“Less Like A Normal Implementation - More Like A Party”
Companies that are about to implement new productivity tools usually worry a lot about additional trainings that are required to these changes, even more when they have lots of employees that are less comfortable with digital tools. “In our community there are lots of people that are not very proficient with digital tools,” tells Yoanette. “Previous IT implementations caused trouble for herself and for the team, and required intensive aftercare. To check which cloud solution would fit the scattered organization (with over 5,000 digital laymans) best, Amstelring has done a series of pilot projects.
“We initiated three pilot projects around one solution, but people found it hard to understand it”, says Yoanette. “Instead of using and trying to grasp the new mobile tools, we realized that people still headed to their workspace to access their old email address. We needed something more intuitive, something that was really easy to understand.”
Amstelring ran a pilot with Google Workspace and after just two weeks, employees were convinced to continue with the full implementation. “The enthusiasm convinced us totally,” told Yoanette. “Everyone was just so happy to work with Gmail and the other Google Workspace tools.”
Amstelring reached out to Xebia, a Google Cloud Premier Partner, to let them support the deployment. “Together we made sure that the deployment focused on change rather than technical issues,” said Yoanette. “We made people enthusiastic. Less like a normal implementation, more like a party. We sampled t-shirts and launched 'Google Champions'. We started with it and kept track of the conversion of old data and other complicated tasks for later. Xebia recommended us to implement Google Workspace in phases with the help of great training sessions. We started with Gmail and Calendar.”
Amstelring and Xebia encouraged adoption even more by creating a group of 100 Google Guides, chosen by employees that were directly in contact with elderly and disabled patients. “There is less hierarchy now.” says Yoanette. “We made groups in Hangouts and worked together in stead of working in silos. For IT projects, for instance, we used to work at the HQ and thereafter ensured on the location that the solution fit the reality on the working floor. From now on, Google Guides explain in the Hangouts group what they experience and work together to come to an ideal solution.”
Supported by an enthusiastic board within Amstelring, the Google Guides create (who now work location independent) an effective network which Yoanette and her squad can use to deploy Google Drive and Chromebooks.
Care Closer to the Client
To spend more time with clients, employees can now access a broad variety of devices that connect with Google Workspace, but Yoanette and her team discovered that caretakers did not make use of tablets that they were given. “Lots of caretakers got rid of their tablets because they were shared and not assigned to a single employee,” is what Yoanette remembers. After a long, thorough trial period, Amstelring has decided to deploy more than 1,000 Chromebooks. These CloudReady devices were taken care of by Xebia, which caused old devices to get a new life as Chromebook.
“With certain medication it is required that one caretaker checks the dose, whilst the other administers the medication,” says Yoanette. “Thanks to Chromebooks with two cameras can one caretakers check the label remotely and see how the medication gets administered to the patient.” Yoanette: “I have lots of experience in the IT field and led many implementations. Normally, we get lots of complaints, but the rollout of Google Workspace was a positive experience. There was enthusiasm for something new. Everyone loves it.”
