Train, educate and communicate with a widespread workforce using mobile

Parkway Corporation is a leader in the industries of parking management and real estate development, and prides itself for its proven strategy for excellence in operations, development, acquisitions and support. The client is dedicated to innovation and technology to revolutionize the parking industry.

THE CHALLENGE

Parkway needed to find a mobile learning platform to solve a logistical organizational quandary.  “We have a few people at many places,” said Donald E. Hurford, Vice President of Human Resources. “We don’t have the luxury of training in a classroom environment.”

The client’s 500 management and hourly employees are scattered across 80 locations in nine cities in the U.S. and Canada. Many of the locations are parking lots and garages, where employees don’t have access to computers. Communication of policy, procedures and education was inconsistent. Hurford recalled a story told by a Parkway director: When five managers were asked the procedure for removing a vehicle from a parking lot, all five managers replied with a different answer. Only one was correct.

“We were trying to have consistency of response,” Hurford said. “The big ‘a-ha’ moment for me was when I was doing my fees analysis with my operations management. It dawned on me that information was just as important as training. If we could find a platform to keep important information on, which was accessible, that would solve a lot of problems.”

Additionally, Parkway wanted to simplify its operations processes and make it easier for administrative managers to perform various functions and shorten their workflows.

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THE SOLUTION

The client partnered with Engage by Cell to use the Mobile Web Authoring Platform and Text Messaging service. It now uses both to effectively communicate with management staff and plans to expand to communicate with hourly employees, providing both training, employment information and leadership communications. Parkway will share required employment and safety information using mobile and provide micro-training.  

“Instead of a classroom where employees are sitting down and learning a concept, we will send a link,” Hurford said. “If there’s a managers meeting with 10 managers, we might send them all a link with a specific training page on a particular topic. They will look at that content in advance of the management meeting. It’s the flipped classroom model, where you’re giving people the content before the classroom. In the classroom, they’re instead working through the applications.” Parkway is achieving its goals, he said.

THE RESULT

Engage by Cell has not only met Parkway’s planned goals and uses, but exceeded them.

“We found other applications for Engage by Cell,” Hurford explained. “We have leadership retreats. Boom! We can put together a page on a leadership retreat that is stocked with information for users. We have our surveys on it, we have interactive and team building things. Engage by Cell makes it really seem like a polished event. When you have pictures and videos and surveys all in one place, it helps raise the perception of the quality of your event.”

The client’s decision makers and users are satisfied with the benefits provided by Engage by Cell. It grants access to content to users that they would not otherwise have. Managers, meanwhile, have access to the real-time analytics dashboard that lets them see who is using the platform and when they are using it. A wider use incorporating all remaining employees is in development.

“Engage by Cell has had a strong face validity,” Hurford said. “As soon as people see it, they get what it does right away. [Parkway will] continue to evolve it.”