Young Devon is a busy, dynamic charity, serving young people across the county with vital support services. The organisation undergoes regular change and depends on flexible supplier partnerships. Agile Comms are proud to support the communications technology services for the charity, including a cloud unified communications solution, mobile phone services and internet connectivity across the distributed workforce.
Having been established in 1949, Young Devon has grown and evolved and now supports over 3,500 young people a year. The charity provides a wide range of services including skills development, wellbeing support and accommodation services to those most in need across Devon. There are now over 180 staff employed and a team of amazing volunteers, working from 25 sites and remotely across the county.
The nature of the work demands an organisation that can quickly scale up and down depending on the need and Young Devon, like most organisations, is increasingly dependent on technology and communications. When discussions began, the organisation had a working communications infrastructure in each location and no significant fires to fight, but the longer-term aim of the board at Young Devon was to streamline providers and look for a more flexible service.
Each site had its own phone system and internet connection services, with various long-term contract end dates. Whilst it worked, and is indeed quite typical of an organisation who has a distributed workforce and has grown quickly, there were a few operational and commercial issues to tackle.
Young Devon has worked closely with Agile Comms to create a flexible and long-term communications strategy which we progress, onboarding one site at a time with fast fibre broadband and a cloud unified communications solution.
The CallSwitch unified communications solution offers a robust and versatile way for calls to and from the charity to be handled professionally and centrally. As sites are added to the system, staff can enjoy visibility of colleagues across the organisation, either from their office or on the go using desktop and mobile apps.
The mobile app offers an option for staff to keep their professional communications available remotely, ensuring calls route through the central system on the landline numbers and calls are recorded. With no long-term contract end dates, the solution offers accountability and flexibility as the charity continues to change and evolve.
Similarly, the mobile phone services provided by Agile are designed to be flexible, using short contracts to ensure staff can be connected, disconnected and changed as required.
The central operations and finance team at Young Devon enjoy the simple but comprehensive Agile online portal, where they can manage billing, support and administration.
Andy Moreman, Chief Exec’ at Young Devon said:
Working with Agile was an obvious choice, no-one else we spoke to was able to show us the kind of flexibility that matched our business needs. As a charity often developing new work or stopping short term projects we simply can’t get caught in long term, inflexible contracts.
Agile quickly understood not just our business needs but also our organisational values and gave our staff the support they needed to make new systems work. We’re hugely grateful for the work they do and the way they approach it.
To learn more about the amazing work of Young Devon, click here
If we can help with your business communications, through flexible, robust and simple technology, please do get in touch!