Change Management To Drive Google Workspace Adoption Across Booking.com

Founded in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com has grown from a small Dutch start-up to one of the world’s leading digital travel companies. Their mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

The Challenge

By July 2020, the Booking.com Trips Division in the UK had grown substantially and although they were on Google Workspace at the time, many employees still used Office 365. Booking.com wanted the UK division to fully migrate across to Google Workspace as a unified and collaborative way of working across the business.

The Solution

Change Management to go all-in with Google

It started with a change management kickoff, including an initial review and deployment planning workshop to set expectations and establish everyone’s roles within the project. CTS spent time with key stakeholders across the business to gain a better understanding of the business, helping to shape the change management plan.

Aaron Pottock, IT Services & Operations Senior Manager at Booking.com commented, “CTS came with a very organised approach to our problem and a deep consideration for employee experience, which is just what we wanted.”

Following the kick-off, CTS designed a change management plan for Booking.com consisting of Readiness Reporting, E-Learning, and Early Adopters to drive Google Workspace Adoption.

Readiness reporting was rolled out in the form of surveys, giving employees the chance to voice any concerns, and gauge their readiness for the move – over 90% of employees stated they were ready to go “All in with Google”.

The E-Learning initiative was developed in collaboration with Booking.com, and was a compulsory training path that employees could complete at their own pace. The training was designed to ensure employees understood all Google Workspace features and the value of working more collaboratively.

70 internal early adopters were nominated to be “Google Guides” and were enrolled in almost every area of the business. These individuals were highly skilled in Google Workspace, and on hand to support when going live.

Some early adopters also volunteered as part of a trial. “They had so many questions from users and people raising tickets. From our perspective, this is exactly what early adoption is all about,” explained Cesca Ashcroft, Senior Change Manager at CTS.

Four weeks later, it was showtime

The morning of the global go live, the CTS team was prepped and ready to accommodate any issues that may arise, but they were met with a reassuring silence. “Apart from a couple of questions from users wanting to know about features that hadn’t been covered in the training yet, nobody needed any assistance,” recalled Cesca. “It was as seamless as intended, with no disruption on day one.”

Reflecting on the project Aaron explains “The migration to Google Workspace has been a success and our colleagues are now collaborating and working closer together than before. CTS did a good job and we have plans to work together in the near future on another project.’