BlueLine Rental is using Jive software to drive strategic alignment and engagement across its organization, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based software firm announced. BlueLine selected Jive Software’s interactive intranet to enable two-way communications and cloud-based collaboration for thousands of employees across the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.
BlueLine’s human resources and communications teams wanted to expand employee communications channels beyond a static intranet, paper newsletter and email updates. To cultivate a vibrant culture among a spread-out workforce, the company wanted to create a modern intranet that would serve as a central collaboration hub for employees’ daily work, while giving salespeople in the field a direct line to executives at BlueLine’s corporate office.
“As a sales-driven company with key personnel spread across hundreds of rental centers, it’s crucial for our leaders to convey an open-door policy and empower employees with new digital solutions that fuel collaboration,” said Aisha Bussey, marketing manager at BlueLine Rental. “Our previous communications systems were less connected and didn’t allow for as much employee feedback, but with Jive we can sustain a continuous shared conversation across the company. Jive gives us an inclusive, easy-to-use platform for internal communication, human resources and project collaboration.”
BlueLink, BlueLine’s new Jive-based intranet, is designed to give employees one place to find the latest company news and other key information. The interactive intranet enables open discussions and offers simple mechanisms to encourage feedback and knowledge sharing among BlueLine employees at all levels, departments and regions. BlueLink is designed to help the company identify and develop more subject matter experts throughout its business. The digital workplace links the resources employees need to do their jobs into a one-stop shop where they can access CRM, learning and development, business intelligence systems and HR tools for payroll, benefits, time sheets, expense reports and more.
BlueLine worked with SocialEdge, a Jive consulting partner to implement the Jive interactive intranet in the cloud in late 2015, and has tripled its active user base. In the next phase of its rollout, BlueLine will deploy Jive for deskless workers.
“A field-driven sales force is the backbone of a distributed company, and its essential to keep these customer-facing workers aligned with each other and with corporate activity,” said Robert Block, chief customer success officer at Jive Software. “But this isn’t easy, especially since most organizations are structured with several layers of middle management. Savvy businesses like BlueLine recognize that an effective digital transformation and a modern digital work hub can break down major barriers to the flow of information and the development of a healthy company culture.”
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.