How Telekom Malaysia connects its 12,000 employees while working remotely

Malaysia announced its movement control order (MCO) last month to help combat the spread of COVID-19 in the country. With this, the government restricted activities, including the closure of public and private institutions nationwide, thus forcing companies including Telekom Malaysia to quickly transition to a work from home setup. 

The company is utilizing Flow, their branded internal employee platform powered by Eko, to communicate, collaborate and operate seamlessly during this time. Here, we caught up with Maznuddin Zainuddin, Telekom Malaysia’s Business Analyst Manager who shares with us their experience.

What was the experience of transitioning to work from home like for TM?

As a traditional company, we had never done full-time remote work before the MCO was implemented. Thankfully, we have already been using Eko, a great tool to engage and connect with each other at work, which made the transition much smoother. Before the lockdown, we were using it across teams to support communications but there was obviously the option to meet and discuss in person. However, since working from home, we have seen the number of daily active users on the platform jump from 3,000 to 12,000.

Has it been challenging to communicate with everyone while working from home?

While we have been emailing every day as one of the ways we connect, we know that sending emails can be very slow, and can be especially challenging if we want responses in real-time. This is where Eko comes in as a great alternative communication channel. Another concern we had was how to keep these conversations engaging during the MCO when everyone is dispersed. Eko’s various features have made it easy to keep things inclusive and interactive, so communicating with one another has not been a significant problem for us. 

How does the company use Eko during this time?

One of the most used features is the Check-in functionality, which allows us to monitor daily employee attendance. It provides real-time updates to each manager when their reporting employee clocks in at the start of the work day. We also use Chat Groups to help us send information across specific individuals or teams quickly, making information flow much quicker. Aside from those two, we are also using the Discover hubs as our employee forum. There, we host a lot of knowledge-sharing virtual sessions where people ask questions and provide answers, which leads to very insightful and productive work-related discussions. Of course, with the ongoing outbreak, we have also been using Broadcast to send out announcements regarding both work-related matters and the ongoing Covid-19 situation, since things are changing rapidly at this time.

How has Eko enhanced communication for the company during the MCO?

Eko is helping us streamline our communications while we work remotely. Since we use other tools to communicate for personal and casual talks, we use Eko to have work-related discussions only. This helps ensure that we stay on top of our work since everything is in one place, and we are not mixing it with our non-work chats. We know that if the discussion is on the Eko platform, it is related to the tasks that require our attention and action.

Aside from that, Eko has also made it possible for us to communicate faster. Whether it's a question posted on a hub in Discover, or inquiries sent via Chat groups, there's always somebody who will answer it immediately—no need to wait, unlike if you send a message through email. This is especially crucial during the current outbreak where things are changing all the time and inclusive information flow is very important.