Hardware

How Insight brought employees back onsite — by treating them as customers

Insight’s recently reported unveiling of its high-tech HQ in Chandler, Arizona, prompted Digital Signage Today to reach out to Matt Skaff, VP of global IT for Insight for details. Skaff joined us via video chat to discuss the principles of large projects that his team learned.

Insight's launch of its new headquarters aims to put employees at the center of a 'workplace experience.' Courtesy of Insight.

April 11, 2023 by Daniel Brown — Editor, Networld Media Group

This is part one of a two-part series.

Matt Skaff, VP, Global IT for Insight Enterprises. Courtesy of Insight.

Global tech firm Insight's recently reported unveiling of its high-tech HQ in Chandler, Arizona, prompted Digital Signage Today to reach out to Matt Skaff, VP of Global IT for Insight for details. Skaff joined us via video chat to discuss the principles of large projects that his team learned. "Even with all the AI and the technology, it really comes down to the people and the culture," Skaff said, encapsulating the biggest theme.

Other lessons included:

View your employees as customers.
Your workplace is an experience.
Use carrots, not sticks, to woo employees back onsite.
Hunger, heart and harmony: your culture and values will define your success.
Large projects should be: frictionless; easy to implement; easy to use; easy to maintain and repeat.
Select your hardware, software carefully from your ecosystem of suppliers and service providers.
- This means you have to make and maintain good relationships in the ecosystem, and respect the rise of ecosystem and 'coopetition' mindset in tech and business.

Exterior view of Insight headquarters in Chandler, Arizona. Courtesy of Insight.

The power of a nontraditional career path

With an unorthodox path to IT and digital signage (Skaff started in finance), Skaff's passion for the project, including technology, aesthetics and the people side, was clear. "Oh, yeah, I love what I do," he said. "So, you get to play with a lot of technology, which is cool. Like what you've seen with the HQ and the Prisms and everything else. That was just a wonderful year or two project through the process of building out some really cool stuff, being able to really do things with our partners — hardware software, the experience-type stuff. I mean, that was fun!"

Indeed, echoing a theme some #avtweeps might recognize from the digital signage and pro AV world, Skaff credits his unusual path with his success in his role. "The finance (background) actually helped me get into tech," he explained. "I could get a lot of things approved because I could speak finance. I could talk to finance about the benefit of the technology and how it helped things, I could talk in their terms — I could talk MPV, IIR, payback, I can talk all that type of stuff."

This comes in handy at a large global tech firm like Insight, Skaff explained. "Over the past decade, we've really evolved to come kind of a new technology partner, really looking to become a solutions integrator. So it's not just about hardware and software. It's about that whole package of providing a lot of end to end stuff for a client. You know, really, really provide a lot of that support that that a client is going to need going forward to help them with their, their digital transformation."

Example of the 'boulevards' with custom Prism carriages for LG digital signage. The Prism uses sensors to detect whether viewers are present (and how close they are) to optimize viewing (or to reduce power when nobody is around). Courtesy of Insight.

The 'experiential workplace' — carrot, not stick

Skaff's broad background has helped him join colleagues in being very hands-on during the design and fulfillment phases of the HQ project. "We're all intimately involved in it as well as facilities as many multiple departments. I mean, it was really well thought through — the look and feel how things were going to work."

The challenge of adapting in the wake of COVID lockdowns was real, and the company wanted to get creative in tackling it. "Everyone went home after COVID, right? You need things to bring people into the office, you want them to want to come back into the office, you can't force people back into the office. So, if you have great experience and great messaging, they're going to want to come in ... If they want to come in, you're more than halfway there," Skaff said.

According to Skaff, success came when the company thought about employees as customers and applied the company ethos: "Hunger, heart and harmony."

The value of face-to-face interaction is unparalleled, Skaff said, so even coming in one or two days a week to work with colleagues in person has proven powerful for colleagues, who often are won over to coming in more often through the quality of the overall experience, including the constant sharing of positive messaging about accomplishments by team members.

"It's like you're constantly getting that that reinforcement, that acknowledgement and that recognition, because a lot of those things are focused within our culture," Skaff said. "I mean, you've seen it even with internal teammates or clients, they'll take pictures or selfie themselves up against the boards and send to each other."

"It has to be frictionless, it has to be seamless. It has to be easy to do." Courtesy of Insight.

Employees as customers

Is it weird to call employees "customers" in this point of view?

"They are," Skaff said. "I look at it from my perspective, as well as others that come in: you see the digital signage, you have a health care center on site, you have a walk-up bar, similar to a Genius Bar, a walk-up station to get support. You have multiple different ways to operate when you come in. There's an ease of connection where you can come in, collaborate, leave. You can come in for three or four hours, get what you need to do done, meet with your people and, leave. But it's very easy. It has to be frictionless, it has to be seamless. It has to be easy to do."

All of this effort and passion has paid off with real-world employee feedback, Skaff said. "One of the best emails that I got after we opened up the facility —I use this frequently — is, someone sent me a note saying 'I used to work from home five days a week, but because it's so cool and so nice and so easy to come in now, I'm going to come in a couple of days a week, even though I don't have to.' That's a huge win — because of the experience," he added.

"I mean, not only do you have your meal prep and your food in a café, you also have a coffee shop on the other side, you have a gym where you can work out, and then you have ample space to collaborate in meeting rooms," Skaff said. "And again, the ease of connectivity. Ease of starting up a meeting and the different kinds of collaboration. And again, as you're walking through the facility, what are you getting? You're getting reinforced in your digital signage, 'Hey, take your security training. Hey, it's Women's History Month, it's Black History Month.' You get the constant reaffirmation through the messaging, through the marketing, of hitting that message, because we all know you can't tell somebody once — you have to reiterate that message," Skaff said.

"So, as you're walking through the facility, because of the digital technology, you can keep it fresh very easily, right? So it's not like you're going around tearing stuff off the walls, stapling things ... It's a drag and drop to an endpoint that automatically updates and puts that stuff in for you to see and reiterate that messaging, so now the focus is more on, 'What's the messaging that I want to display,' versus the pain and the effort of going around updating the messaging."

In addition to client-facing content for visits from clients, such as having their LinkedIn, social media, logos and prospective products displayed (clients like to take selfies with the futuristic displays, Skaff said), the video conferencing solutions have novel features, such as screens arrayed around the room so that presenters and information can be viewed easily by anyone at various angles.

Rooms are also built in a modular way so that they can be combined into larger spaces or split into smaller ones; the proprietary system is smart enough to know when this is done, along with labeling each space separately and routing the software and hardware for AV and conferencing and multimedia accordingly. Digital displays at the entrance show reservation information, and users can easily start an unscheduled meeting, add remote and in-person guests and share media and files with attendees.

While Insight keeps the details of this tech private, Skaff explained that obsession with end-user experience along with really knowing the craft and technology inside out is the key to success in designing this kind of system (echoing our conversation with Red Dot and FastSigns: know your stuff, and do your homework). Also, make it consistent, Skaff says, and don't be afraid to let the specialists on your team, well, do what they're best at — Skaff is happy to leave most creative stuff up to his creatively trained colleagues. "It really is left up to marketing there to control the messaging," he added. "I just try to make it easy for them to create the messaging display."

About Daniel Brown

Daniel Brown is the editor of Digital Signage Today, a contributing editor for Automation & Self-Service, and an accomplished writer and multimedia content producer with extensive experience covering technology and business. His work has appeared in a range of business and technology publications, including interviews with eminent business leaders, inventors and technologists. He has written extensively on AI and the integration of technology and business strategy with empathy and the human touch. Brown is the author of two novels and a podcaster. His previous experience includes IT work at an Ivy League research institution, education and business consulting, and retail sales and management.