Building Sustainability
into your Business

In charge of the Shift by Rakuten project

Leads and experts

01

Responsive content

Enhanced UX. Quality content feed. Ensuring adoption & positive culture change amongst employees.

02

Smart & beautiful design

Interactive features. Quality UI design Creating sticky content & making employees come back for more.

03

Greater accessibility

A Progressive Web App (PWA) to ensure employees’ access remotely and on-the-go.

Deliver interactive and timely content. Empower staff to make more sustainable decisions.

01

– Making a positive culture change with responsive content

Rakuten EMEA formed a partnership with a prestigious global newspaper publisher, enabling them to share the latest developments impacting the environment.
Adding fresh, timely content from a credible source every week is an astute way of keeping the Shift app relevant and valuable.
However, to achieve this habit and make a significant culture change towards a more sustainable future, Rakuten DX made sure the online published articles are accessible, easy to read and responsive.
Within a few swipes, Rakuten Europe employees can read the latest news on sustainability and get valuable tips and tricks to live and work in an eco-friendlier way.

02

– Smart interactive elements and beautiful design

Another feature Rakuten DX incorporated into the Shift app is the ability to set-up weekly quizzes and other interactivities.
Rakuten EMEA can use the quizzes to reinforce company values, initiatives and knowledge of sustainability by asking a series of questions. It’s an innovative way of encouraging employees to keep using the app.
To ensure the interactive features resonated and captured the forward-thinking nature of the app, our team of developers paid close attention to the UI and UX design. The tab system at the top and bottom of the screen also makes it easy for employees to navigate their way around the Shift app and find the features they want to see quickly.

03

– Adding greater accessibility to strengthen the sustainability message

The steps towards creating a sustainable and optimistic tomorrow shouldn’t stop as soon as an employee clock-offs at the end of the day. Similarly, the message should be heard loud and clear even if employees find themselves working remotely.
The key to solving this challenge was to make the sustainability content accessible at any time and on any device to Rakuten EMEA employees. After running a Design Thinking workshop with the Rakuten EMEA brand and sustainability team, completing the story mapping stage and building the architecture of the app, our team of developers used their vast experience to transform the platform into a progressive web application (PWA).
In doing this, the app content is now responsive on all formats, including mobile, desktop or tablets. This makes the Shift app accessible and useful wherever employees are – which is imperative when people are working from home, on-the-go, or off work.

Outcomes: the start of a more sustainable workplace

Since launching the Shift app in November 2020, it’s been widely embraced by employees at Rakuten EMEA.

To continue the expansion and usage of the initiative, several marketing assets have been created – including email signatures and video content. There are plans to add more relevant features and responsive content to further improve the understanding of sustainability within the company and what the Rakuten network, as a whole, is doing to achieve it.