NPR has been working with Flimp Communications since 2019 and they’ve come up with some incredibly creative ideas for their employee communications. So we sat down with Natasha Desjardins, NPR’s HR Manager, Employee Experience, to find out what they like about working with us and how we’ve helped them improve their benefits communications over the years.
How long have you been working with Flimp?
“Four years too short. I needed you 10 years ago.”
Overall, what do you think of Flimp?
Having worked with Flimp for four years, I can say the experience has been unparalleled. In addition to making benefits elections for the upcoming year, our staff is always excited to see the themes of our communications and videos. Flimp always does a fantastic job at capturing the essence of what we’re trying to convey to our new hires and existing employees.
2022 Theme: Superheroes
2021 Theme: Seas the Day
2020 Theme: Feel the Groove
Flimp exceeds our expectations in creativity, professionalism and telling the story of our benefit offerings. Along the way, we always discover ways to do more. In the last four years, we’ve expanded our services from the PLANselect tool, new-hire and open enrollment Digital Postcards and videos to now looking forward to introducing a benefits microsite and fully using all Flimp has to offer. We’re always blown away by the attention to detail of the team. Flimp is a game-changer!
Why did you decide to implement digital communications?
NPR is a 24/7 news operation and, as such, our journalists are at the mercy of news deadlines, so they don’t always have time to attend benefits meetings as they’d like. We started off using videos to explain benefits, then quickly realized we could use Digital Postcards with videos to enhance our new-employee experience, new-hire excitement and sense of belonging at NPR.
How did you communicate about benefits prior to using Flimp?
Prior to Flimp, we sent out very long emails explaining the annual changes for the four different benefits plans, enrollment deadlines, and anything else staff needed to know. As you know, understanding benefits is complicated, as such, they often skipped the email and called us directly. Which is fine when you have a small group but it doesn’t scale when you have 1,000+ employees. We also held new-employee benefit sessions—and, by the time employees leave the session, they forget everything that was said. The Digital Postcard allows them to go back to that information to access it when they have the time, and also gives them the ability to review it with their partners. Just thinking back on how far we’ve come since the old process, it’s amazing to think about how we ever managed this any other way.
How does Flimp help with new-hire onboarding?
I’ve come to the conclusion that Flimp is instrumental in creating a communication with everything a recent hire needs to know about the organization before gaining access to the intranet. The tools empower and build a new hire’s confidence before starting at the company. Flimp is our one-stop shop for new-hire information needs.
How has our production process worked for you?
Having personally worked for a marketing and branding agency, I know way better than to tell creatives what to do in terms of design, but your team gave a whole new meaning to “give your designers freedom to create.” They implemented our vision with minimal direction. The PMs are great, not pushy, kept us on task and were very forthcoming with any changes that would affect the budget. They answered every single question regardless of how unintelligible it sounded. They clearly know their craft. Your team has pulled through every time and the final products are wonderful!
You’ve done some really creative pieces, how have they been received?
Quite honestly, our staff always looks forward to how we’ll outdo ourselves each year. A recently hired executive said the Digital Postcard gave him a foretaste of what it would be like to work at NPR. He felt a sense of belonging to our mission and culture. As a result, he was VERY excited to start at NPR.
What has been the biggest advantage on your end?
We’ve received fewer basic questions because staff have a better understanding of what’s offered and what to expect. That elimination of the many, usually redundant, questions is a huge time-saver.
How did the implementation process go?
Easy like Sunday morning!
Do you utilize any reporting from Flimp?
If so, how did it help you? I do. The dashboards are easy to use and a great way to understand the engagement our OE and onboarding communication campaigns have. They allow you to see what people viewed and how much of the content they truly engaged with. This helps us understand where changes need to be made and provides data for planning future campaign content.
Anything else you want to add that we didn’t ask you about?
We initially looked at Flimp to help us better explain our benefit plans during OE and for new hires joining the organization. Four years into this partnership, we’ve learned to better leverage your platform to communicate our leave policies and welcome new hires. I love that Flimp meets clients’ needs respective to their budgets. When I freed up funds to increase my budget, it allowed us to create a microsite that delivers clear, concise, easily accessible information. If I had to do things over, I would’ve started with the microsite, then used videos throughout the year as reminders to visit the microsite.