TechBBQ stopped answering the same policy questions twice

Q: Tell us a bit about you and what TechBBQ does?

“TechBBQ is a non-profit association that can be categorized as an event management company, and we arrange the largest tech event in the Nordics once a year. This event was originally designed to provide a platform for startups, founders, entrepreneurs and investors to meet each other.

Now we have a lot more stakeholders involved, both nationally and internationally. We have organizations and audiences attending from all over the world – all the way from the US, the UK, India and Japan. Most of the countries are from Europe as well. We’ve been growing since 2013 and this year we’re moving the event to Bella Center Copenhagen where we are expecting to have around 9000 attendees over the two days at our event.”

Q: What was the challenge that made you start looking for new learning software?

“Basically, we’re not using it for learning in the sense of ‘learning and development.’ We’re mostly providing information to our employees and hopefully to interns, and volunteers in the future as well.

My idea was to put all the information that is relevant to employees, for example, all the policies that we have in HR, in finance, all the processes we have, in one place. And, put it in an accessible and comprehensive tool where they have access to it. We currently have all our policies and procedures in Google Drives, and it can be quite confusing. There’s a lot of information and it’s kind of scattered around. So, I wanted to have one platform and one place where we could have all the information and so that employees knew where to find the information.”

Q: Tell us a little bit more about you: Who are you and what is your role?

“My name is Sadia Beg and I am the Head of Operations at TechBBQ. My role is basically to make sure that all the organizational activities are in line with the overall organizational strategy. I am striving towards translating the strategy into processes and procedures that employees can follow so that we can reach our organizational goal at the end of the day.”

Q: How did you discover uQualio?

“Well, that’s an interesting story, because Christian has worked with my husband and I knew Christian through a previous interaction. When I was in Pakistan, I had my own consultancy, and I was actually directly working with learning and development as a leadership coach. Christian offered me a uQualio platform at that time as well. But because I was not working with many clients, I didn’t really need the platform.

But then I moved back to Denmark and then he reached out to me again and then in that context I felt it was more relevant.

That’s one thing and the other thing is also because TechBBQ is an association, so it’s not a corporation in the same sense of commercial business. This means that we do have limited resources, and our budgets are not unlimited. Christian offered me a very, very good deal because uQualio has a special pricing for non-profits that I couldn’t say no to, basically. And I thought that “yes, I would really like to make it work.”

Q: How are you using the uQualio platform?

“What’s happening currently is that I have made different channels which are basically
allocated to the different departments that we have. So, my idea is to let each department have their processes in their own channels.

Currently I am making the content and uploading it to my channel which is called the “operations policies.” I am waiting until after the event to push the others because our teams have been extremely busy for the past 2-3 months, so I didn’t want to pressurize or push it through. I’m just waiting for the event to end successfully so that we afterward can encourage the rest of the team to use the platform as well.”

Q: What problem is it that you’re hoping to solve specifically with uQualio?

“I don’t feel that it’s a good idea that our information (some of it is confidential) is lying around on Google Drive. I don’t feel comfortable with that plus it’s not efficient. And we also wanted to professionalize how we’re seeking information – to make it automatic and professionalize it.”

Q: What results have you gotten from using uQualio so far?

“I can only speak for myself because I know other people haven’t tried it yet. I have managed to upload quite a significant number of processes in the channel. And it’s easier for me, if anyone for example asks, “what the travel policy is”, then I don’t have to sit and tell them. I’ll just send the link. Then I can say to them “please, go ahead and have a look and if you have any questions then get back to me”. In that way it is less time-consuming, easier, more manageable, and comprehensive.”

Q: What have you experienced in uQualio that you like the most?

“What makes me happy is to have everything stored in one place. It’s in uQualio and we don’t have anything flying around on our Google drive. That’s the success criteria for me. I know it’s a long-term project and that it will take some time, but once everything is on the platform (for example; HR onboardings and offboarding), then we will be able to automate a lot more.”

Q: When you think about the return on your investment (ROI) with uQualio, what have been the most significant results for TechBBQ so far?

“The best ROI is definitely the saved time resources. I’m looking forward to using the platform not only for myself but also for the whole team to allow more time to do things that are important, rather than using time on recurrent and repetitive questions. So, I think it will help us a lot to maximize efficiency. It will free up a lot of time for us once we have everything in uQualio.”

Q: Have you received any kind of feedback about what you’ve been using uQualio for internally?

“I haven’t had the time to push it really through yet. I’m now doing ‘backstage work’ in uQualio. But, for example, our Chief Operations Officer, I showed him the platform and shared my version, and he was very excited about it. He said it’s a platform that he’s wanted to create for a very long time, but we couldn’t find the right platform with the right pricing before. And then also the Head of HR, she was also very keen to start using it for onboardings and offboarding. For now, I have created a smooth process for myself of making the videos, uploading them, attaching the documents, and then pushing it through.”

Q: How do you think you’ll be using uQualio in the future? And what are you hoping to be the end result?

“I’m hoping to have all repetitive tasks and everything that is recurrent put into uQualio, instead of us using our own time, especially with the big yearly event coming up.

So during the events, we have approx. 250 volunteers. It would be great to use uQualio during the days of event for communication between volunteers and team, instead of doing things manually. The goal is to automate things so that it also becomes easier during the event days to divide tasks or send messages to each other.”

Q: If you were to recommend uQualio to somebody who is looking for a platform, what would you say to them?

“I would say to them that it’s a very useful platform. It’s a good place to have all your learning tools, whether it’s related to development or it’s related to information sharing.

Whatever you want to use it for, uQualio is a manageable and comprehensive place to have all your information and knowledge in one place which saves time and maximizes efficiency!”

Q: If you could give any advice to anyone who is looking to potentially switch to a video learning platform, what would you say to them?

“I would say be patient because initially it takes time to get to learn and get to know the platform. It takes time and practice to make the videos. It’s not easy and it’s not for everyone. But once you have the practice, once you have tried it a couple of times, it saves a lot of time for you afterwards. So yes, patience is the key!”