Do other people in your organisation appreciate what you do?

Do they know what you do?

Reuse can be a great way to demonstrate the value of your departmental impact.

Telling the stories of benefits of reuse is an incredible vehicle for organisations, allowing you to demonstrate the effectiveness of your department, what you do for the estate, and to boost participation.

In this article, we will be looking at how and why you should look at  storytelling within your organisation.

Why should you tell your story?

1. Reuse allows you to stop skipping reusable assets.

When you throw items in the skip, you lose money, and you risk reputational damage if people witness this resource inefficiency. For the waste department, being able to visually demonstrate that waste reduction is taking place, and that policies and technologies are being supported to further this is a great type of storytelling that builds trust and reputation.

For Facilities Management, telling the story of how your facility is now better run is the most direct way of showing how effective the team is. A reuse project that reduces skip use is a huge victory for FM.

2. Reuse takes less time

Beyond the initial setup of Warp It, which may take a few days and a bit of training, the actual system will bring you considerable time savings. This is beneficial for every single department involved in reuse, which means Waste, Sustainability, FM, Estates and Procurement can all benefit from sharing the time savings data. If a department is working hard to use their time better, it builds better relationships within and especially with senior management.

For Procurement, getting involved in reuse means reducing the number of new assets that your colleagues are purchasing. Those items that are being diverted from the skip and around the organisation are going to make your job easier and save you time.

Example: The university of St Andrews has saved over £210,000 on our platform, and in doing so, have saved more than 9,000 minutes collectively. This equates to more than 150 staff hours.

3. Reuse can reduce injuries, because you are not smashing assets up (yes this still happens)

Sadly, it still happens in some large organisations, that instead of trying to reuse surplus assets, they are smashing them up to maximise skip space. As a result, people get injured. In a better world, these assets get sent to their new homes, nothing is destroyed, and nobody gets hurt. Your business can take advantage of this improved H&S process to tell part of the story of reuse.

4. Reuse will reduce your waste bills

Especially for the FM, Waste & Sustainability departments, being able to reduce waste charges and divert that budget into better practice is going to be something that people will be interested to read about. If you can save £10,000 per year on waste management fees, that money can go towards hiring a new team member, expanding the reuse project, or helping to develop some other initiatives. Tell the story of how you used reuse to save the organisation money and it will be reputational benefits not only to your department, but to the whole organisation and its stakeholders.

5. Reuse takes pressure off storage.

With Warp It, you can move items from A (current owner), straight to B (new owner), thanks to our wishlist feature, communication tools and easy-to-use platform. We know that a reuse project without storage seems like an improbable task, but it’s not, some of our best savers are performing admirably without a store. For estates, being able to prove the reuse project without a store may actually be the key you need to be given a store.

Storage can be slow, expensive and a hassle. It’s beneficial if instant matches are not made, of course, but in the long run, having to move items to storage, with no idea how long they will be there, puts pressure on those managing storage, whether it’s FM or Estates. Tell the story of how your system operates without storage, and your organisation will see how proactive and innovative you are. Being able to demonstrate your effectiveness may improve job security and investment in the department.

Now we know why you should tell the story of your department’s reuse efforts, let’s talk about how.

A newsletter

We’ve compiled a free full guide on how to make a newsletter, as this is one of the best communication tools you can use for spreading your message and telling your story. For Waste, you can show resource efficiency, for Sustainability, you can appeal for more adoption of sustainable practices, for FM, you can improve the image of your department and the facility, for Estates, you can show people how everything runs and why reuse has helped you, and finally for Procurement, you can use the newsletter to prove the value of reuse and secondhand items to your colleagues. This download will help you with a strategy.

Staff spotlight article

Take the best users of your Warp It program and sit them down individually for an interview. By demonstrating how the best users are applying the system to their role, they will subconsciously give off tips and encouragement to their colleagues. Additionally, these people are usually early adopters and innovators, which will encourage late adopters and laggards to start getting involved. Read our guide to a staff spotlight article here.

Flat screen TVs

Telling the story of reuse on the screens around your organisation is a bold and assertive way of showing that the project is working and that people should be participating. Visual storytelling is important and these reminders around the estate will show people that the various departments working with reuse are having a great impact. We put together a guide on how to use flat screens, with an excellent free download too.

Conclusion

The benefits of telling your story:

• Much greater personal impact
• Help others save time and money
• Help to make your sector thrive
• Respect and recognition from your peers and colleagues
• Further your career
• Build networks with others to improve collaboration

Letting your colleagues know how well reuse is going is a great way to get their support and interest. Download this free template.