Baxter Credit Union (BCU), with 300,000 members in 60 branches across the United States and in Puerto Rico, has grown from a single credit union serving the employees of Baxter Healthcare to becoming among the top 100 credit unions in the United States. Most recently, BCU was named the credit union experiencing the fastest growth in the past 35 years.
BCU’s swift growth is supported in part by its marketing department. Erin Macasek the Director of Integrated Marketing was charged with managing the increase in scope and size of the marketing team’s workload. She soon realized the need to move from self-management of projects to a project management software solution, choosing Workzone.
Sarah Johnson, who had been with BCU for nearly two decades, joined the team as Marketing Project Specialist just as Workzone was being implemented. Having her as the point person was key as the team achieved success far beyond previous capacity.
With the introduction of Workzone in the organization and the efficiencies it brings, BCU’s marketing team maximized their productivity, increasing their capacity for projects year over year.
“Having more than doubled the size of our department over nine years, and with that, the scope of the projects, the complexities of the projects, and the amount of deliverables, there’s absolutely no way we could ever manage without Workzone.”
– Erin Macasek, Director of Integrated Marketing
Using Workzone, BCU’s marketing department successfully went from completing 505 projects per year to 834 projects in 2019 — a 65% increase in productivity. Not only has Workzone made this expansion of service achievable, it is the consistent use of Workzone that provides the data to measure these victories.
The Challenge
Before Workzone, BCU’s marketing team was relying on an Excel spreadsheet as a master document to track project statuses and due dates. Marketing would receive requests for project updates via email, phone calls, and drop-in visits. This method led to hampered productivity, lack of transparency on project statuses, and, as the workload of this small team of six people grew, it became increasingly ineffective and inefficient.
Adding to the drag on productivity was their reliance on a hard copy system for proofing, complete with a blue cover sheet stapled to each item where team members could handwrite comments and sign off on their review. It worked until hard copies were misplaced, leading to a delay in productivity.
“I can’t tell you how many times we would forget who we gave it to, who had it last, and we’d be running around trying to find it.” – Erin Macasek
In 2014, all creative services were brought in-house and with the steady growth of BCU the team’s workload hit a tipping point. They began the search for a project management solution.
“We had no concept of how many projects we were working on. It was just kind of going by the day. We were just moving.” – Erin Macasek
The Solution
The marketing team at BCU knew they needed project management software that would allow them to track and move their work forward while also providing a record of data to help assess their staffing decisions. Enter Workzone.
Workzone gives the BCU marketing team reporting to show senior management how they are supporting BCU’s business goals and the tools they need to manage their projects, including:
- Time Tracking – not just tracking time, but showing how long a project might take to complete.
- Project Templates – decreasing time spent on creating recurring projects
- Request Portal – allowing the team to accept new requests, organize and prioritize projects
- Notifications – offering time-saving email reminders when a project needs attention
- User Settings – allowing easy management of permissions and settings amongst different users
- Search Tool – providing ease in finding archived projects
A focus on onboarding and team-wide adoption with Workzone
The initial challenge of buy-in to use Workzone stemmed from the introduction of new processes, not only for the marketing team but for all internal teams initiating the requests. Adoption was ultimately achieved thanks to these six practices:
- Make Workzone’s customization work for them
Workzone’s success and support team worked with the marketing team to set up and customize the tool to the needs of the business. “Super fast response times.” – Sarah Johnson, marketing team member
- Take the initiative with onboarding
The marketing team ran training sessions for users, creating relevant guides to help them along the way. “I created a pdf user guide with screenshots and step by step directions to make it easy.” – Sarah Johnson
- Workzone is step one of the creative process
The marketing team held firm on using Workzone to request new projects.”People were motivated because they knew we would only review the final details of a request with them in Workzone.” – Erin Macasek
- Practice, practice, practice.
They promoted regular use of Workzone. “It does become second nature once you’re working in Workzone a lot, so we would share that and how less stressful the process is after you take the leap.” – Erin Macasek
- Ingrain Workzone in the company’s culture
The leaders became strong advocates of using Workzone. “We even talk about it in the interview process.” – Erin Macasek
- Assign the role of Workzone expert in each team
They trained power users. “One thing that other organizations should consider is having a “Workzone expert” on each team so that requests could filter through them. We’ve found it’s more efficient and effective that way.” – Erin Macasek
Workzone has become an invaluable tool. The team can’t imagine working without it. When asked how she would respond if the executive team decided to switch to another tool, Sarah Johnson, who manages Workzone for the marketing team replied, “I would probably start crying.”
“I think our turning point came at the one year mark when the data from using Workzone allowed us to show year over year improvements and shifts in our priorities to support the business goals. Because of Workzone and the visibility it provides, we really took off. Our team is able to complete so many more projects and demonstrate value far more than we could have before having Workzone in place.”
– Erin Macasek, Director of Integrated Marketing
Outcomes
The successful adoption of Workzone supports BCU’s continued growth.
Reduced redundancies
Requestors have the ability to duplicate requests. So, if they are routinely requesting similar projects or deliverables, they don’t have to rebuild an entire request.
Streamlining Partner Projects
The marketing team often produces campaigns and products co-branded with BCU and their partner organizations. Workzone enables the marketing team to handle the complexity of these projects without sacrificing oversight of their work as a whole.
Improved project estimates and time management
Once they captured enough data to better predict project hours, the team introduced capacity modeling. When requests come in, they can easily see who has the capacity to fulfill the request, based on current project allocations and estimated hours for the request.
“We were finding that projects weren’t created equal, and we wanted to find a way to be able to differentiate between them and better understand why, and is our time being used wisely. So that’s where the time tracking really came into play.”
– Erin Macasek
Departmental growth and increased productivity
Thanks to Workzone’s tracking and reporting, the marketing team had the data they needed to justify hiring additional staff. Workzone’s versioning control allows the marketing team to keep track of project changes and ensure compliance standards are met.
“Using Workzone has helped us triple our resources on the creative side. And I love the versioning tool, going back two or three revisions to see the progress of a piece.”
– Erin Macasek
Greater transparency and communication
Thanks to Workzone, the marketing team can share with the BCU Branches, for example, that 30% of the team’s time is being spent on projects.
“Some people have misconceptions about marketing, that everyone’s doing the same thing. It’s nice to show that within a design role they’re not sitting heads down designing all day. They’re part of strategizing and brainstorming and even some administrative time in meetings to understand the strategy and the direction. I think it serves a purpose even beyond productivity. It helps provide transparency around the complexity of our roles.”
– Erin Macasek
Takeaways
Since the successful adoption of Workzone, BCU was able to triple their creative team resources, take on more complex projects, and increase overall productivity by 65%.
With the streamlined request process, the wealth of data captured, and increased transparency, they became more efficient and effective, while also strengthening the working relationships with their stakeholders.
“We had no real means of demonstrating our value. With Workzone, we have hard data to show that we’re not a cost center, we are part of the strategic mission. Workzone has changed the game for marketing here at BCU.”
– Erin Macasek, Director of Integrated Marketing
Is your team looking for a way to increase productivity and efficiency? Do you need a means of justifying growing your team to meet your goals? Workzone is here to help you collect the data, implement the processes, and create the efficiencies necessary for growing your business.
