways of thinking and constant improvement. The platform enables us to cultivate the friendly and helpful environment we want to provide. We can now spend the arrival time greeting people and answering questions in person.
Moving to a digital platform was a big change and we were proud that our workers adapted well to using technology for the purposes intended. Beyond onboarding, we encourage our people to use the app as a guide to help them save time when they have queries, so the impact here is that they now have more avenues to turn to for information. Queries can be answered in a far more efficient way as an alternative to visiting the office during working hours.
With an app being so accessible, it means the wider business can download it too and find relevant, useful information to keep themselves or their teams informed. The app also helps us to promote ethical and safe recruitment to the farm. Our communications to the company as a whole regarding this project has helped spread this very important message. It is also exciting to be ahead of the curve in our industry by providing digital support.
