Family values: Ziik helps the Fleggaard Group stay connected

About the company

The Fleggaard Group is one Denmark's largest family-owned groups with an annual turnover of around €845 million. The group is probably best known for its 'Fleggaard' and 'Calles' chains of retail markets on the border between Denmark and Germany. But the Fleggaard Group is active across a wide range of industries, with a focus on retail, wholesale and auto leasing.

In addition to these, the group also has activities in the hospitality industry. The group has around 1700 employees divided among 12 companies worldwide. Here, HR & Communications Manager Patrick Dorch Julius explains how Ziik helps the Fleggaard Group keep everyone on the same page.

Challenges before Ziik

“Our biggest challenge was our internal communication, getting important news and messages to everyone, as we are a widely diversified group,” explains Patrick Dorch Julius. “It was always difficult to reach the colleagues farthest away – for example, substitute workers in the stores farthest from headquarters. So it was the retail network of our business that had the greatest need.”

“The rest of the company was actually quite well connected with computers, emails etc. But in retail, the communication chain usually went from headquarters to store manager to assistant manager to department manager and then on to the employees,” remembers Patrich Dorch Julius. “With so many people working different shifts, it could take several days before everyone had been to work and received the message. And by then, important news about shoplifters in the area, or out-of-stock products, was already outdated.”

“That was the way it was. But then came the COVID-19 pandemic – and suddenly the question was: How on earth are we going to communicate with all our employees when they have all been sent home? So, in the middle of the pandemic, we took the first steps towards finding a new intranet solution. And in February 2021 we launched Ziik.”

Requirements for a new solution

“Our core need and key requirement was communication. We needed a solution that would enable us to reach every single employee, whether at work or at home, and to alert them to important news. In addition, it had to be a mobile solution.”

"Ziik gives us increased reach and shorter response time. We get lightning-fast feedback on our content."

“We created a requirements specification and contacted various developers – including Ziik. We looked at five solutions, four Danish and one German. We had an acknowledged communication need – but it grew from there with each presentation we saw. Suddenly, e-learning became a factor to consider, and so on.”

“But in the end, communication was still our core need, and Ziik had the best and the sleekest solution for that. Ziik is all about communication. As we say in Denmark, they are the champions of communication, and not a bunch of other stuff.” 

"It was also important that Ziik understood our business model. We are a widely diversified company. Ziik has understood this better than anyone else.”

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Results

“We launched Ziik in the Fleggaard Group in February of 2021.”

“There's full integration from our HR system to Ziik. As soon as a new employee joins the company, they automatically get a Ziik profile when they're registered in our HR system. The profile has all the right information - company name, employee function, line manager, etc., so the employee gets assigned to the right groups with the right user profile and messaging options.”

“Ziik is also integrated as part of the home screen on all our computers in the offices. The home screen is set up as a combination of our HR system and Ziik. The users thinks it’s great. They don’t even notice being on two platforms at the same time. They just have the functionality they need to do their jobs.”

"Ziik is one of the best external service provider we have ever worked with."

“Ziik offers good opportunities for integration to things like e-learning platforms. And we use quicklinks for digital personnel cards and other systems, like our scheduling system, Tamigo. We link to it in the Ziik app, so you can quickly switch to Tamigo, see what you need to do, and quickly switch back to Ziik again. This flexibility is very important to us.”