The LCBO delivers intuitive, mobile-first employee services with ServiceNow

A changing marketplace, customer convenience, and a commitment to innovation and modernization drive a digitalization agenda

One of the world’s largest buyers and retailers of beverage alcohol, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) was traditionally a brick-and-mortar business that combined distribution with extensive retail operations. Recently, the LCBO has been shifting to a multi-channel business model, moving online and extending distribution to other wholesale partners such as grocers. This is driving a fundamental change in how the LCBO works. IT has been at the forefront of this transformation and is now engaging with other LCBO business functions to drive enterprisewide digitalization. Robert Martire, Manager of Service Management at the LCBO says, “It’s an exciting time to be working here. As we shift to new business models, we’re modernizing the way we do business across every part of our organization.”

As part of this transformation, the LCBO dramatically enhances the way it delivers services to employees

Rather than relying on emails and phone calls, it has adopted online selfservice. This gives LCBO staff instant access to support wherever and whenever they need it. According to Robert, “We want to give our employees a fantastic experience. Putting the services they need at their fingertips is a critical part of making the LCBO a great place to work.” To deliver these services, the LCBO has created LCBO Now—a one-stop shop for employee services. Powered by the Now Platform®, the portal gives employees a consistent, intuitive way of getting the services and support they need. It also has an extensive knowledge base that helps employees help themselves.

Starting with IT, employee self-service at the LCBO has grown to include HR and Finance

Robert explains the LCBO’s journey to employee self-service. “We started with a basic catalog for IT—incidents, changes, and a small number of IT service requests. We then extended the IT services we offered, which got the attention of other departments. Pretty soon, our finance team came onboard, and the momentum started to build. HR is the most recent addition—part of a far-reaching initiative within HR to enhance the user experience, simplify work, and operationalize processes.”

A significant number of employee inquiries are being answered in real-time using ServiceNow

Since adding ServiceNow HR Service Delivery to LCBO Now, the organization has seen significant results. Within a month of going live for its retail and warehouse staff, employees viewed HR articles nearly 14,000 times. By comparison, there were only 2,500 HR cases in the same month—less than 20% of the number of article views—with employees now able to find information for themselves rather than having to open a case. And when an employee does open a case, HR responds with a knowledge base article more than half of the time. As a result, they respond faster and more consistently, and employees know to look in the knowledge base next time.

Widely adopted mobile self-services gives employees access to services when and where they need them

Delivering employee services on mobile devices has also been a huge success. Robert explains, “Mobile access is incredibly important for us. Most of our employees are in stores or warehouses, so they don’t have a desktop or laptop. With Now Mobile, they can securely access services before their shift starts, during lunch breaks, and at home. We saw 600 downloads of the mobile app within the first week of going live, so it is a real winner.” For the HR operations team, visibility has been another big benefit. According to Robert, “They now feel more in control. All the cases are tracked and because we have day-to-day operational dashboards, everyone can see the best place to focus their efforts.”

The LCBO continues to enhance the employee experience and leverages the Now Platform for further modernization both within and beyond IT

The LCBO’s transformation continues. According to Robert, “We’re not standing still—we’re focused on continuous improvement. With HR, for example, that means integrating ServiceNow with Workday, our HRIS system. We’re also planning on replacing some of our homegrown apps with ServiceNow. Our IT team is also continuing to modernize—service mapping is one good example.” Robert concludes, “That’s the power of ServiceNow. It isn’t just a point solution for HR or IT—although it’s a great solution for both. It’s an intuitive, efficient service management platform that grows to support your entire business.”

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