Where’d the Water Cooler Go?

IHCC engaged Pathify in the Fall of 2020 after hearing success stories from a number of CIOs on a popular IT listserv. This was followed by a formal recommendation from the CIO of Northern Iowa Community College, an early adopter of Pathify who played a strong role on the company’s Product Advisory Group.

Although a social media-like experience was not originally part of the project scope, the ability to create a virtual community between employees across campus — in addition to students — intrigued Myers during the search process.

“Pathify had a social media feel that people are used to,” Myers said. “It gives you everything you need to know by scrolling through the feed like many of the other apps we’ve become accustomed to.”

Search functionality also became a key feature for IHCC for a variety of reasons. Given the institution’s history with emailing PDFs back-and-forth, Myers instantly saw the potential benefit of storing every document in a single, easily searchable and secure location.

When Myers compared Pathify search capabilities to other student portals and mobile apps in-market, it quickly became clear this was a major differentiator.

“You can search for almost anything if you have an idea what the post is about,” Myers said of the search functionality included in the Engagement Hub. “I search for everything and that’s probably the best thing about Pathify. You don’t have to know the document’s name.”

Like schools across the world in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, IHCC had adopted several point solutions to facilitate remote learning rapidly. Myers admitted technology burnout factored in her team needing a strategy to slowly implement Pathify for both staff and students in order to maximize buy-in.

Indian Hills launched the Engagement Hub for employees in Summer of 2021. This allowed Myers and her team the opportunity to troubleshoot any processes and ensure it worked smoothly by the time faculty came back to campus. By the time Fall Semester began, Myers’s team aligned on messaging around the importance of the Engagement Hub, and how life would be considerably easier if employees centralized communication and document management moving forward.

“Our staff responded better than I anticipated because people didn’t have an option to say they can’t find what they’re looking for,” Myers said. “They had a search bar that works and takes you to everything and that really sold people on it.”

In the initial rollout over 80% of IHCC staff adopted Pathify for communication — appreciating a sudden drop in emails. Rather than waking up to an inundated inbox, employees gained the ability to easily digest information when they wanted it — easily finding important documents.

As an added benefit, the virtual water cooler talk Indian Hills employees sought became a reality. Pathify provides a digital point of connection to build camaraderie — driving employee engagement past pre-pandemic levels.