Firm addresses globalization with 'cubeless' culture

By Sarah McAdams

Sabre Holdings improves culture, collaboration and engagement with 'Facebook on steroids'

Over the past three years, Sabre Holdings expanded its non-U.S. employee base from 15 percent to 55 percent.

Meanwhile, the travel distribution provider (which own such brands as Travelocity), was "rapidly expanding the use of flex and hotel cubes, as well as telecommuting," says Al Comeaux, senior vice president, corporate communications. "Our 2006 company survey of employees also highlighted their interest in being more 'connected' to each other."

Sabre realized the company needed new ways for employees to exchange ideas and information and stay in touch as it was globalizing.

A profile page on Sabre Town helps employees get to know each other better.

"When I was visiting our Bangalore office, I learned that project teams spread out around the world were creating their own employee profile sheets for each member of team, so they could know the basics like: Is Pat a man or woman?, as well as team members' interests," Comeaux says. "It hit me that we needed to find a way on our intranet for more interaction like this."

So he worked with IT to make it possible to add basic personal information to the intranet (such as photos, job responsibilities, skill set and even personal information like favorite travel destination).

"We were 80 percent done with this intranet enhancement when I mentioned in the CEO's staff meeting that it will be important for the company's senior leadership to post their information on the new intranet once it's ready," he recalls.

One of the executives at the meeting suggested they combine the project with a special social networking tool being developed in the Sabre Studios innovation lab.

"It was like a 'you got your chocolate in my peanut butter' moment, really, because we realized that by bringing our projects together, we could do so much more than just provide static information about employees—we could create a whole community," he says.

The outcome was what he dubs "Facebook on steroids," a corporate firewall-protected online community tool called cubeless, launched in August 2007, about eight weeks after that CEO staff meeting.

As Comeaux chatted about his company's new tool—which they named SabreTown—at communication industry conferences, many fellow communicators sought him out to ask to see the tool.

"This really told us that cubeless could serve a need at many companies in addition to ours, and we decided to offer it externally to other businesses," he says.

A 9,000-person water cooler

Comeaux—who calls himself "the last person interested in online social networking" became a big believer in the power of social media in the workplace once he saw how it could connect the company's 9,000 employees in 59 countries.

"I think of it as the hallway or the water cooler effect that we lost when we got so spread out as a company, he says. "It's bringing us back together that way."

Because SabreTown is fun and easy to use—and the rules surrounding it are minimal—it has received wide adoption and heavy usage within the company. Within three months of the launch, 65 percent of employees were using it.

"It's so simple, helpful and a place that's unencumbered by the heavy hand of the company, so people want to go to cubeless; it's not a 'have to' at all," Comeaux says.

In addition to creating a stronger company culture and engaging employees, SabreTown has been invaluable in helping users find the answers and resources they need quickly, Comeaux says, explaining that in the past, it took a much longer time to "hit the jackpot."

"Consider this statistic from IDC: Up to 30 percent of an average knowledge worker's time is spent searching for information at a cost per employee of $18,000 per year," he says. "Anything that a company can do to reduce this amount would help."

Community tools like cubeless also provide a great opportunity for employees to further get to know their organization's leaders, Comeaux adds.

"For example, our CEO Sam Gilliland has been swimming for years, even competitively at times," he says. "He has been answering questions about swimming for employees and has taken it past a simple courtesy answer to really trying to be a good resource for co-workers looking for tips."

Read more about how cubeless helps employees.

The technology

Sixty percent of questions get answered within an hour.

Cubeless includes a proprietary relevance engine (the "steroids") that is constantly learning about the knowledge and expertise of each community member with each word they type into their profile, each question they ask, each answer they give and what they say in their blog.

"It's constantly getting to know you better so it can make the questions sent your way as relevant as possible," Comeaux says, adding that the tool proactively routes questions to the 15 or so people in the company who are most likely to have the answer.

The result is that 60 percent of all questions are answered within one hour, 90 percent within 24 hours.

Cubeless also includes business functionality such as:

Al Comeaux, senior vice president of corporate communications at Sabre Holdings, offers these tips for making a corporate social network succeed.

1. Make it simple and compelling. 'The tool has to be engaging and a fun, easy-to-use experience," he says. "They simply must want to go to this destination, not be forced to."
2. Let it be. After setting expectations and a few standards, let employees define how the community develops and is utilized. "Giving up some control ensures that over-management of the community doesn't dampen excitement about the community," he says.
3. Don't worry about minding manners. "Although it's easy to worry about whether people will act appropriately, we've learned that employees act professionally because postings include their name, and peers are watching," Comeaux says. "It's become like any other community, with its own social mores, and people passionate about the community don't let it get out of hand."
4. Encourage sharing. Colleagues are just as willing to give as to receive. "Information sharing is a two-way street in reality, and that's a great asset to the organization," he says. "The community unlocks the great intellectual capital that is lying around your company waiting to be used."
5. Lead by example. Employee engagement often accelerates when the senior-most executives in a company join in. "Workers figure if the bigwigs aren't participating, then why should they?" Comeaux says.
6. Seed and it will grow. Grassroots and word-of-mouth activities spread the word best about the community's uses and benefits. Sabre even has a SabreTown Council where members most passionate about the community give feedback on what else they need from the tool and share this with developers.
7. Welcome personal conversations. "The more employees are connected with each other, the happier they are," Comeaux says. "And the happier they are, the better workers they are."