The customer | Belfius
Belfius is one of Belgium’s largest and best-known banks, serving nearly one in three Belgians. Belfius recently decided to switch to communication and collaboration in the cloud.
The challenge | Getting employees on board
The most difficult step in a migration process is often convincing and training the employees. Belfius not only wanted people to use the new tools and techniques, but also to understand why the change was being made and how it would work.
The process | Introduction to Teams and Microsoft 365 cloud storage
“The implementation of Microsoft 365 at Belfius is part of the BeTeams program, which is all about ‘happy and productive employees in a hybrid workplace’,” explains Kathleen Wouters, Program & Change Manager at Belfius. “Our workplace has indeed become fundamentally hybrid, and as an employer we want our employees to be happy and productive at work.”
“The migration to M365 is part of this program, as we strongly believe that it can perfectly support the hybrid workplace and contribute to the goals of our program. However, it’s crucial that our employees have a thorough understanding of the Microsoft 365 applications, what they can do, how they can add value, and how they can use the tools to their advantage,” continues Kathleen Wouters.
Employees were introduced to the Microsoft 365 cloud in general and Teams in particular during an introductory course. But it also covered broader topics, such as cloud storage (Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint) and collaboration tools (which you can integrate into Teams).
Not everyone was immediately sold on the new way of working. That’s not really surprising, since old habits die hard. Fortunately, the increased efficiency of the new tools made it easier to convince Belfius employees of their value. For many, the increased ability to work remotely was also a benefit.
The result | Happy and productive employees
Luc Engelen, M365 trainer at Xylos, praises the project and the collaboration: “The course participants were eager to learn, and left the training eager to get started with numerous tips and tricks on the use of the new cloud platform.”
“We set up a comprehensive Change Plan for this migration and chose Xylos as our partner for the training component,” explains Kathleen Wouters. “Xylos proved to be the perfect partner because of their enthusiastic and competent trainers. Their insight into the bigger picture and our goals was also a big plus.”
“Together, we decided to start the training from the perspective of collaboration, and to place the different tools and applications within this story, rather than starting with the tools themselves. After all, a tool is not an end in itself.”
Kathleen Wouters concludes: “It’s a pleasure to work with people who are both very professional and very human. The service (flexibility, speed, organization, meeting deadlines) is really first class.”
