The Go-Ahead Group has invested in a new cloud based management platform to capture new innovations across its 26,000 employees throughout 11 different bus and rail operating companies.
The transport operator, which sees more than one billion journeys take place across its service each year, is aiming to find and implement ideas and innovations across its business.
The company will be using Wazoku’s Idea Spotlight SaaS platform, which allows organisations to create internal or external communities for ideas, innovation, feedback and insight. The Group will be building a more collaborative system across its bus and rail operating companies.
Enrique Fernandez-Pino, Group IT and Strategy Director, The Go-Ahead Group, says:
“We’re committed to listening to employees and improving services for our customers and this new platform compliments these aims. Who knows a business better than the people that make it work – and providing a new structured way for employees to share and collaborate on ideas will help us to continually innovate.”
The announcement comes after a successful pilot scheme was implemented with train operating company Southeastern in 2014. The scheme saw hundreds of ideas submitted from just under 4,000 employees. The pilot resulted in new energy saving and cost-cutting ideas, as well as team-based initiatives such as reducing the risk of staff fatigue.
Go-Ahead realised the need to share innovative ideas across individual, independent operating companies but faced challenges of a geographically dispersed workforce without an effective way to work in partnership with ideas.
Wazoku’s Idea Spotlight – a scalable, could-based system – addresses this challenge. It allows each Go-Ahead operating company’s employees to discuss, develop and vote on ideas and can be used to increase employee engagement, improve service to customers and solve further challenges across the group.
Simon Hill, CEO of Wazoku, says:
“This is an enterprise-scale deployment of Wazoku, and shows again how Idea Spotlight has become the go-to platform for any organisation that is serious about innovation. Providing employees with the right tools to capture ideas is a key component of creating an innovation culture and we’re sure The Go-Ahead Group will see improved employee engagement, as well as ideas that will shape the way it operates.”
Wazuko was founded in 2011 and is one of the fastest growing B2B start-ups. It is already active in more than 20 countries and other UK customers include Aviva, The University of Oxford and Anglican Water.
Amie Filcher is an editorial assistant at HRreview.
