Pacific National is Australia’s recognised leader in safe, innovative, and sustainable rail freight solutions. The majority of their 3700 team members are out ‘on the track’ transporting bulk commodities and containerised freight across the length and breadth of Australia. With such a dispersed workforce, staying connected and delivering information efficiently and effectively has been a challenge.
Pacific National wanted a new way to reach their people to provide important news and updates, to hear their ideas, and to bring them together to celebrate their achievements.
Recently appointed Pacific National CEO Paul Scurrah saw an opportunity to do just that with Workplace from Meta. Having launched Workplace at Virgin Australia in early 2020, Paul saw an opportunity to transform Pacific National’s communications and redefine the business’ culture through an enhanced employee experience.
“I’ve seen first-hand the impact that Workplace has on a business and its employee experience. It’s a very powerful platform. One of the challenges of being CEO is being able to create space for everyone to be able to connect with me and other leaders, and feel comfortable to do so, but on Workplace this happens quite naturally. It’s not only intuitive but interactive and allows for real time, rapid communication. Bringing our people leaders, office employees, maintainers, engineers and drivers together in a community and enabling them to be in the driver’s seat will be a game changer for the employee experience at Pacific National.” – Paul Scurrah, CEO Pacific National
The Pacific National team sought the expertise of Enablo, a leader in digital employee experience in Australia and New Zealand to support the launch. A Blueprint Sprint (a series of discovery workshops delivered over two days), was followed by a range of workshops to define goals, establish governance and guide leaders and champions in building their Workplace community. Over a journey of seven weeks, the Enablo project team worked together closely with Robyn Peters, HR Program Principal, Melanie Withers, Communications Principal, and the rest of the Pacific National project team to champion the vision of the platform, keeping everything on track for a successful on-time arrival to the platform.
Now arriving on platform…Workplace
Pacific National has now officially launched Workplace to every team member, bringing the entire Pacific National network together to connect, learn, share and celebrate. It will be a place for all team members to participate in conversations and share ideas and expertise.
“We’re very much looking forward to bringing the business and our people to life on Workplace. The experience, insight and knowledge our teams have is incredible. To be able to showcase all of it and have every single team member able to join in no matter where they are, in an interactive way, is very exciting!” – Melanie Withers, Communications Principal Pacific National
“It was our pleasure to guide and support Pacific National to adopt and embed what we know to be a game-changing platform. The communications landscape looks a little different when your teams are literally driving trains across the country but that is what makes Workplace a perfect fit for them – being accessible on mobile and so intuitive in its experience, the platform brings everyone together in one place, no matter where they are. I have no doubt that these elements alongside a detailed launch plan (and highly engaging post-launch initiative!) will see the success of Workplace at Pacific National.” – Daragh McGrath, CEO Enablo.
