The Culture Comeback: How A Telecom Giant Transformed Employee Connection

BY Jessica Swenson | August 18, 2025

With employees—and information—more widely distributed than they’ve ever been, it’s crucial for companies to support their shared identity and culture while facilitating positive engagement. Purpose-built systems may not maintain relevance across growing teams and diverse functions, and fragmented communication channels add complexity that can cause low participation rates and communication fatigue.

This was the situation that prompted Canadian telecommunications firm TELUS to seek a new corporate communication ecosystem. During a From Day One webinar, leaders shared how the major telecom company Telus, facing low engagement and communication fatigue, partnered with LineZero to use Workvivo and bring its culture back to life. 

With rapid employee growth and numerous disparate systems, internal communication had become “much more complex than it ought to be, or than anyone thought it was. Trying to maintain that suite of services, trying to ensure that everyone had access, was really proving a big challenge,” said Jennifer Shah, VP of communications at TELUS. 

Once the organization identified its communication challenges and the problems it needed to solve, Shah says, TELUS developed a vision and criteria for its target experience and sought a platform partner that could meet both its current and future demands. She and her team wanted a dynamic, social-first design that could securely integrate with existing systems, deliver personalized, relevant content, and enable employee-driven connections while offering built-in flexibility to grow with the company’s evolving needs.

Caroline Mikhail, a Prosci® certified change practitioner and director of advisory services at Linezero, moderated the discussion with Jennifer Shah of TELUS (photo by From Day One)

“We wanted to partner with a platform that we knew was invested in continuing to be ahead of the curve,” said Shah. As TELUS continued to evaluate options and refine its criteria, Workvivo emerged as the clear solution—it met all their functional requirements and had a long-term commitment to ongoing feature development. That’s when the real work started.

For a change of this magnitude, socialization is critical. “There was a big stakeholder exercise to ensure that our needs assessments were encapsulating everything and then understanding what is absolutely necessary, what is nice to have, what might be okay in the future,” she said. To ensure engagement and adoption of the new platform, her group facilitated countless pre-launch roadshow presentations tailored to demonstrate its economic value and show how the new system would address the needs and pain points for each team.

Early adopters and change champions were key partners in the success of the launch. Through early access, extensive use, and continuous feedback loops, this team helped TELUS prove and refine the platform’s capabilities. By choosing people who were experts in some of the company’s most widely used existing platforms, Shah says, TELUS was able to make vital changes within the new system. “I think that really helped us, because people became much more familiar with it, and we were really open to their feedback, while also really pushing them to try it out and build things and learn how to do it for themselves.”

To build anticipation for the platform’s launch and ensure day-one engagement, Shah mentioned that communications and business teams were asked to submit content plans for their individual team spaces. “We really worked rigorously to ensure that there was a ton of great content there on day one.” Their partner, LineZero, helped them prepare for the launch by providing examples, learnings, and case studies from similarly sized companies.

Early post-launch events helped demonstrate that this platform offered a whole new way for TELUS to interact as a team. Immediately after its April launch, TELUS gave employees an immediate sense of ownership by hosting an on-platform naming contest. The interest and involvement generated by this contest helped “showcase the platform in a really engaging way.” During the company’s annual Days of Giving volunteer event in May, global teams were able to share their local community engagement in real-time. “To very easily show the breadth and depth of the commitment to campaigns like that, I think really showed people that this platform was a place for them,” Shah said.

The homepage of TELUS’s internal platform was designed to be the starting point of an employee’s day by including links to the most commonly used systems and resources, she says. To complement this design and ensure its use as the main corporate communication hub, the company issued a clear mandate that it would no longer support or communicate via legacy channels.

New hires are automatically enrolled into corporate-mandated channels and their business group-specific spaces. Beyond that, employees are given a loose framework and rule set with the flexibility and freedom to join, post, follow, and engage as they see fit. Engagement “looks different to everybody, but we give you a lot of options to structure it in a way that feels relevant and engaging for what you're looking for.”

In the three months since the platform’s launch, TELUS has already achieved 52% adoption and 70% monthly active engagement rates, and over 80 employee-driven interest groups have been created, says Shah. The company needs to continue offering new and value-added content and use concentrated campaigns to attract slower adopters, she says. They are already focused on their next goal, increasing mobile adoption, and are developing new features to better tailor content to specific audience segments.

For companies contemplating a communication overhaul of this size, Shah offered a few suggestions. First, identify the problem you are trying to solve and what is most important to your organization. Then get input and feedback from affected teams and do the internal work to know what is needed and what you can deliver. Be very clear about your goals and meticulously plan your roll-out, but keep it flexible. And don’t be afraid to delay a roll-out to conduct additional stakeholder engagement and ensure broader team readiness. You might be ready and know that everything is going to work, says Shah, “but it only works if everybody believes it's going to be a success and feels good about it.”

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, LineZero, for sponsoring this webinar. 

Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.

(Photo by mesh cube/iStock)

Related Stories

Smarter Benefits by Design: Leveraging Tech and AI for Clarity, Impact, and Innovation

Answering benefits questions used to be one of HR’s most time-consuming tasks. Now, companies are using AI not only to automate those routine inquiries, but to deliver faster, more personalized support, at any time of day. Benefits leaders are using AI to make small teams feel much bigger.The challenges of benefits administration haven’t changed much over the years, but AI is finally offering new solutions. “The common barriers are the same, whether you’re talking about AI and technology or the traditional way of administering benefits,” said Joanne Gloster, director of benefits at professional services firm Davies North America. Employees often don’t know what benefits are available, or when. Some worry about cost. Others are concerned about privacy–especially around health or financial benefits. With AI, benefits teams are sharpening their communication strategies and making answers easier to access.Gloster spoke during an executive panel discussion on the topic during From Day One’s July virtual conference on employee benefits. From guiding employees through leave policies to financial planning before surgery, today’s benefits tech is smarter, more tailored, and is empowering lean teams to do more with less. But for many HR leaders, the real goal isn’t just efficiency, it’s creating space for meaningful human connection.Personalized Benefits Help, Any Time of DayAt global life sciences MilliporeSigma, head of benefits strategy Elizabeth Chappelear is leaning on their benefits administrator’s AI engine to tackle those “first level” inquiries, like dependent document verification or basic coverage questions. Chappelear said it handled more than 7,800 conversations in the first quarter of the year, 84% of which were resolved without human intervention. Journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the discussion (photo by From Day One)The company is in the process of creating its own AI suite tailored to internal benefits policies and programs. Nevertheless, human connection remains top of mind for Chappelear, who said that “it’s one of the things that we ask during RFPs or new vendors. We’re always asking about their technology. But the flip side of that is, what’s our access to humans?” At financial wellness platform Northstar, the company has developed custom AI engines trained by financial advisors. The solutions were built for its customers based on their employees’ unique benefits and compensation. But employees don’t need a benefits-specific question to get help. It might be, “I’m thinking about scheduling surgery next year,” said Erin Donahue, the company’s director of advice strategy. “Our AI will discuss health plan choice and make sure they evaluate the various plans offered, but it will also bring in other related benefits that could help.”While Northstar won’t be replacing their financial advisors with AI tools, when employees choose to use AI, the answers are specifically tailored to individuals, “so they can ask about benefits or personal finances in general, and it will answer in a personalized way based on everything we already know about that employee,” said Donahue. Information tech firm TransUnion is also building out a process that employees can use to help with policies. “If someone’s looking to potentially take a leave of absence, we would use our AI that would then guide them through the process,” Sherry Nelson, the company’s senior director of global benefits said. Maximizing Reach for Small TeamsAt Davies, Gloster supports an employee population of 2,800 with a team of three. AI has made it possible for her team to be more productive and precise. By using AI to tailor benefits communications, she’s able to segment who’s getting the messages and how. “For instance, if I wanted to send something out to folks who are utilizing the FSA and they seem to be floundering,” she would ask the tool who those folks are and how she should tailor a message specifically for them. “I refer to it as cheating, because that’s what it feels like to me,” she said. “But the truth is, it’s allowed our team to feel much, much bigger than it really is.”On the contrary, said LaToya Lyn, the chief people officer at Thinkhuman, an executive coaching platform, “It’s not cheating, it’s being more efficient.” Just comb through the list of requests related to benefits, and you’ll find they’re often very basic: Where can I find this? When is that going to happen? Very few of those require a human response, and AI can provide answers much faster, at any time of day.Lyn described setting up a text messaging bot for HR questions in a past role. When they did so, “we saw our tickets go from 100 to 25. And what was so amazing about that experience was people were able to get what they needed very quickly.” And if the AI got stuck, they were routed to a person.Despite the burst of enthusiasm for AI, Nelson at TransUnion wants to ensure they don’t lose connection with their employees, and in fact use tech and all its potential to fortify the relationship. “Part of our culture is being authentic and being present and social,” she said. “Some of it is just leveraging the technology to free us up to have those meaningful conversations and meeting the associate where they’re at. But if it hadn’t been for AI, we wouldn’t really be able to get there.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by Galeanu Mihai/iStock)

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza August 07, 2025

Healthy Workers Are Good for Business, But Everyone Has Unique Needs

For generations, workplace benefits referred to just the basics: health insurance, vacation days, and, if you were lucky, a retirement savings fund. But in today’s parlance, “benefits” refers to a broader lifestyle package that is far more holistic and personalized. “Back in the early days, benefits were just the thing that employers had. But as employers started competing more for talent, wellness became more of [an] imperative,” said Jennifer Dietrich, SVP, head of global benefits and wellness at Fiserv. Dietrich spoke during a fireside chat at From Day One’s July virtual conference, moderated by Nicole Smith, editorial audience director at Harvard Business Review. “It became part of the culture of our organization. Now, we’re using wellness to help to keep our people healthy, which then allows them to bring their best self to work and their best self to their communities. It does create this culture and environment where people feel cared for, and they want to come and work for you,” said Dietrich. The last five years have been a time of rapid social and cultural change, says Smith. From the global pandemic and “the fastest recession and recovery in U.S. history,” to a housing supply crisis, rising mental health concerns, a presidential election, trade war, and more. These “external shocks” can impact the personal and professional needs of the workforce, and employers must be prepared to respond quickly. Nicole Smith, editorial audience director at Harvard Business Review, interviewed Jennifer Dietrich, SVP, global benefits and wellness at Fiserv  (photo by From Day One)“We’ve seen this interesting shift in people’s expectations, because the pandemic created a different scope of what’s possible for employees, and even for some employers,” Dietrich said. She encourages organizations to be more “human” in the approach to work structures and benefits programs. “If you’ve got the right culture [and] you’ve got the right programs, people can be the best version of themselves. That’s not just important in work, but in all aspects of their lives and in their community,” she said. This culture of support should be ingrained in all management training, ensuring that leaders understand the benefits programs available so they can direct their team in the right direction when the time comes. In response to evolving employee expectations, Fiserv introduced a remote flexibility benefit, enabling its 38,000 associates across 35 countries to work from nearly anywhere in the world for a set number of days each year, despite being an in-office company. Building a Benefits Program That Works for AllWith such a large and diverse workforce, it can be challenging to create a benefits package that offers personalization while still appealing to a broad audience. “People value choice. And the definition of benefits can vary from one person to the next,” Dietrich said, saying some people are satisfied simply by free coffee in the office, while others might focus more on career development. “Doing the right thing for your people and for the business isn’t necessarily supposed to be easy.”Fiserv relies on annual engagement survey data and feedback from its employees to build a comprehensive package on top of the basics, like healthcare, retirement, disability, and PTO. “Information is power,” Smith said. Since employee needs may be constantly shifting, organizations should be checking in with them regularly to gauge their thoughts on vendors. Dietrich recommends treating vendors as true partners, an extension of your team, equally invested in analyzing data and enhancing the employee experience.But balance matters, as workers can become paralyzed by too many choices. Internal communications campaigns around benefits options can help them figure out how to make the most of what you offer. “I’m very fortunate to have an incredible team that thinks like marketers, and they have a constant focus on educating our people, including our managers, and making sure that everyone is aware of what’s available to them,” Dietrich said. “It’s never just a once-and-done sort campaign. We really focus on beating that drum constantly through a whole variety of communications to make sure that people are aware.”Fiserv uses a portal called “Fuel Your Life” that is a digital “one-stop shop” for benefits that allows for personalization. But because not all employees are tech-savvy, the organization also mails hard copies of benefits information to workers’ homes, provides an email newsletter, puts physical signage in offices, and has cultivated a team of employee ambassadors who can discuss the offerings one-on-one. Dietrich foresees that AI will also ultimately be able to assist in this process.Looking Ahead in the Benefits SpaceAs Dietrich’s organization looks to the future, it hopes to cultivate the next generation of workers, in part, through benefits offerings. “We focus on having what we consider a best-in-class people platform that focuses on driving a high-performance culture and continuous improvement within the organization.” That means investing in ongoing professional development, growth opportunities, increasing engagement, fostering trust among colleagues, and promoting in-office connection. The latter is especially important for Gen Z, as many of them spent crucial educational and developmental years behind a screen during Covid. “We stress [casual, organic in-person] connections for all of our associates, because that helps them feel connected and valued and seen when they are at work,” she said. Smith agreed, “You can’t replace human connection.” That human connection is not only integral to keeping employees engaged with the workplace; it’s also crucial to building a benefits package overall. Leaders, Dietrich says, are the ones who help drive the use of benefits, gauge whether the offerings are working, and best articulate to stakeholders what has been most effective—and what is most deserving of future investment. “When you can come back and tell the story that this worked out the way that we expected it to, it helps to build your credibility with leaders, so that you can get more yeses to things like that to do more for your people.”Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost, Top Think, and several printed essay collections, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.(Photo by VioletaStoimenova/iStock)

Katie Chambers July 29, 2025

How Effective Leaders Are Rethinking Employee Well-Being

In the early months of the pandemic, companies rushed to offer employees meditation platforms, fitness trackers, and mental health resources, sometimes rolling out half a dozen different solutions at once. The result? Digital exhaustion and programs that gathered dust.Now, three years later, corporate America is taking a more strategic approach to employee well-being. The shift comes as organizations face mounting pressure from economic uncertainty and policy changes. At the same time, they're contending with a workforce that increasingly views mental health support not as a perk, but as a baseline expectation.At From Day One’s Manhattan conference, executives outlined how the wellness landscape has fundamentally shifted and why leading companies now treat employee mental health as a competitive advantage rather than just a compliance checkbox.From Quantity to QualityThe transformation is stark. Matt Jackson, chief growth officer at Unmind, witnessed the initial wave of wellness initiatives firsthand. “There was a big growth in single point solutions being thrown at employees,” Jackson said. “There wasn’t as much intention with the solutions that were being launched, which meant there was low utilization.”The numbers tell the story: Of the 10,000 health and wellness apps available to consumers, only 5% are backed by scientific research, says Jackson. Companies were essentially throwing solutions at a wall to see what stuck, overwhelming employees with choices while failing to address underlying workplace culture issues.The companies that learned from those early mistakes have adopted a radically different approach. Instead of piling on wellness apps, companies are integrating mental health support into everyday operations and tracking results with metrics that drive business performance.The most sophisticated companies are now tying wellness programs directly to business outcomes. NRG Energy has taken this approach to its logical conclusion by linking employee well-being scores to their internal bonus structure. “The result of that, whether it’s better or worse than prior scores, directly impacts the size of our annual bonus pool up or down. So we really put our money where our mouth is,” said Peter Johnson, SVP, head of talent and culture at NRG Energy.Panelists shared insights on the topic, "Building a Thriving Culture Through Comprehensive Health and Wellness Benefits," in a session moderated by Corinne Lestch, independent journalist and founder of the Off-Site Writing WorkshopThe business case is increasingly compelling. Jackson shared that when a management consultant began incorporating psychological safety questions into weekly project check-ins, it found that “where there was greater perceived psychological safety, greater perceived well-being, projects were done on time, they were done on budget, and clients were happier.” When the prioritization of well-being drives measurable business results, even skeptical CFOs pay attention.The urgency behind these changes stems from a fundamental generational shift. Today’s workforce grew up with mental health conversations normalized in schools and universities, creating what Jackson calls “an expectation of today's workforce to provide me with the same openness and same conversation and same resources around mental health.” Companies that fail to adapt, particularly those with traditional leadership approaches, are discovering that their talent acquisition and retention strategies are increasingly obsolete.The Leadership Vulnerability FactorPerhaps the most significant change is how company leaders discuss mental health. The old model of executives maintaining stoic professionalism has given way to what experts call vulnerable leadership, an approach that's proving surprisingly effective.This authenticity extends beyond grand gestures to daily management practices. Amy Onori, SVP of talent acquisition for Publicis Media has added a simple but powerful message to her email signature. It reads: “Managing work and life responsibilities is unique for everyone. I have sent this e-mail at a time that works for me. Please respond at a time that works for you.”The message serves a dual purpose: it sets boundaries while signaling to employees that their personal time matters. It’s a small change that reflects a broader shift in how companies think about work-life integration.Even with all the wellness programs and mental health initiatives, many employees still struggle with a fundamental issue: they’re waiting for explicit permission to prioritize their well-being. The problem runs deeper than policy; it's about psychological safety. “They get so worried that if they leave at four o’clock, that it’s going to look bad. And to me, that doesn’t matter, as long as the work’s getting done," Onori said. For many employees, the fear of judgment outweighs any written policy promising flexibility.This permission-seeking behavior reflects a broader challenge facing HR leaders, who find themselves caught between competing pressures. Chad Deshler, SVP of sales at LifeSpeak, described the dilemma with a vivid metaphor: “As HR leaders, it’s kind of like a grilled cheese sandwich. You have pressure from top bread and bottom bread, and the cheese in the middle is getting burned.” Executive leadership demands cost-cutting while hiring top talent, while employees want better benefits and higher pay.The solution is something along the lines of radical transparency combined with visible boundary-setting. Diana Blancone, chief people officer for Omnicom Media Group, has started announcing her departures for family obligations. “I know myself included, I’ve been more vocal about saying, ‘Hey, I’ve got my daughter's game. I’m going to run out at this time to get home at this time,” she said. When executives publicly prioritize the importance of family and personal commitments, it can foster a culture where employees feel permission to do the same.“I think transparency is really important with my team. I’ve tried to be as transparent as I can, whether it’s good or bad news, and just say, ‘Hey, this is this is what it is,’” Deshler said. By doing so, direct honesty becomes a radical act of leadership.Employee well-being directly impacts the bottom line. Effective leaders treat wellness programs as profit drivers that reduce turnover, increase productivity, and improve client satisfaction. They embed mental health in leadership goals, train leaders to be vulnerable, and build cultures where well-being comes first. This is a competitive strategy, not just social responsibility.Chris O’Keeffe is a freelance writer with experience across industries. As the founder and creative director of OK Creative: The Language Agency, he has led strategy and storytelling for organizations like MIT, Amazon, and Cirque du Soleil, bringing their stories to life through established and emerging media.(Photos by Hason Castell for From Day One)

Christopher O'Keeffe July 16, 2025