Picture perfect communication and collaboration at HOYTS

From an HR Perspective, particularly working in an environment with so many teenage employees, I really expected a lot more red flags, but we have been incredibly lucky to have had very few instances of inappropriate content. Our view on this from the very start was quite simple and echoed our core values — if you are the most senior person in any group, you are the moderator of that content, and you are responsible for ensuring it is work-appropriate. Touch wood, no major issues to date!

Team members across all cinemas can now easily access company updates from HQ in company-wide groups or in the News Feed. They can also get in touch instantly via Workplace Chat. The Workplace mobile app makes it easy for frontline employees to stay in the loop by viewing updates and messages on their mobile devices from wherever they are.

Beyond sharing news and updates, Workplace has become a central collaboration hub. Employees share tips, best practices, and fun ideas through team and cinema wide groups. One of the most popular discussions among these groups revolves around promotional ideas for movie launches and merchandising in cinemas – employees who would otherwise never have had the opportunity to raise their ideas in front of a large audience can now put forward suggestions to the wider community as well as get feedback and encouragement from their colleagues. This allows HOYTS to cultivate a culture of innovation, consistency, and superior customer service across cinemas.

More than improving processes at HOYTS, Workplace has quickly become the go-to channel for employees to learn more about each other. This sense of community has boosted team morale and established a stronger, more productive culture within the business.

Our senior leaders, and particularly our CEO, have a direct line to communicate openly with our broader teams both on what we are working on, as well as having visibility at a site level that we haven’t previously had. It gives a level of transparency to our culture that we had always hoped was there, but seeing the validation of the way our teams work together to truly deliver outstanding experiences for our customers is something we are really proud of.

On a more serious note, the recent attacks in Christchurch allowed us to use Workplace to ensure the safety of our team members. All employees based in Christchurch were sent a notification to mark themselves as safe or ask for assistance during this period. Thankfully all employees were safe and those that did reach out for assistance were very quickly contacted and offered support in an appropriate way. This level of centralised transparency has not only had significant safety enhancements but has truly delivered our fundamental values in a very real way to our team.

We’ve made significant progress, but for us Workplace is the launch pad to evolve the way we use the platform to attract talent, enable our teams through technology and enhance growth through exploring innovative new platforms, automation and AI-based tools to complement the core Workplace has created for us.