Customer story • 8 min read

How Asana partnered with Epoch to increase engagement through data-driven decisions

104

%

increase in event participants

45

%

increase in event sentiment

7

days to launch

About

Asana is a task management software that has features like projects, workspaces, tasks, and sections to manage projects and tasks related to several clients and teams. Asana is mainly designed for teams to spend less time writing emails, meetings, and working on the assigned tasks.

Employees

1,700

Global hubs

12

Challenge

Asana places a strong emphasis on culture, considering it a core aspect of their organization that is co-created by everyone. They prioritize employee engagement through intentional programs, ensuring opportunities for growth, learning, and community building. Asana recognized the need to centralize communication channels, streamline processes, and provide easy access to resources, fostering a more engaged and informed workforce.

Before Epoch, Asana had numerous sign-up forms for events and was using a mix of different communication strategies, causing more noise for employees than intended.

It was a challenge to ensure employee programs and events were accessible and user-friendly. Things were not centralized, and employees often had to go through clunky calendars and search through different places to find out what’s happening.

Asana asked themselves: how do we find clarity for our people?

Solution

“And that’s how we found Epoch. Epoch fills these gaps for us. With Epoch, we are able to communicate in an accessible and clear way to our employees," says Ashley Frabasilio, Employee Engagement Manager.

Customized event planning and scheduling

“With Epoch, when Asana employees have an interest in a topic, they can sort and search based on their interests, time zones, or through different community groups. And then in a matter of seconds, that event is on their calendar," says Ashley, as she thinks through how employees use Epoch at Asana.

Set up events in a few simple steps

“There's no extra legwork for the administrators, the planners, or for the employee. Finding that light and easy solution where it feels like butter for everybody involved was really tricky, and Epoch just filled that gap for us," says Ashley.

Empower teams for cultural impact

“Within the second month of launching Epoch at Asana, we had folks organically reaching out to us like, ‘Hey, how do I organize my team’s All Hands? How do I plan my ERG event? I want to use Epoch!’” says Ashley.

“Something that was completely organic with Epoch was that we were able to scale the teams that helped organize folks wanting to gather based on different topics and groups,” says Ashley, as she discussed how Epoch supported teams from L&D to ERGs, Benefits, and more.

The value of Epoch at Asana was immediate, across its culture and for numerous teams.

Save time and resources

“Rather than having a strategy where we have to hire more events people or spend time on all these robust systems and playbooks, we are able to just add folks into Epoch!” says Ashley.  

“We love being able to connect and standardize different groups. With Epoch, we can easily share recommendations for best practices, alongside norms around the event itself.”

With Epoch, Asana has been able to equip different groups and teams with the ability to streamline their programs and events, as well as best practices and automation.

Automate communication

With Epoch, Asana is able to create workflows that automate Slack notifications and communications for pre-reads before an upcoming meeting and event.

This has saved significant time for teams at Asana, as they no longer have to manually and individually send reminders, announcements, and information before an event or meeting.

For employees, Epoch helps them seamlessly switch gears and be equipped with information before going into a separate meeting or event.

Seamless implementation

Implementation was one of the most important things to Ashley and her team when deciding on a platform. “For us, it came down to finding something accessible. After testing a variety of different platforms, there was nothing quite like Epoch on the market,” says Ashley.

“As soon as we chatted with Epoch’s team about some of our norms to help make a smooth implementation, it was like an instant brainstorm,” says Ashley.

“Epoch’s team is solutions-oriented and strives to make customer’s lives easier and better.”

Collaborate and co-create events

For Ashley, the fluidity of collaboration and co-creation working with Epoch aligned really well with Asana’s values. The Asana team provided feedback and product ideas that aligned with Epoch’s product vision, which allowed for quick iterations and product development for requests.

Measure impact with reports and analytics

“Data fuels the power of making impactful decisions. Being able to understand reporting [through Epoch] has helped us make better decisions on how we invest in programs from a time and resourcing perspective.”

Rather than continuing an event because that was the status quo, Asana now uses Epoch to be strategic in reviewing feedback and reporting, and then applying that to their approach in how they engage employees. This has been incredibly valuable for Asana to understand what programs are most engaging, where to invest more in, and how to better provide initiatives in the future.“

Being able to understand reporting [through Epoch] has helped us make better decisions on how we invest in programs from a time and resourcing perspective," says Ashley.

Results

Employees at Asana are finding their communities and seamlessly accessing programs with Epoch.

“There’s no barrier to entry with Epoch, for the admins or employees."

Folks at Asana have found Epoch seamless and valuable, from onboarding to signing up for events and easily discovering what’s available. Asana employees are met by Epoch where they are – through robust calendaring, Slack, Zoom integrations, and more.

The ability to also see who else from your team is attending an event, or finding out who else shares certain interests as you, has really helped create a strong sense of community and belonging for employees.

How Epoch supports companies who invest and care about their employees’ experience

“Epoch is helping experienced designers like myself design employee experiences that meet them where they are,” says Ashley as she recalls feedback from Asana employees.

“We are going to see the flexibility in the workforce powered by great companies who support their employees by meeting them where they are, and Epoch is the foundation that enables them to do that in real-time.”

“Being able to understand reporting [through Epoch] has helped us make better decisions on how we invest in programs from a time and resourcing perspective.”

Ashley Frabasilio

Employee Engagement Manager at Asana

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