HR Team Cuts Confusion with Mobile Resource Hub

HVAC and plumbing product distributor Plumbing &Heating Wholesale, Inc.  was seeking an accessible platform that allows employees to access all HR, onboarding, and training information. Listen in as HR Manager Kelsey Meinders shares the solutions they have implemented via text messaging and mobile web app. Find the trascript below.

[00:00:00] Max Schelkopf: With Engage by Cell, and I have the privilege of being joined by Kelsey today, and Kelsey is with P & H Wholesale and where are you out of, which office location today, Kelsey? 

[00:00:18] Kelsey Meinders: I am in Sioux Falls, South Dakota today. 

[00:00:20] Max Schelkopf: All right, Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Excellent. So Kelsey and I are going to be kind of talking about how our platforms are utilized within an HR department and kind of the two platforms that Kelsey chose to, to utilize and kind of the advantages of it and why she chose to do so and kind of the outcomes that have been involved with adopting our platforms into her human resources department. So I'll go ahead and share my screen real quick. Let me get it pulled up. 1 second. Here we go. Sorry, one second. There we are. Boom. 

[00:01:06] Max Schelkopf: All right. So, can we see my screen? Good, Kelsey? 

[00:01:11] Kelsey Meinders: Yes. All good. 

[00:01:12] Max Schelkopf: All right. Perfect. All right. So again, we're going to be talking about kind of pulling back the curtain on the HR department for plumbing and heating wholesale and how they've adopted Engage by Cell’s platforms and what that looked like and what it takes to build it and why they did it, and kind of the ultimate outcomes and all the positive results from doing so.

[00:01:34] But again, my name is Max and I'm joined by Kelsey. We'll keep going here a little bit. So about Engage by Cell. So, We are a cloud-based tech company that started in the Bay Area, and we've since also created an office in Nashville, Tennessee. And we have many different platforms from text messaging and mobile web apps that get utilized in the training and HR and wayfinding and fundraising and many, many different things.

[00:02:01] And we have been in business for, I believe, it's over 15 years now. So, In the world of, you know, mobile device based technology that might as well be 100 years, right? I mean, we're going all the way back to flip phones pretty much. So a little bit about Engage by Cell. These are some of our current customers that utilize us in many, many different ways.

[00:02:23] Moving on, you want to tell us a little bit about P & H Wholesale, Kelsey? 

[00:02:27] Kelsey Meinders: Sure. Yep. So, Plumbing and Heating Wholesale was founded in Sioux Center, Iowa in 1979. And since then, we've grown to 10 locations. In Iowa, South Dakota and now Nebraska, and we have reached 100 employees across those 10 locations. And I am the HR manager for all 10 locations.

[00:02:48] So I get the pleasure of popping around to the different locations in the different states and dealing with Employees on a day-to-day basis for whatever it might be. And like I said, today I'm in South Dakota, but tomorrow, who knows? 

[00:03:03] Max Schelkopf: I will, maybe. I love hearing that you've been in business since, did you say 1970?

[00:03:11] Something, 1979. That's awesome. That's amazing. So the little platform introduction here that we're going to be talking about. So two main platforms, right, Kelsey? We have the text messaging platform and the mobile web app platform and text messaging platform. And I'm going to let you kind of talk on what your use case is, but you know, it has many different capabilities, both SMS and MMS.

[00:03:37] So that's just standard messaging. Like we get every day. And then MMS is multimedia. It's from like picture messaging, but. The big kind of key thing here is it has two way capabilities. So you can have inbound texting, you can have outbound from like a mass communication standpoint, and you can also have one on one engagement with those employees internally as well.

[00:03:59] [00:04:00] And I'm sure you'll probably talk about all your segmented lists that you can create to kind of departmentalize everybody and streamlining that kind of process. Now the mobile web app, That's my favorite. And Kelsey, you absolutely knocked it out of the park with yours, so I'm excited to share your example.

[00:04:17] The mobile web app, it has the look and feel and it acts like a normal native application that you would download from an app store. But what's the big advantage there, Kelsey? Huh? I'm putting you on the spot. The big advantage? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's 

[00:04:35] Kelsey Meinders: the biggest advantage by far, for sure. 

[00:04:37] Max Schelkopf: Yep. So like Kelsey said, the biggest advantage, there is no hard download required, so it's all URL based, so all that information can be instantly QR code or pushing out a clickable link in the text message and boom, there it is.

[00:04:56] So it's way less invasive and downloading the whole application and all that stuff. But really amazing tool for having all kinds of resources, text, pictures, videos, surveys, quizzes, all the, all the different forms of engagement that you would want to house within kind of an internal resource portal.

[00:05:13] Right. So I'm going to keep chugging along here. So I'll let you kind of talk about a little bit of the challenges and goals of why you started seeking out a platform for this. And, and just kind of an overview real quick before you dive in and, and correct me if I'm, I'm missing this Kelsey, but when I'm talking to HR departments.

[00:05:35] I feel like the main challenges here are, you know, employees are oftentimes mobile nowadays, right? So they're everywhere, all over at the same time. And so how do you engage with these individuals that don't have, you know, necessarily desktop computer all day long? And then obviously human resource departments have a bunch of different resources, right?

[00:05:58] And often they're all over the place. So we need to. kind of house them centrally and, and go from there, but I'll, I'll let you kind of talk about what started your search and, and how you ended up with us and things like that. So. 

[00:06:12] Kelsey Meinders: Yeah, absolutely. So it really kind of stemmed from Leadership coming to me and saying, we need something centralized.

[00:06:21] And that was about the extent of that conversation from there. They really gave me the freedom to figure out what centralized meant as far as communication was concerned, as far as a resource hub was concerned, as far as sharing things amongst departments was concerned. There was a few different variations of what they wanted things to be But outside of that, they really didn't have an idea.

[00:06:48] And it was just kind of posed to me to figure out what that might look like. And the, I think buzzword that they kept using for me was intranet, intranet, intranet, and I think the initial. Thought process for them was maybe we go the route of like Microsoft SharePoint or something like that. And I have nothing negative to say about Microsoft SharePoint, but that still didn't in my mind, answer a lot of the questions or the hurdles that they were presenting of what do we do with drivers when they're on the road?

[00:07:18] What do we do with warehouse individuals who are back and forth on a forklift and don't necessarily have a laptop or a tablet sitting in front of them all the time, but they do. Always have their phones. And so the one thing that kind of stuck with me was that mobile application piece, but outside of that, I really didn't know what I was looking for until I got to go to a conference in October of last year.

[00:07:43] And I saw Engage by Cell presented in one of those conference breakouts and it was the mobile application site and the text messaging that was demoed for us. And at that point, I still didn't know what it was. Would look like for us, but I really kept coming back to it as, I think that this is something viable that we can make work.

[00:08:03] And so then that's when I reached out to engage myself directly to set up my own demo and from there kind of just self fabricated itself, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. So those were our biggest hurdles having you know, Microsoft SharePoint or some sort of intranet. Maybe would have been a solution, but it still didn't help us for some of those bigger factors of not every individual in all 10 of our locations are sitting in front of a computer of any sort at any given point during the day, let alone long enough to be able to sit and do trainings or sit and do any sort of interactive module that we push out to them.

[00:08:43] So there was, there was that barrier that I knew we needed to have included in our solution. And, and so this proved to be the best case scenario for us. And it came in that form of the mobile web app and using the text messaging for the communication piece. 

[00:09:00] Max Schelkopf: And with the communication side of things, I know you, you told me previously the email was kind of the primary means and, and, and can you tell us a little bit about what the challenges were with the email?

[00:09:15] And again, email can be checked on the phone, but a lot of these employees, I think you even had a. I had a quote from you that they didn't even know what their email was. Oh, yeah. 

[00:09:26] Kelsey Meinders: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and still to this day, just last night, I received another email from an employee's wife saying, Oh, he doesn't know how to log into his email.

[00:09:37] So I mean, it's not anything new. And I could do training on logging into email until my face is blue. But that doesn't change the fact that they want to or even choose to. To learn how to do that. And so, yeah, not even knowing how to access and or get logged into their email was an even bigger factor in the one [00:10:00] sole avenue that we had for communication across all branches.

[00:10:03] And at that point it was just email. And so again, we needed something that could. Give that push notification, if you will, rather than just having to log into an email to find the communication piece and the text messaging absolutely did that for us.

[00:10:21] Max Schelkopf: Exactly. And, and kind of statistically speaking to before we move on just real quick, little factoid about the text messaging and.

[00:10:30] And I hear HR professionals, training professionals, workforce development, all kinds of recruiters. I mean, everybody needs to add text messaging kind of to their tool belt because everybody is facing the same challenges that you are of. You know, if you're getting an open read respond rate of 10 percent 15 percent even internally, you're, you're killing it, you know, versus text messaging as a 95 percent open read respond rate and not only are the employees more likely to open and read those email or text messages rather than the email.

[00:11:08] They're going to do it much faster to, you know, and it's, it's not that you know, unheard of an or unfathomable statistic. I mean, if we look even on my personal phone right here, I mean, just in the little time that we've been talking right now, I have. almost 6, 000 unread emails, my personal gmail, and I have one text message from my mom since we've been talking right now.

[00:11:33] So, you know, everybody's checking those text messages, they're reading them much faster, and they're going to respond. So those are kind of the challenges there, but we'll jump along here real quick. So just with the text messaging from kind of your specific. Use case, I kind of want to hear how, you know, you started the process internally with your employees and, and what, you know, text messages are you [00:12:00] sending and how are you breaking down your lists internally, those kinds of things.

[00:12:04] So how did you kick off texting internally with your employees? 

[00:12:08] Kelsey Meinders: Yeah, so the text messaging piece was really easy to get leadership on board with as far as a communication option, just because it's hard to argue with those statistics, right? It's hard to argue that everybody has a phone on them at some given point in time.

[00:12:25] And even if it's not a smartphone, You can receive a text message. So that was a really easy buy-in from a leadership standpoint, which made it even easier for me to then get it in front of employees. And so what I ultimately ended up doing initially was I included both the text messaging and the app in our annual State of the company meeting that we have every year in January.

[00:12:50] And I was able to present on it for gosh, 10, 15 minutes of showing different applications of how we would use it, how it would impact their own device and what it would look like to have a message coming in versus sending a message out and how they would be able to utilize it on their day to day. And then ultimately just encouraging them to sign up for those different.

[00:13:12] List segmentations that I did create. So on the grand scale, I have just a PHW opt in option for a company wide notification, but then I also broke it down by both location and job description. So drivers would get a specific description versus inside sales or counter sales would get a different description than our territory managers.

[00:13:38] And so. Depending on location, depending on job type, managers could utilize the, the text messaging for those specific job areas or location areas, or it could go company wide and, and giving individuals the opportunity to, to opt into those different list options, I [00:14:00] think has really helped in that regard.

[00:14:01] And some of the examples of those text messages are right there on that screen. Those are literally. messages that I sent out at one point or another for something to access different things, whether it's a newsletter, giving them an update on W2 status or, or letting them know that we had something coming up.

[00:14:21] That's, that's my go to. Something goes out at least monthly, if not more frequently in that regard.

[00:14:28] Max Schelkopf: That's fantastic. And, and I've seen a lot with HR. I mean, and it can be as simple as like one of the big challenges with one of my customers is just open enrollment, you know, I mean, things like that, like, Hey, I need to get every and it's things with time crunches, right?

[00:14:45] So with open enrollment, there's a deadline. And if we miss that deadline, we're in trouble. So 

[00:14:51] Speaker 4: having the 

[00:14:51] Max Schelkopf: ability to push that, I like the way you said, you know, push notification earlier, you can push that and you know, they're getting it and they're reading it versus is that email lost in Max's inbox and has been for the last three weeks, or he doesn't even know his email, you know, versus, Hey, I know.

[00:15:09] Max got that open enrollment notification. He needs to get his butt in gear and get it done, right? 

[00:15:14] Kelsey Meinders: Yes. 

[00:15:16] Max Schelkopf: I like that. 

[00:15:17] Kelsey Meinders: Yes. And not everybody wants to sign up initially and not everybody did sign up initially. So I still continue to encourage via other means, people signing up. I even have these little posters.

[00:15:30] In every single break room and lunchroom that we've gotten all of our locations. So I'm constantly putting it in front of their face. 

[00:15:40] Max Schelkopf: I think I think you had mentioned you kind of are starting to integrate it into the onboarding process as well. So it's front and center as soon as you're hired at P & H Wholesale.

[00:15:50] It's, hey, this is how Kelsey is going to get ahold of you with all the important information updates and things like that. So you're doing, you're checking all the boxes, Kelsey. That's exactly what [00:16:00] we advise people to do is. You know, put that QR code in that call to action like you have on a flyer and make it as accessible as possible.

[00:16:08] And then also incorporate it in the onboarding process and continue as you go along to get people to enroll, right? So you're doing all the, all the things. So we'll keep moving here. So if anybody on the call wants to try out the text messaging real quick, you can text demo webinar to five, six, five, one, two.

[00:16:29] where you can scan that QR code and you'll get a little text message back saying thank you for joining us and I'll do it real quick. And then after the webinar, I'll send everybody a little text, just thanking you. And if you want any additional information, then we can definitely get something set up like Kelsey did when she started her search, but keep going here.

[00:16:54] So the resource hub for P & H Wholesale. So this is your. Your golden ticket right here, Kelsey. I love what you did with your, your mobile web app. And if anybody wants to see a kind of a stripped down version of, of what Kelsey built, just because there was a little proprietary information on there, but you can go ahead and scan that QR code and it will pop up the mobile web app that we've been discussing here during this call just about plumbing and heating wholesale's mobile web app and what Kelsey built.

[00:17:24] So if you want to tell us what are, what are some of the resources that are on this application?

[00:17:32] Kelsey Meinders: It kind of started with what are the main pieces of information that I feel like we're constantly trying to throw out there and get in front of employees. And it's just kind of expanded from there.

[00:17:43] So I have everything in there from. Background information on our leadership team to new hire information with our core values, all of the exterior training sites that we utilize either directly with our LMS or with more industry specific training. I have linked in there any sort of potential site that our sales teams would need as far as third party applications are concerned shipping information.

[00:18:12] All of it's in there for them. I have linked the time clock that hourly individuals use so they can go and indirectly punch in and out from the app itself. I have an internal directory for every single location. It has a photo of the individual. It has their direct Office line as well as their extension and their email and they can select a button and directly call or email right from that directory itself.

[00:18:42] I have our updated employee handbook in there that I utilize for onboarding purposes. I've started to include our newsletters and have them come out through the app as well. And then I even have a A function for featured policies that we put in place and we test individuals on every once in a while, when a new featured policy comes out to see if they're reading the policy, understanding the policy and making sure that there's no big gaps in understanding as far as those policies are concerned.

[00:19:12] And then the last thing that I see is listed in there, I have included a recognition program that we created called P and H high fives and the high fives. Yeah, the high fives are a little play on words. We have five core values. And so this high five application that I have embedded into the app allows individuals at any given point, if they see somebody doing something great for PNH, they can go in and nominate somebody and attach it to a core value and, you know, Tell us a little bit about them and then they get a shout out in their weekly meeting.

[00:19:46] And then they also get put into a bucket where if you earn five high fives and you get a 25 gift card. 

[00:19:54] Max Schelkopf: Amazing. So how many, do you have all, do you have all five high-fives yet, Kelsey? 

[00:20:01] Kelsey Meinders: I would like to think so, but no, I don't. 

[00:20:04] Max Schelkopf: We're going to have to work on that. Yes. I mean, you put everything in the kitchen sink in this, in this resource for all the employees.

[00:20:13] Kelsey Meinders: It is literally a kitchen sink, if you will.

[00:20:15] Max Schelkopf: Yeah, I need to give you some recognition because this is an amazing resource for everybody. And I know some of these are pretty obvious, but what is like, why did you choose some of these, like Lincoln out your, all your different kinds of, I know you said time clock and your LMS and what was kind of the, the procedure for accessibility before this mobile web app, because you have, you know, several different platforms linked out. So you're really putting it all under one roof here. And what did that process look like beforehand and how did this improve and things like that? 

[00:20:51] Kelsey Meinders: Well, beforehand, it was not pretty. And I will tell you the amount of individuals who Couldn't remember where something was located or where to go for a certain site, or they accidentally deleted their bookmark or something along those lines.

[00:21:08] I, it was a constant battle. And so, and I even found some individuals were writing down their logins and like leaving it right next to their computer. I'm like, Oh, please don't do that. So we were just trying to figure out in any given position in the company, what are the most visited sites. What do people need to access throughout their day?

[00:21:32] Can we put it all into one spot? And I have, I have successfully put everything into one spot with the set. I've done it. And, and so it, it really just depends on what they need and not every part of the business needs all of those different icons or, or different spots, but they at least can find it in one spot and they can bookmark it on their phone and they can bookmark it on their desktop.

[00:21:56] And it's really, really easy for them. 

[00:21:58] Max Schelkopf: Excellent point. [00:22:00] So like we've said, you know, you built the whole kitchen sink here. What was the building process of creating this? Was it super, you know, what'd it look like? Was it difficult to build things like that, you know? 

[00:22:13] Kelsey Meinders: Yeah, no, it was not difficult at all.

[00:22:15] I, I'm a really hands-on person and so the second I was able to get in, I just started messing around with the different settings and, and what the, the. visibility, the look and feel of it would look like. And this wasn't my first variation of it. I had changed those icons quite a few times. But it was just a matter of figuring out what I wanted it to be because you have a lot of different options within the app.

[00:22:43] You can attach actual articles of things, you can attach videos, you can attach Websites or external links. There's a lot of different variations on what you can do within it. So it was really just a matter of rolling on my sleeves and getting my hands on it and figuring out what I wanted it to look and feel like for an employee who's picking it up and doing it from there.

[00:23:05] Max Schelkopf: Did you have to use your software engineering degree at all? Or was it a technical aspect? 

[00:23:12] Kelsey Meinders: Very, very simple. It's literally a drag and drop to kind of build and make it look real. Like you want it to look, you've got all of the options up at the top and you drop them in and you manipulate it down at the bottom where you're building essentially, and it gives you a live view right on the side of what you're adding or what you're tweaking to, to see if that's what you want it to be.

[00:23:34] Max Schelkopf: That's a great point, Kelsey, too, because. You know, no it involved is obviously an enormous advantage. I, myself am not a software engineer, you know, by no stretch of the imagination. So the ability to drag and drop content building, but also you, you touched on it there, you know, as you make changes, because this thing is living, breathing, it's changing with what your company's needs are and all those things are new programs [00:24:00] you're adapting.

[00:24:00] You know, all of your changes, like you said, are made on the fly, and they're live instantly if you choose them to make that way, so it's not, you know, a big long process of reaching out to the developer and getting that approved and all that stuff. It's really a lot less time consuming as far as, you know, Purchase date to launch date there's, you know, that's really in your hands to make it go quickly.

[00:24:24] And from, it sounds like, you know, it's in your case, especially it wasn't a big, heavy lift, but 

[00:24:29] Kelsey Meinders: no, no, it was a fun lift. If anything, I probably spent way too much time playing around with it, but you know, you gotta have fun.

[00:24:39] Max Schelkopf: So you're saying this is a little more exciting than doing payroll and things like that.

[00:24:44] Kelsey Meinders: Maybe just a little, maybe just a little 

[00:24:47] Max Schelkopf: Good. Good. So we'll keep going here. So just kind of wrap it up and we'll have some time for questions at the end here. But just kind of the overall outcomes and the positive results that you experience from adopting Engage by Cell’s platforms within your HR department.

[00:25:03] And I'll let you kind of touch the real quick. A little high points there, and then we'll, we'll allow for questions if anybody has any, and then we'll be, we'll be onto the next project, Kelsey. 

[00:25:15] Kelsey Meinders: Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, I've had really great feedback. I haven't had a single person tell me. It's not something that they find valuable or useful or, or that they don't enjoy having the access to both the text messaging and the app itself.

[00:25:30] So I think overall, that's just a win in and of itself. Cause how many times do you implement something and you don't hear negative feedback? I think that that's pretty rare. It's a win. A lot of people will, I find if they are enrolled in the text messaging and they get a text message and they're around somebody who isn't, they're like, Oh, what, what'd you just get there?

[00:25:50] And then they become more interested in actually being involved with the text messaging and that sort of thing. So I think it's easy to see other people [00:26:00] enjoying it and it. Kind of spreads organically from that. The biggest plus I, you touched on it earlier is not having to physically download an app because it's web based and it's that instantaneous update.

[00:26:14] That's a big plus. I had a lot of individuals who they first heard the word app and they were like, Hmm, I'm not going to download that to my phone. Thank you. And. That's the beauty of it. You don't have to, it's not something that takes up any space on your phone as far as that's concerned. And so it was an easier sell in that regard as well.

[00:26:35] And I find that plenty of people use it all the time. I'll randomly check the stats just to see what kind of traffic and I'll be surprised every single time, just because, Oh, a lot of people checked it today for something. They needed some sort of access to something and. It always surprises me for whatever reason.

[00:26:55] I'm not sure why, because that's what I want them to do, but it's enjoyable to see it actually utilized and employees actually finding value in it. 

[00:27:04] Max Schelkopf: And for a company of 100 employees, I mean, you know, you're, you're a medium sized company. You're not a super small mom and pop or anything. And, and, you know, but I mean, when you're seeing thousands of page views, you know, it's getting utilized for sure.

[00:27:19] So that's always an amazing kind of accomplishment there. And one last thing I just wanted to kind of touch base on with the success story of it all is, is not only the views like you had mentioned, but just, I have to imagine, I have to ask you when, you know, you implemented this, has your amount of kind of calls directly to you, just asking you little mundane questions.

[00:27:45] Cause I know that's something that all HR individuals get, you know, how many phone calls a day, have you seen those kind of You know, Hey, what about this? What about that? Those kinds of questions. Have you seen those kinds of decline a little bit? [00:28:00]

[00:28:00] Kelsey Meinders: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that that's a big piece of it is those mundane kind of day to day.

[00:28:09] Oh, I forgot where this is. Oh, I don't know where that is. Can go to it and kind of poke around and. I would say eight times out of 10, they can ultimately find what they're looking for that I don't get that phone call. There's still the 20%. I'll leave it out there. There's always something. There's always something.

[00:28:28] So it's not a, it's not a perfect fix, but it does impact, I think, a substantial amount of those, you know, more tedious, smaller inquiries that you have to stop your day for and try to help somebody navigate. So yes, 

[00:28:44] Max Schelkopf: we'll keep your moving and Q and A session time here. I see. Chris has a couple of questions in there.

[00:28:52] If employees use their phone, are you required to provide partial reimbursement? I know it's kind of dependent, Chris, on what the use case is and what state they're in. I know different states have different regulations. Kelsey, do you have any insight on that? 

[00:29:09] Kelsey Meinders: You're, you're right. There are some certain regulations in place where we're at.

[00:29:14] That's not necessarily the case. We have explored whether or not we want to include that as part of our benefits package. At this time we don't, but it might be something that we are going to look at and explore down the road, maybe just to help encourage some of the participation in it. It's not at 100 percent, although I would love it to be.

[00:29:37] Max Schelkopf: And I think that's, that's a good point to Kelsey and Chris, it's, it's, it's an opt in for the testing. So, you know, the whole goal is to make the employee’s life simpler and easier. Right? So it's, it's one of those things, you know, they're, They're electively choosing to be a part of this, but they're going to electively choose to do it because it's much better.

[00:30:02] It's much simpler. Yeah. And, and I see he has a question, Chris, again, about use a LMS system for safety training, of course. And you can build all kinds of. Safety training and different applications within the mobile web app as well, but that's something I could definitely dive into you with more detail there, Chris.

[00:30:21] But if anybody else has any questions, feel free to put them in there. We'll wait another minute or two. And then if not I just want to say thank you for everybody who attended today and a big thank you to you Kelsey for joining us. I know I, I started off by saying it's been a long time coming.

[00:30:39] We've been talking about doing this for months, I feel like now. So it finally happened. And I want to say thank you for that. And thank you for building such an awesome mobile web app. 

[00:30:48] Kelsey Meinders: Yeah. I mean, that's all you. I just felt what was there. 

[00:30:55] Max Schelkopf: All right. Well, all right. I don't see any other, Oh, we got one more coming in.

[00:31:02] Setup process. I can definitely get a hold of you, Chris, about that. So don't worry and I'll get a hold of you. But if there isn't any other questions. I think we're good to go. Well, thank you again, Kelsey, and have a wonderful weekend, everybody. We got one more day and then we made it. So, thank you for your time and looking forward to talking to everybody soon.

[00:31:26] Kelsey Meinders: Thanks Max.