ZKE Saarbrücken is the central waste disposal company for Saarbrücken. More than two-thirds of the workforce is in the field every day, and only a few employees have regular access to desktop workstations.

This regularly presented the company with the challenge of organizing the flow of information to employees efficiently and reliably:

• Timely information to all employees was not possible.
• There was always a highly variable time lag in passing on information.
• Many processes involving employees were still completely paper-based.
• Internal communication used to take place via notices.
• The reverse flow of information was also manual and unstructured, so that employees also previously had no way to get in touch with their contacts at ZKE in an uncomplicated manner.

This meant, for example, that faults could not be reported promptly and processes were inefficient and time-consuming. This was compounded by the tightening of the DSGVO guidelines, which require greater data protection when using personal data.

With the onset of the Corona crisis in early March 2020, ZKE launched the piepZKE project. The need for a digital and social form of digital employee communication has existed for some time, but the need to now use such a solution for crisis communication accelerated the introduction and implementation process.

The goal of the project was to optimize internal communication with ZKE employees by enabling the company to communicate with them in a targeted, direct and digital manner.

This was implemented with the mobile intranet incl. employee app “piepZKE” based on PIIPE Workplace. The app raises internal communication and working methods to an innovative level, enabling ZKE and the respective departments to better reach each employee and at the same time improve the exchange among each other, i.e. social communication. It also enables employees* to access important work-related information and processes.

The “piepZKE” employee app makes all this information, tools and services available in a personalized and location-independent manner. Push messages actively inform employees as soon as relevant information is available. The exchange of information in the respective area and between the areas is promoted.

A special feature is that the individuality of the employees is also taken into account in the “piepZKE” app. Although all employees receive the mandatory information that is defined centrally, they can also configure their app according to their own wishes. For example, certain channels and functions can be subscribed to, the language and location version can be customized, and the order of display can be determined individually. In this way, an employee receives the information that is relevant to them.

Employees can access the mobile intranet from their cell phones (via app or mobile browser) just as they can from their PCs, or in group workrooms via the intranet. Whether via browser on the intranet or via app, the information is the same in both cases, but the app differs somewhat in handling and also provides the push information for employees who do not have company email and also do not want to make their private email available (this information is voluntary).

App and intranet were implemented within 3 weeks in a first expansion stage. In a second expansion stage, payrolls, time accounts, etc. can also be conveniently made available with it, so that this information can also be conveniently accessed by employees at any time. Absences such as illness and vacation will then also be requested and approved in just a few clicks. This saves valuable working time for all employees.

The project was commissioned at the end of March 2020 and went straight into implementation. The overall solution consisting of intranet and app was implemented step by step over several expansion stages.