WhitePages for Whirlpool fuels collaboration, gives employees power to instantly search and connect 

Whirlpool Corporation is the number one appliance manufacturer in the world. The company markets Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, Consul, Brastemp, Amana, Bauknecht, Jenn-Air, Indesit, Hotpoint and other major brand names in nearly every country throughout the world. In Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) it has approximately 24,000 employees, a sales presence in more than 30 countries and manufacturing sites in eight countries. Whirlpool EMEA is an operating segment of Whirlpool Corporation. Whirlpool Corp.’s European Operations Centers are located in Pero (MI), Italy. 

Challenge: Obsolete systems eclipsed the power of collaboration

Whirlpool requirement was to have a global and online address book with a personal profile for every employees

Giulia Gerini, HEI PM, Whirlpool EMEA  

Whirlpool has approximately 93,000 employees with the workforce dispersed all across the globe, instant and hassle-free connectivity was a critical business challenge. This challenge was compounded by the complex and distributed organizational structure. This left the employees frustrated while they tried to find and connect with coworkers to collaborate and make real-time business decisions. 

Connectivity: The legacy system was more of an employee information database. It lacked connectivity and did not empower or inspire any employee to find and connect with their coworkers. 

Accessibility: The system was not mobile and could only be accessed within the internal office network. 

Usability: The legacy system was visually out-of-date and did not encourage user adoption. Since there was no smart search criteria, employees were unable to find their coworkers by department, skills, interests, office location and more. 

Data Maintenance and expenses: Whirlpool faced significant IT costs for maintaining and updating employee profiles. Also, there was an expense and hassle of managing data in multiple locations. 

The company wanted a cost-effective solution that provided smart and filtered search criteria, and that was smartly designed to deliver a simplified user experience on web and mobile. 

Solution: Search, discover, and connect 

Bringing together 93,000 employees on one platform 

Whitepages features organizational information on each person’s profile page. This means that when someone searches for a colleague, in addition to their contact details, they will be able to find the name of their manager, peers and direct reports. In addition, with the new release of the App, if I receive a call and I don’t have the number stored on my phone, a caller ID notification appears with the option to save the contact on my phone.

Giulia Gerini 

Solution at a glance: 

• Employee search and connect via call, email, and message 
• Response time for search results < 1 second 
• Hasslefree integration with Whirlpool ITIM (Global directory) and GAL (Google Address List) 
• Users can manage their profile through Google Cloud (G Suite) accounts 

Whirlpool chose MediaAgility (now part of Persistent Systems) as a digital consulting and implementation services provider, to deliver, maintain, and support a comprehensive employee information and engagement solution called WhitePages. 

The solution fuelled collaboration by giving their employees power to instantly connect at a moment’s notice. 

WhitePages for Whirlpool powered by Google Cloud Platform enables approximately 93,000 Whirlpool employees to search for their coworkers using a variety of search features and view their profile information such as contact details, skills, area of expertise, job details etc. The application enables end users to create, maintain and share personal contact groups using easy to use filters. WhitePages also facilitates group admins to create and maintain rule based Google Groups that are kept up-to-date by backend processes. 

Users can access WhitePages using their mobile phone, locate colleagues, knowledge areas,  skills, expertise, and specialities. 

Results

Whirlpool succeeded in developing WhitePages app thanks to a healthy partnership with MediaAgility. That partnership has allowed Whirlpool to invest in partner’s skills and knowledge to achieve success. MediaAgility has demonstrated accountability for their actions and ownership for delivering on the objectives and targets for which they were responsible.

Giulia Gerini 

Hassle-free connectivity: WhitePages has made it easy for Whirlpool employees to search and connect with coworkers throughout the company via call, email, and message, irrespective of different locations. 

High availability and accessibility: With Google’s single sign-on feature, users can quickly  access the data anytime through web and mobile. WhitePages is a globally available application for Whirlpool employees. 

Easy to use: The solution delivers a rich user experience to users by giving them the power to maintain their own data, view coworkers’ contact information, create contact groups, and connect with them on-the-go. 

Intuitive interface: User interface of the solution is visually modern and in line with Whirlpool’s branding. 

Cost-effective: As a cloud solution, it runs on the Google’s PAAS system. The solution is integrated with cloud database and uses cloud storage for files storage and management. WhitePages is a cloud-based application, hence needs minimum or no IT maintenance. 

With Google-powered solution, Whirlpool is fostering collaboration and agile connectivity across all levels of the company. WhitePages is a one-stop solution where employees can find coworkers, they need to do their jobs.